Winding Through Montana

June 9, 2008

We were hoping to get out this morning in jackets and shorts to hike around Glacier, but we’ll probably have to stick to jeans. It’s currently 38 in the park, with a high later this afternoon of 51.

Isolated thunderstorms are supposed to set in around 2, so we’re up early this morning. It’s 7:20 right now and John and Justin are taking turns taking showers. Hopefully, we can load the car and grab some quick breakfast in the next hour, so that we can start the drive over.

We spent the night here in Whitefish, Montana, about 25 miles from the west entrance of the park. There’s a 9-mile trail we’re hoping to do called the Iceberg Lake Trail, which seems to be “the” trail to do if you only have the chance to do one. The trail entrance is on the east side of the park, so it might take a little while to get there.

Though it’s early, we’re mostly well-rested. We got into Whitefish early yesterday and checked into a hotel at around 5 o’clock. We picked up some beer and Taco John’s — “The Fresh Taste of West-Mex” — and watched the basketball game, Talk Sex with Sue Johanson, and some coverage of the British House of Commons — surprisingly entertaining.

We were on the road for about 250 miles yesterday, winding north from Butte, through Missoula on I-90, before taking a beautiful state road past Flathead Lake to Whitefish. Yesterday was some of the most scenic driving yet. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures since I was driving — just a few of the huge lake when we pulled over.

I was going to pass my camera to John — who was riding shotgun — but his hands were full with the iPod, the GPS and his phone, which he was using to follow the Yankees game.

Not sure what time we’ll leave the park today, but we’re figuring sometime between 2 and 3, given the chance for rain. Afterwards, we’ll get back on the road, cross the border, and make our way to Calgary for the night. Might be a slow drive — another 200 miles — but we hopefully won’t get in much later than 8.

Next stop: continental breakfast. We haven’t been taking advantage of these, but will today for the first time.

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Posted by Phil

Search Engine Terms

June 9, 2008

As a part of our blog’s administrative tools, we have access to statistics tracking visits to our site. Along with showing us the number of visitors, the page tracks where visitors come from. If, for instance, you clicked on a link to us from another web page (like one of our Facebook profiles), a referral will appear in our list. This really isn’t that interesting for us because we’re the ones who have put the links up to our page in the first place. Instead, we focus on the section labeled “Search Engine Terms.” This gives us a list of what people searched for to reach our site.

So far, these have fallen into four categories:

We have had specific ones like: “phallic road trip” (5 times), “phallicroadtrip.com” (2 times) and “phallic road” (1 time). These are most likely from people who know that they want to end up at this page. If you are searching for “phallic road” and are looking for porn something else, there are many search terms that would yield better results. The search term “west phalic” (sic) may also be along those lines, but I don’t know how.

Two of the terms relate to our blog and would come from random people: “russell branyan 465-foot home run brewer” and “road trip southern california to minneapolis” (each 1 time). We witnessed that 465-foot homer in Milwaukee and our road trip does include SoCal and Minneapolis. This is probably not the best site for information on either topic, but at least we’re in the same ballpark.

The third category gets strange. It’s the WTF? category. On June 5th, we received a visit to our site from someone searching “did jimmy buffet die on tuesday june 3,2008”. The answer is no in case you were worried. (I know I was. I don’t think I could imagine what kind of world we would have without the music of Jimmy Buffet. He single-handedly fostered my love for margaritas AND cheeseburgers. Musical genius.) Sarcasm aside, he is alive and will be performing at Madison Square Garden on Thursday. Why did Google refer this poor soul to our blog? Because Phil mentioned hearing Jimmy Buffet at the Mall of America in the post “Fargo Bound” dated June 3rd, 2008.

There is only one way to describe the last category: disturbing. Yesterday, we received a visit to our site from the search term “phallus 10 year old.” I am not making this up. Of course, our site has nothing to do with this. We weren’t even on the first… or the second… or the third… page of search results from Google. That’s right, we were on the top of the fourth (!) page with the listing shown below:

search result

The referenced post is Justin’s on the Clean Plate Club which he joined as a “young, but husky 10 year-old boy.” This whole ordeal has left him feeling violated. Unfortunately, this post will probably move our site higher in the search results for “phallus 10 year old.” At least next time, the perverts will read this first.

UPDATE: Just received a hit from the search term “phallic food.” So add another one to the WTF? category. We like the whole phallic road trip thing, but we don’t eat that way.

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Posted by John