T+65: Good Looking, Get Along People

Mile 1887. NEW SALEM, ND

The tale of our travels on the Hi-Line continues….

Our next stop is a little town called Saco, which everyone has warned us has the world’s worst mosquitos.  It is sitting on the clay basin of a former lake, which is flood irrigated with the waters of the Milk River.  This means that there are lots of places for water to sit and mosquitos to breed.  All throughout the hot ride to this town, I have been feeling nauseous.  I think it is an after effect of yesterday’s dehydration, so plug on.  Saco is a hot, dusty town of about 125 people.  Like so many of these Hi-Line towns, it has an abundance of 1910 buildings, empty and slowly decaying, reflecting the much higher population that lived here 100 years ago.  Most of these towns emptied out during dust bowl days, never regaining population or services.

There is one beat-up motel and a café, which is closed for repairs.  We drink a beer in the wonderful old bar while waiting for the motel owner to come in from the fields and rent us a room.  While there, we hear the first inkling of the transformation and tragedy that the boom on the Bakken Oil Field is bringing to eastern Montana and western North Dakota.  A young woman, celebrating her 30^th birthday, is talking loudly, ostensibly to the sympathetic female bartender, but also for everyone else to hear.  She has been working in the oil patch, making good money, but her three kids are living with various dads and grandmas.  She has not seen them in weeks.  She tells a horrifying story of the death of her young daughter last year.  The little girl was run over by her father, with whom she was already not speaking.   She circles back to the fight at the funeral over and over.   At least five times she says she is doing great, making $18/hr plus overtime.  She and her current partner, pick up two six packs every night just for the ride back home from the oil patch.  We get the heeby-jeebies at all of this.

The temperature is nearly 98 when the motel owner returns.  Camping is out of the question, so we take the pretty awful room.  This is definitely a room where we do not want to sleep in the bed, so we get our camping blankets out, and sleep on, not in the bed.  The little store in the town has a very small selection, so we make some frozen chicken strips (yuck) and a salad.

The next day, we are up early.  The sky is low, grey, and threatening.  I don’t feel well at all.  We want to get out of this town, so we decide to leave despite the skies.  Of course, about  2 miles out of town, as we cycle into a howling wind (which still does not deter these damned determined Saco mosquitos, who bite us while we are cycling), the rain begins to pelt.  It is 15 miles to the next town and there is nothing we can do.  We push on, miserable.

The only services in this little town is a convenience store, which we are glad to pop into.  The four guys sitting around a table, laughing and telling stories, look up as the bedraggled cyclists come in.  Wes goes over to get some hot coffee.  When he looks down at me, he exclaims, “Are you all right?”  I am not all right.  I am ill.  I have fever and chills; my stomach is upset.  I am shaking.  We drink coffee and look at the pouring rain.  I feel worse and worse. 

When the coffee klatch breaks up, I ask, “Are any of you going to Glasgow?  Could we pay you to give us a ride there.  I’m ill”  Wes looks shocked that I would take such a step, but one of the fellows says he driving back there, and sure, come on.  We load the bikes and BOBs in his pickup.  I climb in the back seat. Wes clambers in the front.  While I grow increasingly woozy, they visit about all manner of things. 

Dean works for the BLM as an engineer and knows the land around here very well.  He explains that this whole Milk River valley used to be the course of the Missouri River until an ice dam changed its course.  He talks to Wes about the economics of farming and tells us that is not such a risky venture these days, because farmers have federally subsidized crop insurance.  No matter what happens with their harvest, they will get paid.  He also tells a joke that Wes has delighted repeating. “How did the farmer double his income?  Answer: He put up another mail box.”  In other words, he established two businesses where there had been one and got two checks from the government.  This is also known as “farming the government.”

Dean drives us directly to the Cottonwood Inn. He refuses any offer of pay for the ride. It is beautiful and modern and well equipped.  I am not afraid of the bed here.  I go directly to it and sleep for two hours, then get up and have terrible digestive disorders.  As Wes and I talk it over, it seems to us that I have either picked up a mild case of West Nile virus from the mosquitos, or more likely, a bit of food poisoning from the undercooked sausage.  In between bouts, we wash clothes and get organized.

