There's A Story Behind Every Town

A few days at Keyhole State Park and we were off, on our way to a small town just east of the Bighorn Mountains…Story, Wyoming. Some friends of ours from PA moved to this town of 600 people a month or so ago and are settling into the scene seamlessly and comfortably. It didn’t take long to get there and by most other people’s driving standards we probably should have actually gotten there a week ago. But why rush? Especially when there’s so much that is easy to miss in between.
One of the reasons I think this country is great is just when you think you’ve possibly gone through the most barren areas of the U.S. your next drive is even more desolate than the one before. Although we have done fairly extensive traveling throughout the U.S. I had almost forgotten that there is still a lot of wide open space out there that hasn’t been built up with cookie cutter developments and strips malls offering the same things that are offered at the strip mall across the street. And that it doesn’t have to take you half an hour to drive eight miles. But there’s also the other side of things, the fact that in areas this spread out and open, well, you have to drive to get just about everywhere. For me, I think I’m aiming for the happy medium. I’m not exactly sure what I mean by that except that I really like the idea of getting everything you need in the town that you reside and not be forced into going to the SprawlMart stores off the exit ramp on the highway. To have conveniences that are accessible in a downtown area (grocery store, market, place to see music, etc.) but still be able to get to the next town over without too much hassle and without battling bouts of road rage. If anyone knows the town I’m referencing, please let me know because I’m not really sure where it is myself!

Anyway, back to Story. So we pulled into town just in time for the start of Story Days, a community celebration of town pride. There were plans for festivities all weekend including a dutch oven cookoff, a parade, food and craft stands, and live music. A pretty good scene for a town of 600. Well we missed the cookoff on Friday night though judging by the responses from the crowd the prepared foods were pretty impressive. There were lots of comments along the lines of “there’s no way the (insert food) was made in a dutch oven. I don’t believe it.” If that’s not a testament to the quality of the food that was offered, well I don’t know what is. I, myself, have never used a dutch oven but as far as I’ve heard you can cook anything to perfection in them. The atmosphere at the cookoff was real inviting, even for strangers like us. Bluegrass music resonated through the air and laughter was escaping from people everywhere you looked. You could tell this community had something going on.
Although we missed the cookoff on Friday night, we made sure not to miss the parade on Saturday morning with its eclectic representation of antique cars, the 7th calvary drum and bugle corps, cowboys shooting guns and a float created by the Story Women’s Club (which our friend Caroline was a part of).




There was a great mix of designs and organizations and fun was to be had by everyone during the parade. The winner for the best float went to the Story Book Tails (although we were rooting for Caroline, of course) which, I have to say, was a pretty awesome creation.

In addition to this being a big weekend in Story we also had tickets to see The Gourds (Austin, TX good-fun band) at the Babcock Theater in Billings, Montana on Saturday night. So we hit the road during the late afternoon and made our way two hours northwest towards Billings. Apparently the city of Billings doesn’t have the best reputation and, being that crystal meth detox centers lined the street on our way into town, the reasons behind this accusation were clear. But a town is a town is a town and we weren’t there to cast judgement or develop a concrete opinion of the area. We were there to see The Gourds!!






And being that we only ever saw them in PA, well, it was neat to see what a Montanian crowd was like (for the record, there were a bunch more hippies here than the PA shows we saw, but I could have expected as much). Overall well worth the two hour drive there, as well as the two hour drive home after the show (although I didn’t drive so I was able to catch a few zzzz’s in the back seat) and, as always, we look forward to seeing them the next time they’re playing a gig near us, wherever we may be.