Blog post and photos by Pete Jackson

My wife always gives me a hard time about my dream to move to Montana. There was a point in time when she rightly argued, “You’ve never been to Montana, so how could you possibly want to live there? “ Well darling, I’ve been here, and we’re moving.

We’ve been in Montana for a day and I was worried that I wouldn’t actually be able to see much of it due to our hectic driving schedule. Unfortunately, when we drove into the state it was the middle of the night so we couldn’t see anything. It was pitch black with no signs of life for miles. Occasionally you could sense that you were surrounded by magnificence but there was no way to be sure.

And then we got pulled over. It’s funny, you can drive for hundreds of miles in Montana without seeing signs of civilization, but small towns will pop out of nowhere and the speed limit will drop down to 35mph in an instant. Joe was driving and I was in the passenger seat with my laptop, 3 hard drives, 2 cameras mounted on the dash (not rolling, of course), and a DC converter that was powering it all (and was hooked up to the car battery via a makeshift wiring system). We looked like we were from Back to the Future. When the officer asked us why we were speeding, Joe responded sincerely, honestly. When he asked what we were doing we spoke frankly about our adventure and our travels. There were no excuses - we missed the speed change, it was late, and we were in between tour cities.

Our honesty was rewarded with a warning, and a “good luck” from one of the most unlikely of sources. “Good luck” from an officer of the law who had never met us before, but who actually seemed supportive of our cause. We continued on to our hotel and made friends with the employees who were also supportive. They allowed us to shoot part of our skit in their lobby and even granted us a very late checkout due to our production schedule.

So we left Montana this afternoon and drove through what I would argue is some of the most beautiful countryside we’ve seen up to this point. We stopped on the side of the highway to get pictures of the landscape and it wasn’t more than a few minutes before some passersby stopped to make sure we were all right. Not only is Montana as beautiful a place as I imagined, it’s also populated with good human beings.

So, today I attached the “Get Lost in Montana” bumper sticker to the CoB mobile and put a down payment on 150 acres in the Lewis and Clark national forest. 

Honey, pack your bags.

 -- Pete