T+66: We’ve Come this Far by Grace, Part 1

Mile 1914: BISMARCK, SD

Getting to Circle was one of those pleasures that grows tiresome by repetition.  By about the 20^th hill climb and ride down, the thrill was gone.  After our visit with Lynette, the up and down continued and continued.  At about mile 45, we finally got to the end of the pass between the Missouri and Yellowstone Valleys.  All we had to do is turn west and go into the little town of Circle.  Easier said than done.  We faced a ferocious wind, thinking, “Well, at least tomorrow we’ll have a tail wind…”  It takes us almost an hour to go that last five miles.

There is only one motel in this little town and because the weather is still very hot, we don’t want to tent camp in the swelter.  We pull up to the Traveller’s Inn, and our hearts sink.  Not only are there junk cars all around the building, the lounge and café is in a state of complete disarray.  When I pull up to the bedraggled office sign, a passel of pigeons fly out of the long-closed lounge building.  Wes is giving me the fish-eye.  We open the door to the office and our worst fears are confirmed.  It’s a mess.  There is no one at the desk.  It smells of stale cigarettes.  The desk is a pile of papers, with a hand-written journal on top.  We look around at the dusty collection of old advertising signs and wait.

At last the proprietor appears.  He peers at us with goggle eyes, surprised it seems to have guests, although Lynette had called from the post office from Vida, and we told him we were on the way.  Wes says brightly, “Give us your best room!”  Our host says, “Well, I have been doing some renovations, but they aren’t done yet….but I think I can get you a pretty good room.”  He gives us a key and tells us it is around back.  When we cross to the back of this ramshackle motel and see a whole bank of rooms open to the elements, our apprehension only increases.  We are already considering whether we should try to find a place to camp, even if the temperature is over 95 degrees.  The room has a new door, which we open, gingerly…and are pleasantly surprised.  The paint is new, if garish.  The bedspreads and the carpet are new and look clean.  There is a nice little desk, as well as a microwave and fridge.  The bathroom is not very complete and the water faucets are erratic.  It is ok.  We breathe a sigh of relief because this is mediocre trying to be better and not horrible.  

As part of the registration, the proprietor tells us that he also works at the VFW and if we buy the first drink, the motel will buy us the second.  In fact, why doesn’t he give us a ride down there?  We are surprised, but agree after we get cleaned up.  When the time comes, his wife, after hearing the plan and apparently wanting to short circuit her husband’s trip to the bar, takes us to the VFW in a beat up Toyota with only 2 gears.  She barely speaks to us as Wes crams into the tool filled back seat.  At the VFW, we could not have felt more foreign or out of place.  The regulars barely look up and we hover at the end of the bar, drink our canned beer as quickly as possible and leave.

Later, we conk out in our ok room and look forward to a day with a tailwind to push us over the Big Sheep Mountains and into the lovely little river town of Glendive.  We were wrong on every count.  The next morning, we are up early and try to find a café for bite to eat before the ride.  No such luck.  We go out to the highway and sure enough, the wind has turned around and is blowing in our face.  There is a ton of heavy equipment and big trucks on the road.  So we push on.  

 It’s climb, climb, climb all morning over these desert-y sedimentary mountains.  We drop into a little settlement of Raymond where we want to have lunch and it is the first indication that the culture has changed.  At the farm implement/convenience store, the store owner could barely muster a hello to our bright greeting.  When we asked where we could eat our lunch, his “I dunno” was almost surly.  Luckily the postmistress pointed out a little picnic spot across the river in the trees (!) next to a large pond.  The picnic area was bedraggled and the metal shelter moaned in the wind, but it was out of the sun and by some water, so we were satisfied.  At one point, Wes wanders to see the pond and reports, “There’s muskrats here.”  Curious, I go look.  It is not muskrats, but big swirls of fish in low water, heaving and dancing around each other in tight coils of mating, I presume.  I watch from a few feet away.  Normally, fish would see me or my shadow and dart away.  These fish have something else on their mind.

