As anyone who has looked at the photo gallery knows, I recently participated in the Yellowstone Highland Games and Scottish festival with my living history group. (The festival organizers, I would add, were kind enough to pay for our gas there and back and put us up in a motel for the weekend.) The festival takes place on the same weekend as the reenacment of Custer's last stand at the Little Big Horn battle field. So on Friday night after we were done with setup and opening ceremonies and the ceilidh and all that fun stuff, we all headed back to our motel. I ended up getting dinner at Denny's. (Bear in mind here that I was still in full garb!) I got done with my dinner and headed back to the motel, and I got there just in time to see our weaver Leslie coming around the corner. She walked up to me, grabbed my elbow and said "We're going up there!" and pointed to the hotel bar. We got up there, and I was treated like a minor celebrity! I payed for nothing the whole evening.

Now, the start to the bar trip- there was a young Crow lad in the bar who was in town for the Custer reenactment. He bought me my first drink. He said to me that the Crow love it when kilted men come to visit them because only a man with the heart of a warrior and great respect for his ancestors would wear a kilt. The Crow still consider themselves a warrior people, and related well with me. We were kindred spirits in many ways, it seemed. (For those of you who don't know, the Crow are a Native American tribe. Their nation is in the middle of Montana, and Billings is only about 40 miles or so from the Crow nation's border.)

I would also mention here that Billings is a very kilt friendly town in my 3 day's experience. I drank free the entire trip! (With the exception of one shot, which I wouldn't have had to buy had I waited 5 more minutes! But honestly, I did that on purpose because I got tired of people buying me things and just wanted to get my own damned drink! And then I realized I was a stubborn idiot and let the bachlorrette party in the bar buy the rest of my shots. )