Valley view Sweetgrass County Montana

Day 5 Travel Day

Today is a travel day. We are headed North by Northeast towards Cody, Wyoming. As we look back it seems that we can see a sea of waving hands, both foreign and domestic, wishing us safe travels and don’t let the screendoor hit you in the ass as you leave, behind us. It is gratifying to know we have made such an impression on so many well-wishers. As we travel up hwy 191 the scenery is changing from the high mountains and rugged cliffs to a more gentle, open, rolling landscape as in the above photo taken from the bridge this morning.

Normally it wouldn’t take a day to go the 52 miles between the park and Cody but we have had to resort to desperate measures due to the astronomically high gas prices here. As a cost cutting measure we have resorted to the age-old method of close-hauling, or in layman’s terms, dragging the boat up the river, or in this case highway, with ropes. The ropes, which are more properly known as Hawsers, are your typical 3″ diameter twisted Manila hemp ropes, or cables, strung out in front of the Bokeh Maru approximately 150′ so that the entire crew could take hold and pull the Bokeh Maru forward down the road. There are four of these hawsers and it makes for slow going but it is cheap. Even with breaks for the crew every 6-8 hours we figured we’d make Cody in a day.

Since we have some time as the crew is still fresh and making good time I thought I’d address the question many of you have written in about as to how the Bokeh Maru got her name. As has been noted many times in the past The Institute does many things. We have a department for practically any money-making situation you might dream up and some you haven’t.

Under our department of creating factual references we have a patented, nearly exclusive ‘Name Generator’. A device with extremely powerful algorithms and many flashing lights, that can generate a name for any type of situation or need. For instance, let’s say you have to go to prison for a somewhat serious crime, say, embezzling or car-jacking, nothing big like murder 1, or making fun of some touchy social group, and you need a prison bitch name. You send us your first and last name, your crime, your physical description and 250 dollars and we submit it (after your check clears of course) to our exclusive Name Generator and our powerful yet perceptive algorithms go to work and in a very short time your new prison bitch name pops out. In this case it would have been FopFace. That would be your new prison bitch name, FopFace, and it would save you a lot of time in getting acquainted in your new environment.

Or as another example, let’s say you are an ex-wife, not any specific ex-wife, but just some random, non-denominational ex-wife, that is divorced of course and you, the ex-wife, have always wanted an Indian name. Not a Mumbai based Indian name but one from one of the First Nations, a cool tribe like one of the Sioux, a Brule, or Lakota or even the Minneconjou perhaps, well, we can do that. You would need to send in your real first and last name, your real address, your choice of whether to use your married name or maiden name, the specifics of your divorce, such as did he beat you, was he rude, was he oblivious and uncaring of your needs and desires, etc., how old you are, what your prospects are for future happiness, and 28,500 dollars per name. That would be the number of words in your new Indian name. When we receive your information and the check clears of course, we submit your information into a special area of the algorithm reserved especially for ex-wives and soon out pops your new Indian name. In this case your new Indian name would be “Lies To My Face”. That’s it, simple really.

In the case of The Bokeh Maru it was the same procedure but modified to create a ships name. We fed in all the pertinent information. Her size, her weight, her intended use, who the owner was, his previous travel history, etc. And out popped her new name, The Bokeh Maru. In some cases we can retrieve the reasoning process behind the name selection, (unavailable for the ex-wife option unfortunately) and in this case we were fortunate and the complete process was explained. To sum it up as the process printed put over 160 pages before we hit the kill switch, the algorithm took in to account my travel history in the far east, my unusual good looks, and the fact that I own the machine and created The Bokeh Maru’s new name. Bokeh is a Japanese word that literally means ’round’ and Maru is roughly ‘Ship’ and there you have it. A ship that will take you to far and wonderful places and bring you safely back home again. There are many other layers that are meaningful to the name but space prohibits going into depth here.

I hope this clears up the mystery of the name selected for The Bokeh Maru. If not please send a stamped self-addressed envelope and 50 dollars, cash, check, or money order, for further clarification. We are also standing by to help you with your ex-wife and prison bitch name selections. Avoid the rush. Get your request in now.

I’ve just been informed that the slight thumping noise heard earlier was the sound of one our crew being run over by The Bokeh Maru. Apparently the strain got to him and he fell and didn’t have the strength to roll out-of-the-way. Since we are traveling so slowly there is a good to fair chance he can be recovered. I hope he wasn’t one of the strong ones. Note to self: Extend hawsers out another 50′. Set watch to avoid fallen crew.

We’re half way to Cody and it’s only 4 in the afternoon. Looks like we’ll be running through the night. Have to set the running lights and see that the Gruelmaster has the next meal ready. Have to go and see how far we have the traffic backed up behind us. Later.