We make our way to Glendive.  About 10 miles outside of town, there begins to be giant lines of empty coal cars just sitting on the tracks, mile after mile.  This is an indication of the change in the energy economy.  Years ago, before the oil and natural gas boom, train after train of coal from Gillette, WY would have come down these tracks.  Now they sit rusting in the scalding wind.

About three miles outside of Glendive, my back tire loses air.  We have been aware of the increasing baldness of my back tire, but there has been no bike shops or stores that carry my size tire for hundreds of miles.  I have a tube and a changing kit, but with a worn out tire, using either would be a lost cause.  We limp into Glendive, and turn into the John Deere supplier and ask if they can direct us to the bike shop in town.  It is gone.  Check K-mart and the hardware stores.  Nothing at the K-mart.  I call the stores in town. (For the first time in weeks, because I-94 passes through Glendive, I have phone service!)  No luck.  Now what?  No tire, no move.

I move into Major Problem Solving Mode; Wes moves into Major Distress Mode.  I offer a bunch of different solutions; Wes tells me why they are All Wrong.  This is typical.  I find out the closest bike shop is 60 miles away, in the little tourist town of Medora, ND, adjacent to the Teddy Roosevelt National Park and on the Maah-Daah-Hey Mountain Bike route.   A call to the Dakota Cyclery confirms that they have one tire that will work.  Now how to get it from there to us? 

This is where one of the most amazing moments of the entire trip begins.

While Wes and I think about UPS or renting a car, Jennifer Morlock,  a founder, along with the husband Loren, of Dakota Cyclery, says, “Let me make a few calls to see if anyone is driving over to Glendive and can bring you the tire.”   We decide we better get a place from which to solve this problem.  I call 5 or six motels in town.  All are booked.  The last one, the lowest rated, I finally call.  It has a room.  It will have to do.

We walk my bike from the industrial outskirts, over the Yellowstone River, to the discombobulating and dusty downtown.  Far from the green oasis we had envisioned, this is a town cut into sections by the freeway, the river, and the railroad.    It feels beat-up and hard-used.  On the way to the motel, we get a call from Jennifer.  She has found someone who will deliver the tire to us:  Andrew Gilchrist, a Briton who now lives in Red Lodge, MT and is driving through Glendive on his way home after participating in a mountain bike race.  He would be able to bring it to us the next afternoon.

The Glendive Inn used to be nice, but is now probably a few weeks from closing.  There is just one young man on staff and he is reception, and housekeeping, and everything.  There are a few customers, but there are dirty towels in the hallway and doors open to unmade rooms.  The flustered young man explains that the day shift of housekeepers didn’t come in today, but if we can wait a few moments, he will make a room up for us.  He disappears, leaving the front desk without staff, much to the chagrin of a customer who is angry about his remote.  When I ask the desk clerk what’s happening, he tells me that the sprinkling system failed a while ago, and did hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage.  The owners can’t operate without a sprinkler system and have been told by the health department they have 90 days to repair.  The owner can’t get a loan to refurbish this older facility downtown (even though two new big motels are being built on the outskirts.)  The inn is limping by until….probable closing and even more damage to fabric of downtown.

We walk out to the café on the freeway where we will meet Andrew.  It is full of oil field workers and construction workers.   Even though Glendive is more than 100 miles from Williston and Sidney, it is full of young and old men, often in clumps of crews, hurriedly eating and not talking to anyone else.  I came of age in a boomtown and recognize the vibe.

We have a nice visit with Andrew Gilchrist, originally of Manchester, England, now of Marietta, Georgia and Red Lodge, MT.  He runs an eco-tourism business in Central and South America and is an avid cyclist.  We are agog to hear his story of organizing a yearly ride from Red Lodge to Jackson, WY—in ONE DAY.  This is a ride over the Bear Tooth and Sylvan Passes, through Yellowstone—a distance of 250 miles.  It takes them about 18 hours.  I ask if he is a masochist.  He just laughs.

