The Shiny Rock Industry

The Shiny Rock Industry
Reflections on my Vacation by Chris McCaleb

I have just returned from a 7-day car-camping trip to Montana from Chicago, and have a few thoughts about my journey I'd like to express.

1) Firstly, I am pleased to report that western America's most important industry, the Shiny Rock industry, is doing quite well.

In every gas station we stopped in, at every attraction and at every counter, I noticed quite a selection of Shiny Rocks. Would you care for a well-polished stone with your gas purchase? How about a hematite with your Slurpee? Need an authentic arrowhead to go with that beef jerky? How will you prove to your friends that you've been out west if you don’t bring home an authentic stone polished to an attractive gleam?

Similarly, the Attractively Bundled and Aromatic Sticks, as well as the Acorns With Jiggly Eyes industries are also thriving. The west is BOOMING with opportunity for the entrepreneur equipped with a hardy constitution, an electric rock-polisher and some twine!

This is not to say that fortunes are not made each day in the Shot Glass business, the Small Silver Spoon business, or even the Baseball Caps With Crusty and Sometimes Salty Sayings On Them Industry. Investors might also look into the Animals That We Stuffed markets, as well as Magnets of the States, Humorous T-Shirts, Lacquered Plaque With Some Bit of Fishing Wisdom, Crystalline Fantasy Figurines, Sturgis Motorcycle Paraphernalia, and Shiny Wood Depictions of Chief Seattle markets. For I assure you they are thriving as well.

As we drove through Keystone, South Dakota to get a glimpse of Mt. Rushmore, we were treated to a veritable Turkish Market of all the above items. I will admit to having uttered a sour word or two about all the garishness of it. No matter what attraction you visit in the west, be it the Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, Lake Whitefish, or Big Mountain, purveyors of the cheap and the tacky surround it like starving dogs, begging for your tourist dollar.

2) Montana is known as "Big Sky" country, but I'd like to suggest that we give that moniker to South Dakota instead. I mean, South Dakota - actually, BOTH the Dakotas - really have a LOT more sky than Montana, unfettered as they are with mountains and trees and such. There is just a lot more sky to be seen there, because they're so flat! Montana has more area, yes, but LESS sky, so let's do the fair thing and switch the names.

I'm aware that there is already an actual town in Montana named "Big Sky," and of course there are all those signs and literature already printed up. But never fear - now all that literature is worth quite a bit more than it was before, hearkening as it does back to an age when Montana was known as - Ha ha, can you believe they ever called it that! - the "Big Sky" state instead of both North and South Dakota. As for the town, let that remain as a curiosity, much like the authentic 1888 town (Dances With Wolves filmed here!) and the Cosmic Mystery Spot. Perhaps some vendors will find an opportunity to sell their shiny wares outside the strange "Big Sky" town.

3) Bed and breakfasts. They're odd things, really, especially if you're used to standard hotels. It's like you're in someone's house, but you're not. It's like you're in a cozy little hotel, but the guy at the desk just won’t go away.

Let me say this to all B&B proprietors: don't open your place to guests if you don’t really like people. Because you're going to be having people in and out of your place all the time, dragging their big old bags, and sometimes their screaming kids, with them. You may even consider yourself a good host, but that's still not enough.

Because it's one thing to have people as guests in your home - it's ANOTHER thing to have them pay to be there. People who are paying to stay in your house are not really guests any more, are they? They've really become more of a customer than a guest. And customers are liable to not be so interested in all your little rules and regulations, like which part of the house is "theirs," and when the TV can be on, and please use coasters, and rearrange the little doilies if you muss them, after they've paid a lot of money to be there.

I direct this to the proprietor of the "Applewood Inn" or whatever it was called where we stayed on our honeymoon in Williamsburg, and where we were made to feel... not unwelcome, exactly... but placed firmly within a set of strict bounds. Perhaps Mr. Applewood should take a lesson from the place we stayed in Montana, The Black Diamond, where our host, Walter, obviously delighted - or convincingly seemed to - in our very presence. Every time we asked if something was O.K. to do, he laughed - LAUGHED - that we would consider B&B's such a strict experience.

And I'm not saying we asked to run all over the house in our muddy hiking boots or set up a trampoline in the backyard - we're NICE people, dammit - but we wanted to relax and enjoy ourselves, and we did.

4) Fast food on the road. I love it. I consider it a reward. I love having it on a long car trip, because one of the greatest things about being an adult is finally being able to say when we stop and what we eat. You want McDonald's? STOP THE CAR! I see one right over there!

But this trip, I made a promise to myself to eat NO FAST FOOD on the road. I'm not swearing it off - far from it! But you see, if I eat only McDonalds and then have some M&Ms at the gas station, and about 7 Cokes because I love them so, I always feel like a trash can by the end of the day. So this time, we brought along a cooler, some bread, some sandwich fixins, and some stuff to heat up in our little portable burner; we also brought some trail mix, and lots of juice, and let me tell you:

It was miserable.

I'm just kidding. It was fine. I didn’t always want to pull over and make my own sandwich, sometimes I wanted to have a surly teen make a pre-made sandwich for ME, but I did it - and actually felt physically better. I'm not saying I'll never enjoy a Big Mac on the road again - BITE YOUR TONGUE! - but for a week-long car trip, one has to think of one's health.

And let me just take a moment to praise the banana chip! I think trail mix is a marginal sort of food for a human, but I'd sift through a thousand almonds to get to one banana chip! Banana chips take all that is great about a banana and leave out all the rest - the weird shape, the leftover peel, etc. And all this in chip form!

Stay tuned for my review of the wedding I attended on Montana, which was the whole reason for the road trip.

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