We started this little road trip with a stop in Moscow, Idaho to visit with goddaughter Kendal and we’re ending it (sorta) with a visit to her older sister, goddaughter Avery, in Loveland, Colorado. Avery’s just finishing up her teaching credentials at University of Northern Colorado. That’s her boyfriend Jake with a firm grasp on her shoulder. (Good idea, Jake. You’d be crazy to let her get away.)

I can almost remember being as young as Avery and Jake, but I have absolutely no recollection of ever being as attractive.

Damn it.

The western side of Montana is mountainous and green. The eastern half of the state is completely different with low, rolling hills and vegetation that’s brown about half the year. This half of the year, to be specific.

We thought Cody, Wyoming, which calls itself the eastern entrance to Yellowstone National Park, would be mountainous and forested. No such luck.

Cody was a pretty little town, but between the coronavirus and the end of the tourist season, we were just about the only people on the streets.

We’re not sure which state we were in. Could have been southern Montana. Could have been northern Wyoming. It doesn’t really matter. We saw hundreds and hundreds of deer. Or antelope. Or elk. Or whatever these are. And look at the blue of that sky.

Kalispell is nestled up in the northwest corner of Montana about thirty miles south of the Canadian border. My mom and dad both grew up here. We had a little mini-reunion with mom’s side of the family on our way between goddaughters Kendal in Idaho and Avery in Colorado.

Starting at the bottom left and working clockwise around the table:

Cousin Jody – He was once a hunting and fishing guide in the wilds of Alaska. Now he runs a casino. Oh, my god, does he have stories.

Cousin Rhonda – Lives in Alaska and runs an organ transplant organization.

Jamie – Best wife ever.

Cousin Muriel – One of a kind. No one else like her in the world. Her mom and dad were always my favorite aunt and uncle.

Cousin Bill – He’s been married to Muriel for 65 years and they’ve been together since junior high school. Another aunt always said, “You’re a saint, Bill.” Everyone who knows him agrees.

Me – The least interesting person at the table.

Cousin Wanda – She once told me, “We gotta stick together, Jimmy. We’re the troublemakers in the family.”

Cousin Sally – When I was five and she was seven, I told her Santa Claus wasn’t real. I don’t think she’s ever forgiven me.

Cousin Cliff – Sally’s husband. They’ve been married 50 years. Another Great guy who’s led an incredibly interesting life.

The route from Kalispell to Bozeman took us along the eastern shore of Flathead Lake. Jamie took all these shots as we drove along at 65 miles per hour. I can’t believe they turned out so unblurred and pretty.

I’ve always had it in my head that Flathead is the United States’ second largest natural freshwater lake (excluding Lake Michigan). Must have been something my Montana relatives told me when I was a kid, because very few people outside of Montana have ever heard of Flathead Lake.

So I Googled “largest lakes in the United States” just to see if it was true.

Not even close.

According to Wikipedia, an unimpeachable source, it ranks 30th. But if I do a little Flathead Lake Chamber of Commerce-like analysis, I can move it much higher on the list.

Of the Great Lakes only Lake Michigan lies completely within the United States, and we already said it was excluded. Then we can eliminate the Great Salt Lake because it’s not a freshwater lake. Let’s knock Lake of the Woods off the list because it lies mostly in Canada. Likewise, Iliamna Lake is in Alaska, not the continental United States.

By the time I was done whittling away lakes that aren’t freshwater, don’t lie within the contiguous United States, lie partially in Canada, or are man-made, we’re down to a very short list:

1. Lake Okeechobee in Florida (662 square miles)
2. Red Lake in Minnesota (427 square miles)
3. Devils Lake in North Dakota (300 square miles)
4. Lake Winnebago in Wisconsin (215 square miles)
5. Mille Lacs Lake in Minnesota (207 square miles)
6. Flathead Lake in Montana (192 square miles)
7. Lake Tahoe in California-Nevada (191 square miles)

So there you go. Flathead Lake is not the United States’ second largest freshwater lake (excluding Lake Michigan). But seventh ain’t bad. Especially when you realize it’s one square mile larger than Lake Tahoe.

Update: I just realized there is a completely different way to view the phrase “second largest lake.” I hadn’t considered the volumes of the lakes. After all, if you compare a very shallow lake with a large surface area to a smaller lake with much greater depth, the latter could have a far greater volume of water.