We thank him hardily for the delivery of the tire and make our way back to our sad motel.  With a certain amount of trouble we get the tire on, then use the remaining time in Glendive to re-supply.  (Wes gets new underwear and socks.  Woot! I get new support knee socks.  Yay!)

The kindness of Jennifer and Andrew are just the beginning of this amazing tale….. To Be Continued…

 

posted from Moorhead, MN

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

 

T+63: Harvest on the Hi-line, Part 2

Mile 1810: DICKINSON, ND

We have had a number of adventures during the last week or so, but I wanted to finish telling the story of the Hi-Line, even though we left that country 5 days ago. 



Empty land on the Hi-Line

After our stop in Galada, we make our way to the town of Shelby.  On the way, we pass the Sweet Grass Mountains, three large anomalous buttes in the north, seeming unattached to the landscape.  They are on our left all morning, and we are interested to learn that they were revered as places to conduct vision quests.  In Shelby, we go into the coffee stop and the family there is quite surprised.  95% of their business is through the window.  Inside there is the owner grandma, her daughter and husband, teenage son, three little kids and a dog, occupying every available chair.  When they realize we want to sit, the dad and teenager leave and grandma scoots the kids away.  It is not long until the kids and dog are back, and I am getting them overexcited, playing tug of war with the miniature Australian shepherd.  I am always delighted when we encounter animals as I really miss Louie, Mimi, and Spike at home in Detroit.  The town has prominent anti-meth signs, but feels pretty healthy and solid.  When we park the bikes and go in the café, we have several conversations.  The same occurs when we go in the little restaurant. One fellow puts down his paper, scoots over three seats at the counter and asks us about our travels.

We camp that night in the city park in Hingham, which is a tiny town that has closed its beautiful three story brick school.  It still maintains its lush town square park on a volunteer basis, where it also offers free camping to all comers.  There is one café/bar/RV park in town.  We make our way there and meet Mike, the owner, who looks like Bob Seger’s younger brother.  He is a former 5^th grade teacher and has taken long distance bicycle tours.  He and Wes immediately get into teacher talk.  (In my experience, all teachers everywhere want to talk to other teachers about teaching.  It is sort of like a survivors’ society.)  He was often the only man in the building in the small towns where he taught.  Eventually he was promoted to management, which he hated.  He lasted a year or so, and decided he would rather own his business.  Among other things, his business caters to the traveling bicyclist.  He gives us a wooden nickel for a free drink at his establishment, with the instructions to give it a touring bicyclist heading west.  He says he does this all the time and it is amazing how many of the wooden nickels make it back to him.

We cruise into the piercingly hot city of Havre, which serves as the de-facto capital of the Hi-line.  Wes tells me a story I have never heard.  This is a rarity in our marriage.  As a high school student, he hitchhiked here from his hometown of Jackson, WY.  At the time, he thought all of Montana was mountains, and was shocked at the dry, dusty town.  There is a small mountainous range south of Havre called Bear Paw Mountains, but they are covered with scrub juniper and cedar.  Even though they are called the Little Rockies, they are a far cry from the pine-scented highlands of the west.  We decide to push on to the little town of Chinook on the Milk River. 

It is well into the 90’s as we make our way to the Chinook Motel.  I use my phone for the first time to listen to RadioLab podcasts and this helps the miles go by quicker.  I wonder why I hadn’t thought of that earlier.   About 5 miles from Chinook, a bicycle tourist crosses the highway to talk to us.  (Mostly we just wave at our fellow travelers as they go by.)  He warns us of the hard travels ahead, tells us of incredible mosquitos at Saco, and asks us about the route ahead.  We tell him he is just four days from the mountains and he almost cries.  The long miles from Bar Harbor, Maine are wearing on him, and the last 10 days of no trees, high temperatures, and limited services are wearing him out.  I regret not giving him the wooden nickel.  He could have used the encouragement and the cold beer.

