T+56: Harvest on the Hi-Line, Part 1

Mile 1523, SACO, MT

We have been traveling along US Highway 2 since leaving East Glacier.  It is commonly called the Hi-line, as is it the most northern national highway.  It has been quite an interesting experience, with plenty of surprises, and a new slice of American culture for us.

Our first stop after East Glacier was Browning, MT.  We had visited Browning in the early 90’s and were shocked by the poverty and abandonment at this Blackfeet tribal headquarters.  We had been concerned about it and organized our current route so as not to spend the night there.  Boy, were we wrong.   First of all, the town is about 3 times bigger than it was 20 years ago.  There is a big casino, a big museum of tribal culture.  There are many new businesses, including some sort of heavy equipment supplier on the south side of town.  The beat-up little “agency” houses, that dominated the town 20 years ago were nowhere to be seen in the Browning of 2013.  We had a nice breakfast and were waited on by a group of teenagers who looked up from their I-phones when we came in, then couldn’t believe we were from Detroit and traveling Montana by bike.  It was lovely…a good surprise.

We ride for miles through the Blackfeet reservation, seeing so many birds of prey and hundreds of horses…certainly more horses than we have seen anywhere else.  We plug along, committed to making 50 mile days in this part of the country.  The country is high and dry.  We are looking forward to Cutbank, which we envision as a river town.  As we get close, we go down a big hill, cross a desert river with high arroyo banks, then have to climb 300 feet in less than a mile to get to the town up on the bluff.  The riverside camping we had been anticipating should have been named Cliffside Camping: no trees, in the gravel, on a cliff 100 feet above the desert stream.  We end up staying at the Super 8…and it was great.  We walk over to the little mall and get a smoothie.  The mall is full of families doing “Back to School” shopping.  The people there are a mix of European- and Native- Americans.  There is a lot of teasing and laughing.  It seems pretty comfortable and easy.

After Cutbank, we enter the never-ending wheat fields of the Marias plateau.  All along the highway, we are passed by huge harvesting equipment.  There are massive cutters, and threshers, and giant vacuums.   In one field, we count 2 belly dump semi-trucks, two sixteen wheel trucks, a thresher whose arms extended at least 20 feet on each side, and three other huge pieces of machinery.   We could not even imagine how many hundreds of thousands of dollars all this equipment cost. 

We had hoped to make it to Chester, MT (pop. 847) that day, but by the time we had gone 50 miles, we were out of water, out of energy, and hot.  Our map told of a little motel in a Galada, MT (pop. 50).  We found the motel; it looked closed, but did have a working pop machine.  We only had enough change for one drink.  There was an equipment service shop/gas station next to it.  Maybe they could give change for a five dollar bill.  The operator was on the phone and stayed on the phone the whole time we were there. 

The store had a bit of junk food, some drinks, and a scad of magazines thrown about a big messy table.  While the operator still talked on the phone, another man comes in, sees us waiting for service, and asks if we need a place to stay that night.  We mumble something about making it to Chester, but we were pretty tired already.  He says, “You have come to the right spot!  I own the motel next door.  Let me call the wife and she can come get you set up.” 

We decide, “what the hell?” While we’re waiting for the wife, we find out we can buy a frozen Schwan’s pizza from the guy on the phone.   After about 15 minutes, the wife comes in, flustered as she had been called in from the field where she was working on the harvesting crew.  She shows us the first room, all the while apologizing, saying that the phone was off because they had been working on the road and she hadn’t had hardly any business this summer.  The first room smelt kind of musty, so she opened the second door in the motel of 9 units.  It was like visiting an apartment from 1962.  It had two bedrooms with wooden western furniture, televisions with rabbit ears antennas and a small kitchen with a tiny stove, formica table, and vinyl chairs.  We loved it.

I went to turn on the water.  Nothing.  I tell the wife, who calls her husband, who calls his son, all of whom now have left the fields to come deal with “this motel mess”.  There is a big ruckus while they figure out what happened to the 9000 gallons in the cistern, which is completely dry.  The pump is on and very close to burning out.  It takes another 30 minutes during which Wes and I snooze on the bed.  We still have not registered; we have no idea what the price will be.  Finally, they get the pump primed, and a hose from the well re-filling the cistern.  I turn on the water.  After spurting and spitting, it comes out…brown.  The wife apologizes again, and goes to get us some bottle water to drink.

As it turns out, the wife is a school teacher.   The motel is definitely a side business for this wheat farmer/equipment supplier/teacher family.  It sounds like she has not had guests in this motel since early July.  She says, “I know it had water two weeks ago ‘cause the grandkids used the toilet.”   Finally, all the systems are working again.  She apologizes again for the delays and confusion.  She and Wes get into teacher talk.  At the end of all that, they decide to charge us $25 for the room. 

They all disappear, presumably back to the fields.  Wes and I are alone in the motel.   There is no phone; the TV picks up two channels, the water is not safe for drinking, and we have a really great night.  We sit in the little kitchen and talk about my dad.  He would have loved this little motel and we could easily imagine him sitting at this little table drinking coffee.

The next morning, over hill and dale, still surrounded by miles and miles of wheat, we make it to the little town on  Chester.  The landscape is so undulating, that we can see the water tower for the town sporadically for 8 miles.

Chester is the prototypical Hi-Line town.  Dominated by its grain elevator and train tracks, a small cluster of  businesses cluster around these two central features.   We find Spud's  Café and when we look into the window, it feels like we are entering  a photograph.  There is one young blonde waitress standing at the counter, leaning over, reading the  paper.  There is one customer, sitting alone at a table. 

As it turns out, he is a bit of a character.  He engages us immediately, asking us about our trip and telling us about the area.  His hair is faded red, and cut into an epic mullet.  The front hair is curly and somewhat spikey; the back hangs down past his shoulders.  He is on oxygen and is quite frail, with remarkably loose skin, and knobby knees poking out of his hanging shorts.  He looks like someone who lost much of his body weight very rapidly.  He says, while pulling on his oxygen tube, "Guess I won't be cycling too far anywhere soon."  He also tells us how to tell the hard winter wheat from the spring wheat---the hard winter wheat is more red and grows more in the valleys.  The farmers are cutting it and will turn over the ground to start the next crop.  The spring wheat is still green and won't cut for a few more days.

We are happy to learn this, because we are agog at millions of acres of wheat we are passing.  Both Wes and I thought northern Montana would be more desert-ish.  We are completely wrong.  It is mainstay of the US's breadbasket. 

This fragile gentlemen and the young waitress are the first installment of what will soon be a type...very friendly, curious, and talkative townsfolk.  All along the Hi-line, folks stop us on street, in the grocery store, at cafes, and ask us about our travels.  There are often little self-effacing jokes and always a wish for our safe and enjoyable travels.  

 

TO BE CONTINUED…

Posted from Circle, MT