So I googled “largest American lakes by volume.” And sure ‘nuff, it gave me a completely different list. If I whittle away those results using the same filters as above we come up with:

1. Lake Tahoe (California/Nevada) 122,160,280 acre feet
2. Lake Pend Oreille (Idaho) 94,111,488 acre feet
3. Pyramid Lake (Nevada) 23,660,000 acre feet
4. Flathead Lake 18,788,243 acre feet

So we’ve managed to get Flathead Lake up to a respectable fourth largest natural lake entirely within the contiguous United States, but still can’t figure out how to get it up to the second spot.

And here are a few stock photos that make Flathead look like the fourth largest lake in the contiguous United States.

Here’s Jamie, my cousin Muriel, my cousin-in-law Bill, and me on their farm.

Muriel has always been my favorite cousin. I love all my other cousins, too, but Muriel spent every December at our house when I was a kid so I got to know her better than any of the others. And then, of course, she married Bill which really sealed the deal.

Muriel’s dad was a real estate agent in Kalispell. He couldn’t sell much land when it was covered with snow, so he came up with the brilliant idea of bringing Montana Christmas trees down to Southern California. He was a smokin’, drinkin’, gamblin’, cussin’, dirty joke tellin’, incredibly charismatic guy. He seemed really exotic and fun compared to my parents‘ milquetoast circle of friends and I couldn’t wait until Uncle Dick and Aunt Noma and Bill and Muriel and the rest of the cast of characters showed up at our front door every year. It was the best day of the year, even better than Christmas.

Muriel prides herself on being tough as nails. No one who knows her would dispute that self assessment.

For some reason, she stayed behind here in Montana one year after the rest of the crew headed down to California to sell Christmas trees. She was supposed to drive down later with her two infant daughters. Well, a major blizzard hit the Canadian border just as she left Kalispell driving one of those tiny, rickety, original VW bugs.

She reached the Rocky Mountains just as night fell. So much snow was falling that she couldn’t see twenty feet in front of the car. Most rational drivers pulled over and didn’t even attempt to cross the mountains at night. But family lore says that snow and darkness didn’t deter Muriel.

She pulled into a gas station on the eastern side of the Rockies and approached the drivers of two 18-wheelers.

”Would you two be willing to guide me across the mountains in the dark?” she asked. “If one of you drives in front of me I’ll be able to follow your tail lights, and if the other one drives in back your headlights will light the road in front of me.”

They agreed to her crazy scheme. And that’s how Muriel and her two infant daughters crossed the Rocky Mountains and got to California in time for Christmas dinner with our two families.

Yeah, she’s tough. And Bill has had to put up with that toughness for seven decades now. They’ve been married for 65 years and together since junior high school.

My Aunt Sarahjane always said, “You’re a saint, Bill.”

She was right, of course, but I have a feeling he wouldn’t want it any other way.

Huckleberry pie is one of the highlights of visiting Montana in the summer and autumn. Bill and Muriel went out before we arrived and bought us one, but it apparently called to them a bit too seductively from the refrigerator. They ate the whole thing before we arrived.

We stopped at a roadside huckleberry stand to buy another one.

You might remember cartoon character Huckleberry Hound. Or Mark Twain’s novel Huckleberry Finn. Or if you grew up in Southern California when I did, a great disc jockey named Huckleberry Chuck Clemans.

But what the hell is a huckleberry? I thought they were fictional until I had my first piece of huckleberry pie.

They look a lot like blueberries but can range from bright red to dark purple to blue. Red huckleberries are a bit tart, but the purple and blue ones are sweeter.

I’ve always wondered about the origin of the phrase “I’m your huckleberry.” If you say “I’m your huckleberry,” you’re saying you’re the right person for some task. Wonder where that meaning came from.

We loaded up on a selection of huckleberry jams and jellies to take back to Texas.

My cousin’s farm is pretty damn pretty. Here’s the view as the sun comes up.

And here’s the view as the sun goes down. Six of one, half dozen of another.

My cousin Muriel lives on a farm a few miles outside Kalispell, Montana. Soon after our arrival we were sitting around her living room talking when Muriel casually said, “Here come the wild turkeys.”

Sure enough, a band of wild turkeys strutted across Bill and Muriel’s back yard as if they owned the place. Turns out they make the same journey every afternoon just before sunset.

Every time I jumped up to take a photo, they’d scatter and I could only capture one of them.

Whenever we visit Kalispell we bring Bill a bottle of Texas whiskey. Maybe in the future we should just go with a bottle of Wild Turkey.

We were driving from Moscow, Idaho to Kalispell, Montana when we saw this street sign welcoming us to the tiny town of Tensed, Idaho. I screeched to a halt to take a photo.

