Got an early start today, since the guy in the room next to mine was deaf. I give him credit for try­ing to live a nor­mal life, to do the things that we all take for granted, such as watch TV. His can-do atti­tude didn’t stop him. Nope — he just turned the TV up loud enough to feel.

I was on the road by 8 a.m. after screw­ing around for quite a while and a bad shower. Took High­way 12 to Mis­soula. If you’ve never been on this road, it’s amaz­ing. It fol­lows a river for a long time — it’s two lanes, and very twisty. I was pretty tired from my early awak­en­ing, so I stopped and took a short nap on a park bench, vastly improv­ing my enjoy­ment of the rest of the day. Found a cou­ple of chick pub­li­ca­tion in one of those national park restrooms. Those are always a hoot to read. Like candy for an athe­ist. Ended up in Helena, MT for the night. Did some­thing like 380 miles today, on a rather long day.

Found a too expen­sive hotel that had inter­net access, then rebuilt my blog. Helena is a pretty nice lit­tle town, at least down­town. I walked down­town from my hotel, and passed four of those pay­day loan places. Sad to see so many in such a nice lit­tle town.