At the Chinook Motel, not only was the hotel clerk exceptionally kind and competent, we meet the first installment of men’s coffee klatches that will become a regular feature of the next section.  This group says they are the unofficial Town Council, that “they give ‘m lots of counsel, that nobody ever takes.”   The same four grey-haired guys, with the farm implement baseball hats, and Wrangler jeans, are there again the next morning.  In café after café for the next few hundred miles, we see versions of this, but we do not see groups of women anywhere and wonder where they congregate.  Or if they do.

As we traveled the Hi-Line, we were really struck by how out-going and friendly the people were.  The route goes in and out of several Native American reservations.  The first one after the Blackfeet Reservation is the Fort Belknap, where we visit the tiny town of Harlem.   This is another railroad town, with the requisite grain elevator and businesses lining the tracks, but it is also on the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre reservation.  We stop to get a milkshake (an indulgence only permissible when cycling 50 miles a day.)  The shop is equally staffed by blonde Germanic or Swedish types or tall leggy or barrel chested Native Americans).  We have a long conversation with a barrel chested fellow who asks about our trip.  We end up talking about adventures in general, and he tells me of a horse trip he and group from the reservation took from Calgary to the Black Hills.  That must be at least 800 miles by horse.  They did not use wagons and they needed to change horses every 30 miles or so.  They were retracing the historic homelands via horse.   That’s a lot of horses and a lot of logistics.

The days are hot and we tarried too long at Harlem, so we attempted to stop at picnic grounds at Fort Belknap, only to eaten alive by mosquitos.  I stopped for just a few moments and looked down to see my calf covered by at least 50 mosquitos.  We decide to push on, perhaps foolishly.  We are way out in a desert-y landscape.  Gone are the wheatfields and we are crossing rough highlands until we come to the Milk River.  To make matters worse, we are cycling into a hot headwind. 

We plug along, going through our water at a fast clip.  We stop about 8 miles outside of Dodson, under one of the very few trees we have seen in miles.   We are running out of energy, so we need to re-fuel.  We eat our apple and a bit of cheese, dole out the last bit of water to ourselves, and slap the jillions of mosquitos which materialize out of the desert. 

Eight miles on a good day is hardly anything, but in a state of increasing dehydration and fighting a strong wind, it is very difficult.  We had left a message on the answering machine of our next lodging, but of course, I have no service, so there is no way to know whether we have a place or not.  Our map says that there is a store in Dodson.  We are so dehydrated and hot, we think we better get some liquid before riding out of town to the small ranch B & B where we are staying.  In the tiny town, we can find nothing.  So we turn straight into the wind and ride a few more miles.

When we knock on the door, there is a long while until it is answered.  We are almost desperate.  Finally, our hostess, Sandy appears and asks us in.  We immediately drink two full pitchers of water and full pitcher of ice tea.  We must have looked like something the cat drug in: completely sweat soaked and dusty.  This was one of those moments where a shower feels like a gift from God.

She is a garrulous former social worker, who has had a very who has had a very varied life.  The house is on land her grandparents homesteaded, but she has lived and worked in Malaysia, California, Arizona and more.  She offers to take us to the next town for dinner, but we demur.  She then offers to cook us salmon, which we again turn down.  She proceeds to make herself some for herself, but gets so caught up in her storytelling that she burns the salmon, and completely smokes up her newly and beautifully renovated kitchen.  She just laughs it off and goes on with one hair-raising story after another.  Being a social worker with a territory of over 300 square miles took her into lots of difficult driving and people situations.  She confirms that meth is rampant and has been since her first encounter with it in the 1980’s.

The next morning, after a restful sleep in the western antique filled house, she prepares us breakfast, and again gets so caught up with talking that there is very nearly another cooking disaster.  As it was, the sausage I ate (but Wes did not) was crispy hard on the outside and pink on the inside.  This is a fact which has an impact later.