I’ve mentioned several times that I’ve spent my entire life stressed out. I can actually remember worrying if I would be able to recite the ABCs properly in order to pass from kindergarten to first grade. I think it’s something I get from a Savage gene because my all my cousins on my mom’s side of the family seem to suffer with the same sort of needless stress.

It results in sleepless nights, migraine headaches, ulcers, chewed fingernails, and constant fidgeting. Jeez, I’m a mess.

In my early 20s I worked as a copywriter at the Los Angeles office of a huge international ad agency. The stress became overwhelming. Call it non-sexual performance anxiety. My boss couldn’t help but notice the impact of the stress, so he called me into his office and sat me down and told me I needed to relax, that he was very happy with my work, and as he put it, “The the only stress one feels is the stress one puts on oneself.”

All that was great to hear, but it didn’t reduce my stress one iota. If anything it made it worse because he was a great guy and I didn’t want to disappoint him.

I decided I needed to do something, anything, to make alleviate the tension. I remembered that my favorite baseball player, Maury Wills, suffered from immense stress during the 1962 season when he was setting records for stolen bases. Every time he got on base a stadium full of fans began chanting his name to encourage him to steal another one.

”Maury, Maury, Maury,” they chanted.

And then he’d steal another base.

I remembered that Maury had sought out the services of a professional hypnotherapist to help him deal with the stress he inflicted upon himself.

Well, I thought, thousands of people are not chanting my name in hopes that I will come up with a clever headline, but the stress I‘m feeling is unbearable nonetheless.

I pulled out a copy of the yellow pages and looked up the same hypnotherapist who had helped Maury. I called his office and made an appointment. His office was in a fancy schmancy office building in the heart of L.A.’s ritzy Westwood district.

Soon I was sitting before him in a darkened room as he gently swung a shiny, golden watch back-and-forth from the end of a long chain.

”Concentrate on the watch,” he said calmly and quietly. “Let the world drift away and concentrate on the watch.” I did as I was asked. I concentrated. I watched the watch.

He calmly told me to forget my worldly cares. To relax. To let the stress melt away.

”Picture your stress as a block of ice. It’s a warm, beautiful day. The sun is shining. It feels good on your skin. The ice is melting and with it, your stress is slowly melting and going down the drain.”

Well, I did as Maury Wills’ hypnotherapist suggested. I followed his instructions. I pictured that block of ice melting. Then the hypnotherapist counted slowly from five to one, snapped his fingers, and brought me out of my hypnotic trance.

”You were a great subject,” he told me. “You went under quickly and deeply and I think a few more sessions like this will really help you. How do you feel?”

“Well,” I answered, “I really don’t feel any different. I don’t think I was hypnotized. I was just doing everything you said in order to go along with the program.”

He laughed. “What would it take,” he asked, “to convince you that you were really under hypnosis?”

”I don’t know,” I said honestly.

”What if I got you to cluck like a chicken?”

”Well, sure, I guess I would believe I was hypnotized if you told me to cluck like a chicken and I actually did it.”

”OK, then,” he said. “Let’s put you back under and see what happens.”

Again he brought out the golden pocket watch. Again he began swinging it gently back and forth at the end of a chain. He slowly and gradually began telling me to relax. When finally he got me into a state of complete relaxation he said the words:

”I’m going to count downward from three to one and when I get to one, I want you to cluck like a chicken. Three. Two. One. Cluck.”

I grew up on a farm. I know what chickens sound like and I began clucking up a storm.

“Bwaaaack, bwaaack, bwaaack.”

With a knowing smile on his face, the hypnotherapist slowly brought me out of my trance. “I’m going to count down from three to one and when I get to one you will awaken. Three. Two. One. Wake up.”

He looked at me. I looked back at him. Finally, he said, “Well, you clucked like a chicken. Do you believe now that you were in a deep hypnotic trance?”

”Well, no, I don’t” I replied. “I just clucked because I wanted to go along with you and not screw things up.”

”No. You were hypnotized. That’s just your conscious mind trying to explain why you clucked like a chicken. Remember telling me that you would believe you were hypnotized if I could get you to cluck like a chicken?”

”Yes, I remember telling you that. But then I decided to make those clucking noises so I wouldn’t offend you.”

He laughed. There was nothing he could do to convince me that hypnotism had anything to do with those enthusiastic clucking sounds.

I never went back to see him. Instead, I went back to work and continued to suffer from migraine headaches, sleepless nights, nervous tics, and ulcers.

Instead of seeking out a hypnotherapist, maybe I should have sought out Tensed, Idaho. It certainly looks a lot less stressful than Los Angeles.