The next morning, I feel better, although still a little gurgly.  There is a sharp breeze blowing from the west (the long awaited tail wind!) We are back on Highway 2 and zooming along.  We stop at Elsie’s Café, and it is clear that this is quite the community gathering spot.  The waiter/co-owner is a former teacher.  He says, “My principal used to tell me what to do.  Now I just do what my wife tells me.”  She groans, “Oh, Arnie!” from the kitchen.   Little boys come in; old men speak to them by name and ask them about school starting.  Teenage girls come in and ask for ice cream for a party they are giving.   All across the dining people are chatting with each other, and with us.  The food is good and the energy is wonderful.  We don’t want to leave, but we must.

The heat starts to rise as we pedal on.  We are moving fast with the wind at our back, but getting hot.  We are now on the Fort Peck reservation.  We go into the Nakota Store and arrive at the exact moment the owners do.  The father and son duo make us smile.  The teenager has probably been awake about fifteen minutes.  He has thrown on the most comfortable, pajama like shorts and slides he can find.  He is exceptionally handsome, with a big broad smile, but pretty mumbled and unclear answers.  His father is wiry and energetic.  We buy two drinks each and stay in the cool to drink them.  The owner’s name is Tom Fire Moon, and he has managed stores all over: in the Navy, in San Diego, for Walmart, back and forth between Poplar, MT and California.  We find out he was on the same aircraft carrier as our brothers.  He tells us that his daughter was runner-up for Miss Montana, and that she won the talent competition singing a song from Les Miserables.  Tom tells us that they are Assiniboine and wants to make sure we know that Assiniboine are not Souix, with whom they share the reservation.   He makes us laugh, over and over, as we visit.  One time: we note that the calendar on his wall has a big picture of Mount Moran on it.  We say, “That’s where Wes was raised.”  Tom goes up to it, peers at it very closely, and pronounces, “Oh, I can see your house right there.”

All the while, various folks are coming in and out.  Some are getting gas.  One fellow says, “I’ll get some gas now, and when I get my check, I’ll bring you the money.”  No problem.  Another asks about our route.  He says, “You should take Indian Road #1.”He takes me to the window and shows me how to get on it.  “You’ll like it a lot more than Highway 2: no trucks, no traffic, much better scenery.”   Both he and Tom warn us about the upcoming dangers as we get closer and closer to the boom in Williston, ND.  This has now become a trope.

We take that route and he was right.  With the big tail wind, we careen down the highway, through little towns and big fields.  It is really fun and we travel the remaining 30 miles of that day in a flash. 

Wolf Point, MT is an odd town.  Full of oil traffic, yet also showing lots of signs of alcohol and meth problems, it has several banks, but no independent cafes that we can find.  We get the last room in the Sherman Inn.  It is full of oil patch workers and there are signs in the room about not using the washcloths to clean off grease.  The restaurant and bar are full of men of all ages and a variety of races.  This is not Elsie’s Café.  No one looks at or speaks beyond their table.

The next day, we leave the Hi-Line and begin our journey to the middle of North Dakota.  We cross the Missouri and have a long, arduous cross of the divide between the Missouri and Yellowstone River valleys.  There will be no services for 50 miles, just plenty of hills, miles of wheat, and a pretty stout side wind.

About half way, we stop in the shade of tree in front of the post office in Vida (no services, population 25).  We are drinking our water and about to eat our apple, when the postmaster comes out and says, “Come on in out of that heat.  You can sit here and drink some of this water right here.”

Her name is Lynette and she is the fill-in postmistress.  A former retail manager, she has taken this job in her retirement and has had postings all over this country.  Vida is a half-day post office and she will have to drive 60 miles to another post office on the Canadian border later today.  She spends the whole time cleaning the ornate oak panels of this post office while we visit.  We mention how friendly we have found people and what a hoot our visit at the Nakota store had been and she says, “I know Tom Fire Moon.  I used to run that store myself.  Did you know his daughter almost became Miss Montana.”   As in turns out, Lynette is also a member of the Assiniboine tribe.  When we say, we have heard much about that tribe, she laughs and says, “That’s because we are called the Good-looking, Get-along people.”  It certainly true in her case, with her long dark brown hair, golden skin, and blue eyes, and her busy, jokey and story-telling energy.  

It is hard to leave, but we must.  We thank her for her hospitality.  On the way to Circle, we think that is not just the Assiniboine who are get-along people and we wonder if it is the landscape or the culture or the economy….or all of the above… that have made folks so open, curious, and engaging.  We don’t know, but we sure do like it.

As we go down to Circle and enter the shadow of Williston, we face a lot of difficulties and see a lot of damage being done, but are we are astounded by incredible acts of grace…but that is story for another day….

 

Posted from Moorhead, MN