Montana, Yellowstone, and the Marlboro Ranch (Part 1)

As some of you may or may not know, my wife and I recently returned from a trip to the Marlboro Ranch. I know what you're thinking..."The Marlboro Ranch? Is that where they grow cigarettes?" Well the answer is no...and yes; I'll explain later."

My wife, Chelsea, has been on Marlboro's mailing list since she turned twenty-one and could legally certify that she was a smoker over the age of twenty-one (if you're on the list, you get that joke...). Well, we get their junk in the mail all the time. Sometimes it's coupons, other times it's free gifts like ash trays and such. Well a couple of months ago we she got a package via fed-ex that said that they wanted to send her and a guest to their ranch in Montana. The Crazy Mountain Ranch is the real name, but it is affectionately referred to as the Marlboro Ranch. The paperwork said it was an all expenses paid, four day, three night vacation in the Crazy Mountains in Montana. We were obviously skeptical at first, but my wife called the RSVP number and gave them our Promo code and the voice on the other end immediately congratulated her. I got right on some Google research and found several blogs written by people who had received the same package and swore that it was legit.

Time went on and we continued to receive correspondence from them; what activities did we want to do, what our hat and boot size were, that sort of thing. I remained skeptical until the day we got luggage in the mail from them, and a few days following that our plane tickets and a check for $1280. $1250 of that was for incidentals, the other thirty and the thirty dollar check they sent me were for baggage check fees. They had hooked us. Looking at those tickets really gave us the fever. We were ready...