This weekend we camped at McGregor Lake and Middle Thompson Lake.  McGregor seemed promising at first.  The lake was gorgeous with see-through water and, initially, the camp ranger gave off all appearances of being somewhat normal.  We quickly learned that first impressions can be very misleading.  However, before the ranger turned into Kathy Bates from Misery we had a fine time fishing the lake and Roy, the Southerner’s brother, caught us a bucket of crawfish with his bare hands.  Roy has a talent for catching wildlife this way.  I couldn’t help thinking we came 2,400 miles from New Orleans only to find the biggest crawfish I’ve seen to date in freaking Montana.  Roy boiled them over our campfire and invited some of our camp site neighbors to join us in eating them.

The crawfish were pretty tasty and as we were having fun getting to know our new found friends (who live in Kalispell too!) Kathy Bates showed up to inform us that if any of us were under age and drinking she would have to arrest us under Federal authority and could she please see everyone’s IDs? Whoa? Huh? Como? The woman had spent one too many days in her trailer in the woods or was quite possibly an alcoholic.  Probably both.  One minute she was very pleasant and the next would go into a violent verbal tirade irrationally directed at our new campfire friends (who brought us S’mores! That S’more was the best S’more I’ve had since the one year my mother forced me to join the Girl Scouts). It seems no matter how far we travel we can’t escape the crazies.

In Kathy Bates’ defense, she did show up the next morning and apologize to us for her erratic behavior the night before and offer us a free night’s stay.  During the course of this conversation, the Southerner mentioned that the girl in the tent was “his girlfriend” and the other guy was his brother.  And I shit you not, not two minutes later Kathy goes, “Ok, well then please tell your brother and your sister, was it? that I’m sorry for what happened last night.”  WHAKADOODLEDOO.  We opted not to stay the free night and off I went with my “brothers” to check out Middle Thompson Lake instead.