Distinctly Montana Magazine

23 w w w . d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m on our property. And when we're not doing that, we're the ones paying a premium to stay in someone else's extra room. I'm sure that this is true anywhere, but it seems to be especially true here in Montana, where there's always a mountain or river or badlands or prairie to explore. VRBO, Airbnb and so forth—we have become a nation of hoteliers. The problem in my case is that my little house has absolute- ly no extra room. There's the kitchen, the bedroom where my wife and I sleep, our sons' rooms, the TV room, the mud room, the second TV room, a couple of bathrooms, and the pantry. All of which are currently occupied. Okay, that meant I would need a brand-new building in which to house my vacation rental. I drove to the hardware store and, after some deliberation, settled on the Heartland Coronado, a 12 ft × 8 ft, gable-style wood shed with a win- dow and a door. It was available with or without a floor, but I had imagined mine to be a sort of high-luxury plush Airb- nb, so I opted for the floor option, loaded it onto my truck, and drove back to the ranch. For an outbuilding with an interior encompassing a lux- urious 96 sq. ft., it was remarkably difficult to assemble, requiring a second trip back to the hardware store for shingles, paint, roofing felt, caulk, and nails. Then I went inside the house and into the basement to search for furni- ture my wife wouldn't notice was absent. I came back up with a broken office chair, a bean bag chair abandoned by my children a half-decade back, and an inflatable mattress patched here and there by the judicious application of duct tape. Once set up, I sat back to admire my work. Beautiful. Nevertheless, it was still missing something essential. I thought back on all the Airbnbs I had visited, trying to suss out what my little rental needed. Finally, I realized what it was. I ran inside the house, grabbed a sharpie and a piece of 8.5 by 11 office paper, wrote "Live, Laugh, Love" on it, and tacked it to the wall of the shed. The ambiance having been perfected, I knew there are cer- tain things that a vacation rental needs, legally speaking. One of them is a place to answer nature's call. At first, I thought that the prospective guest already has the best bathroom in the world—one that is thousands of miles across and easy to ventilate: the great outdoors. But a cur- sory googling revealed that this will not be adequate, and so some sort of more official commode would have to be VOTE US BEST in Montana! Located One Mile from the West Entrance to Glacier Park GreatNorthernResort.com • 406-387-5340 VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE LODG I NG LODGING • RAFTING • INTIMATE WEDDINGS Help Us Win Montana's Best! Vote for Great Northern Resort SCAN TO VOTE

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