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Posted from Bismarck, ND

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

T+55: We Leave the Mountains

Mile 1422: Chinook, MT

After leaving the home of the Snyders’, we travel up US 2 to Columbia Falls.  It is a fairly busy, four-lane road, but it has wide shoulders and is pretty flat, so we scoot along.  About eight miles outside of town, there is an old gold Dodge truck parked in the shoulder.  We check to make no cars are coming and move into the lane to pass the truck.  As I go by, I see that there are people in the truck.   Something is obviously wrong.

I go up to the driver’s window on the truck to ask if they need help. There are two young people inside and the young woman wakes up, startled, but has the presence of mind to ask if I have a cell phone.  I go around to the passenger side.  A young, handsome, Native American male, shakes awake.  I pull out my cell phone and hand it to him.  He is unfamiliar with the workings of my Windows Phone, and cannot get the numbers in, so I end up entering the numbers.  While all this is going on, they explain that they ran out of gas at 3 a.m. the night before, and had been sleeping in the truck until they could get some help.  While he tries to get someone in Columbia Falls to come bring them some gas, I have chance to get a good look at them and make small talk.

The driver is a young woman, quite small and slender, with tousled blonde hair. She has big hazel eyes, deeply sunk into her sallow face.  When she smiles at me, she has a pretty, orthodontically correct grin, but it is marred by the tell-tale black edges of heavy meth use. She is probably 25.  He is shirtless, and his smooth chest has numerous scars and scrapes.  His smile is not yet marked by black, but his eyes are not focusing correctly.  He cajoles his correspondent to bring him some gas, “C’mon man, I’m just out here by the airport…just bring me some gas, ok?”  It is clear that the person on the other end is reluctant, but eventually agrees to bring them some gas.

Hearing that someone is coming to help them, we take our leave, and wish them well. They thank us effusively.  As we pedal, we ponder.  The truck ran out of gas in a fairly busy area.  There are gas stations and phones within easy walking distance.  It is well after 10 am, so they have been in that truck for more than 7 hours.  We speculate that they ran out of gas, then ran out of high at about the same time, and just fell asleep there.  We wonder if we are being unfair.  We don’t understand why they didn’t leave the truck to make a call, or walk to town, or do anything to change their situation.

When we get to Columbia Falls, and stop to update the blogs, we encounter more signs of rampant meth. Wes watches, in horror, while one young man who appears to be the brother of young woman, attempts to get her to eat something and then get in the truck with him.  She is cadaverous and wild; he is doing all he can to stay calm and not make a scene. 

Here we are at the gateway to Glacier Park.  There are scads of vacationers, recreation vehicles, trailers---families out for a final hurrah before school begins.   They pass by, fully self-enclosed, most likely oblivious to the street level destruction taking place around them.

The bike route takes us off busy Highway 2 to a back way to West Glacier.  As we ride along, we realize that this is very route that we had taken into Columbia Falls, years ago, when we had taken our wonderful Great Parks tour.  On that trip, we traveled from Jasper, Alberta to Yellowstone.  We went the back way through Glacier.  It was one of the most trying, but ultimately wonderful parts of trip.  We laugh and re-tell our stories of the rain and the train in the deer graveyard, having to hoist our bicycles over a giant scree pile, following the bear, and then finally passing into huge magnificent, empty mountain valleys where the only noise is the greeting call of a giant bald eagle.

This route ultimately turns away from the back country and through a hidden little housing development, then turns to gravel right at the confluence of the west and middle branches of the Flathead River.  We pause and look at the many, many people coming off their float and fishing trips right at this point.  A few more miles and we are back at the roaring traffic on Highway 2.  Our bad timing has us going to Glacier on one of the last weekends before school starts.  It is busy, so we better find a place to camp, and soon. 

