i wonder what the tourists think when they drive through Babb, MT during Babbfest, unsuspecting, looking a place to eat lunch or for the road to Many Glacier. there are maybe 500 people living in Babb in the summer, but during music festival weekend the one road through town is lined with tents and trailers and various oddities. you can distinguish a "fester" from a tourist based on any of the following characteristics: homemade quilted pants, blonde dreadlocks, jaunty hippie dance, PBR in one or both hands, hand-rolled cigarettes, larger-than-normal pupils.
Babbfest '09 was extremely hot, and i spent the greater part of the weekend wading in the lake or playing banjo in the shade of my tent. clear sunny skies, however, were perfect for playing with my NEW CAMERA, and the evenings eventually cooled off enough for hours of ridiculous dancing.
waterton lakes is the canadian side of glacier national park, on the border of Alberta, where the mountains meet the prairie. i drove up there this week with tim and the slovaks (for an "international peace park" they sure gave us a hard time at the border). we had drinks at the Prince of Wales hotel, and tim ate poutine - french fries mixed with cheese curds and covered in gravy. bought some beers and chilled by the shores of waterton lake, then drove back to AMERICA just in time for the 80s Prom Party (swiftcurrent is at the height of stir-crazy, and these things happen).
