Malad City, Idaho

Been a while.

Just across the Northern border, past Portage and the rest area lies the Utah gamblers oasis. The name of said oasis, as you may have guessed is Malad.





Just off exit 13 there are two gas stations; one is a Phillips 66 (where the locals fill up), and the Chevron/filthy Burger King (where the yuppy Powerball/MegaMillions lotto players fill up). Although each has an easily recognizable demographic to which it caters, both live off the lotto.

• Fact: Phillips 66, which is the smaller of the two, sells about 40 million dollars worth of lotto tickets of which they get 5 cents on the dollar. For those of you who, like myself, are less inclined to do that math, I have a calculator. 2 million smackaroons. Not bad for a service station that hasn't cleaned its toilets in about 8 months.

Malad is the type of town where everybody knows just about everybody. And if you don't, i can point you in the direction of somebody who does: Enter Carlos. Carlos is one of the hands on the S-S Ranch where we board our horses. He is absolutely hilarious. He calls my dad Cabeza de papa. If you know my dad and you speak spanish, you should appreciate that.





Anywho, back to Malad.





I love small towns.

• Wherever you are in town, people wave at you as they drive by.


• If you've got the time, you can carry on a conversation with a total stranger for hours. Easily.


• Bad news is that in about a week you'll run out of people to talk to. I guess that's the good news too.


• When we were leaving our property the other day, I put the radio on scan to see what they had to offer. 4 stations. All country.


• On the road, tractors and fourwheelers are about as common as cars.


• Spero's. Me and Lou's (home to the Ultimate)

Man, more to come about Malad another day. I'm beat.

Cheerio.