Most of the campgrounds are full, but we happen to see one that says, “ RV Campground Full, Tents Only.”  It advertises something called a “Backcountry Bistro”.   It is a hard climb up to the site, but when we get there, we are very tickled.  It is run by two no-nonsense middle aged women, who from their accents and demeanor, could be Jewish matrons from Brooklyn.  They deal with a never-ending stream of vacationers, “How was your trip…oh you drove from Medicine Hat…that’s a long drive… you must be tired…well let us get you into your site.  It’s a good one.  You’ll have lots of trees.  Do you know where the restrooms are…”  Unlike so many campgrounds, there are flowers, a commons room with magazines and thoughtful seating arrangements around the children’s play area.  Attentive womanly touches. 

Although we are perched on a hill, and completely surrounded by other campers, there is privacy and it is a good camp.  Wes and I make our way to the bistro.  Wes says he is looking forward to being inside and that is one of the things he has discovered on this trip.  We laugh when we see the “bistro” is a bunch of picnic tables under a wood awning.  There is an open kitchen at the end.  The menu is pure Southern food.  We choose the catfish, grits, and greens.  They apologize profusely and tell us they couldn’t get the greens this week: would a salad do?  The food is delicious, if surprising, in very northern Montana.  Back at our campsite, I play my penny whistle and visit with the 70 year old New Yorkers who have come for the umpteenth time to backpack into the backcountry of Glacier.  I am filled with admiration at their gumption.

The next day, we are up early to begin our push over Marias Pass, which will take us over the Continental Divide and end our mountain sojourn.  Traveling in the mountains and trees, which have been doing pretty much since we left Portland, has been both beautiful and challenging.  We have been traveling very slowly and can see the time ticking away.  Once we cross this Continental Divide, we enter the miles and miles of the Great Plains.  We know the terrain will be easier, but it will probably be some of the hardest miles of the journey.  We are ready, but also nervous.

Marias Pass is the lowest pass on the divide at only 5200 feet.  We climb steadily, but fairly easily from West Glacier.  Through the park, there are minimal shoulders and it is not very pleasant.  We are following the Flathead River and seeing lots of floaters and fishers.   When we stop for lunch, we are warned to stop at the Halfway House in Essex.  If we leave there, we will be committed to make the rest of the pass without stopping as there are no services.  When we get there, it is still early afternoon.  We know we do not have the wherewithal to go another 20 miles over a pass.  There are no rooms at the motel, so they let us camp in their backyard.  We hang out in the restaurant, visit with the locals and travelers.  We are worried at how slow we have been traveling.

 

We got to Whitefish on Wednesday.  It is now Saturday: as the crow flies, we have only come about 50 miles.  This is not good.  The next morning, we are up early, have a hellacious climb out of the Flathead Valley, then a completely smooth and rideable, if long and uphill, amble to the Continental Divide.  We take the mandatory pictures and expect a big downhill to East Glacier.  No, the ride down is like the ride up.  There are no long coasts.  In fact, there are a variety of big hills. 

We make to East Glacier and decide to stay in the last Glacier Park Hotel, one of the grand edifices in the “Parkitecture” style.  We revel at the lobby with its twenty-four 40 foot Douglas Fir pillars, but are not so pleased with the high-priced, but less than average food, and the general lack of amenities and service in the expensive, old fashioned room.  We are not surprised when we read in the local paper that the concessionaire will be replaced in the next season.

When we climb out of the valley, we stop at look back at the mountains which rim the skyline from north to south.  Wes sings, once again, “So long, it’s been good to know you…”  We face the treeless east and push on.

***********
Posted from Saco, MT

T+49: Damn These Roads

Mile 1184: Camping in the yard of Halfway House Motel, Essex, Montana

Section 2: Northern Tier Route we're following

NOTE: The dateline reflects the place where I am write the blog-post.  Usually the blog-post is telling of events that happened a few days earlier.  For instance, today I will write about our life threatening ride into Whitefish, MT, which happened three nights ago.  There is also often a lag between writing and posting, both for editing and getting to a WiFi hotspot.  We go over Marias Pass tomorrow and will probably not have either phone or internet until we get to Cutbank, MT.

*****

After we leave Eureka, we have a 50 mile ride to Whitefish, MT, where we hope to connect to my niece Kelsey, before heading into Glacier National Park.  We are coming to the end of our mountain and trees sojourn.  When we cross the Continental Divide, we will soon enter a whole new ecosystem, the Great Plains of the United States.  It is true that the terrain will become less demanding, but we are nervous about miles and miles without shade.   It has been an exceptionally cool August so far in the Northern Plains, with temperatures in the 80’s instead of the 90’s.  We hope and pray that pattern holds for a few more weeks.

The ride to Whitefish is really good.  We are noticeably stronger.  Hills that would daunt us in the beginning are now chugged right up.  Our endurance, strength, and wind can now get us up hills we previously would have had to walk.  I continue to be faster than Wes, but with the changes on his bike (better tires, better free-wheel gearing), he is mostly keeping up with me.  He attributes it to my bike.  I attribute it to my more strategic riding…and my bike. (to be fair)

50 miles through hilly terrain is just at the edge of our capacity, so when we come to within 5 miles of Whitefish, we are already pretty tired.  We have been following the Stillwater River, which turns south right before Whitefish.  That means we have a big, twisty saddle ride up in order to change drainages into the Whitefish River.  Somehow, we didn’t perceive this essential fact as we were planning the day’s ride.

Whitefish used to be a small ranching town, but in the past 30 years, it has become a tony skiing and western lifestyle destination.  That means that we start to see big fancy estates the closer we get to town.  One would think that the increase in tax base would mean that roads would improve.  But that would be wrong.  The minute we cross into Flathead County, the two foot wide shoulder on the road, where we have been riding, becomes a sporadic 6” shoulder.  This isn’t fun at all, but at least there is clearance on the side of the road.  Also, the road is fairly straight, so vehicles can plan how and when they will pass the bicyclists gingerly riding their bikes at the edge of the road.

Things take a terrible turn for the worse at the beginning of the climb out of the Stillwater Valley.  The road narrows, and begins winding.  At the same time, the shoulder disappears completely.   In fact, the edge of the road is now a full 4 to 6 inches above the surrounding land.   Often that edge has deteriorated, so that the white line doesn’t even exist anymore.  As the road winds, the edge is either a cliff going down, or a cut into the hill.  This means that an error in riding will send us off the 4 inch ledge, which will either throw us off the cliff or into the cut, which would make us fall into traffic.  

As luck would have it, we are arriving in Whitefish near 5pm.  There is a lot of traffic, and it is moving fast.  One of the anomalies of Montana is that for years it did not have a speed limit.  Finally, the federal government forced the state to post speeds, but many Montanans disregard the posted speed as a mandatory political statement. 

We are climbing, slowly, steep hills with big, blind curves, and no shoulders and no escape routes.  It is terrifying.   Some cars and trucks refuse to move over.  Some can’t move over because of oncoming traffic.  We are incredibly exposed.  At one point, I try to ride in the soft gutter going down the mountain.  Wes is ahead of me, attempting to wave the traffic down as he pedals as fast as he can, occasionally yelling, “Hey, there are people here!” 

We are climbing a steep ridge.  I am pedaling as fast as I can, but I am winded and tired.  A big silver Dodge truck is right behind me.  The driver is impatient.  Just as we turn the corner and approach the parking lot for the Stillwater Fish restaurant, the driver guns the engine and I am forced to jump, yes, actually jump my bike and BOB across the gutter into the parking lot.  The truck misses me by less than 6 inches. 

I am left shaken and emotionally overwrought by this experience, but there are still miles to go to get to the town.  There is one small spot, just outside where a fancy subdivision has gone in, where there is a shoulder.   Wes pulls over and I go up to him and begin weeping in his arms.  At that very moment, he sees a big lumber truck approaching and fearful that my bike is too far out in the road, tries to drag me out its way.  Our bikes are tangled with each other, I don’t know what he is doing, so this only adds to the trauma and confusion.

I am still crying as we continue climbing up and over this saddle.  Where I am shaken and weepy, Wes is ANGRY.  He takes his bike into the lane and signals furiously for cars to slow down.  “WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE HERE!”  he yells.  Finally, there is one more big downhill before we turn off to the state park where will make our camp.  There is no shoulder along with a hard edge, but the way is little wider.   I tell Wes I am afraid, and in his state, he yells at me.  He makes his way down with no traffic, but as I go down, a car zooms right up on me and barely avoids me at the last second.

When we turn to the state park, I am an emotional wreck.  I am shaking and weeping.  When we get to the gate at the park, I tell the gatekeeper, apparently as the representative of all Montana government activities, that the road coming into town is terrible and that someone is going to get killed and that SOMEONE NEEDS TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.  He basically says, “Yeah, that and all the other construction that needs to be done…”

I am still doing that hiccup-y little crying thing when we get to the biker campsite.  It is completely taken up by other bikers, who have strewn their shorts, jerseys, tents, and sleeping bags everywhere, apparently in an attempt to dry them out after the rainstorm of the night before.  Wes would like me to stop with the emotional upset already… “It’s over, we’re fine…” but I am still in full trauma mode.  It takes us a good 30 minutes before we can set up the tent… outside the bounds of the site.  

We have a quiet, sort of sullen night, drinking tea and eating reconstituted powdered hummus.  We make arrangements to see our niece, her new-ish baby, and finally meet her husband the next day.  The next morning is a rough ride through heavy construction, where the entire road is being torn down to the dirt bed and the cars are traveling in single file.  We are relieved to get the restaurant, which is right at the end of the construction.  

A new chapter begins as we re-connect with family and take care of quite a few chores.  The traumas of the previous day, while not gone, are yesterday’s news.  That is the reality of a road trip.  Each day is its own self, with its own blessings and sometimes terrifying and traumatic curses.

 

*****

Posted from Cutbank, MT

T+47: A Stormy, Stormy Night

Mile 1122:  Between Whitefish and Kalispell, MT: Snyder household, home of our niece, Kelsey

The bathtub of Lake Koocanusa
 

We left Koocanusa Resort well before sunrise, afraid that we would burn out from the sun, as we had the day before.  We need our jackets and are cycling well.  It is 48 miles to the little town of Eureka, where Wes lived 40 years ago.  He has been looking forward to going back and we have been thinking a lot about what this Canadian border town has meant to us. 

Koocanusa Reservoir stretches 80 miles of the Kootenai River (well into Canada) and was one of the last big dams built by the US Army Corps of Engineers.  It had been a beautiful, rather large mountain river, sacred to the Kalispell people.   The dam is several hundred feet high, which means that the road on either side of reservoir had to be carved into the living rock, and that the bank is a hard edge.  There are none of the wetlands, beaches, deltas, or even rocky points that would be typical of a natural lake. 

Mile after mile we ride, cut rock cliffs to our right, a line of trees to our left, and an occasional glimpse of hard-edged water below.  For reasons we cannot fathom, the road climbs several hundred feet above the reservoir, then swoops down to 50 feet above the reservoir, over and over.  It never goes to the water, and other than going down to cross the occasional incoming stream, we cannot understand why it keeps going up and down, up and down.   After going thirty miles with what feels like pointless changes in elevation, we are cursing the road designers, the Forest Service, and whoever thought an 80 mile bathtub was a good idea.  There are no services, few turnouts, and a kind of relentless tiring tedium. 

We are very pleased when we finally leave the bathtub to head east and go the town of Eureka.  There a series of steep ups and downs, in traffic, with no shoulder to get into town, and we are hot and tired when we pull in.  Wes and I had visited Eureka in the early 1980’s, when we took a hitchhiking tour of the US.  It was a nearly dead lumber town at that time; the lumber mill that had employed Wes in the 1970’s was long gone.  We don’t know what to expect 30 years later.

As we entered the town from the north, Wes keeps saying, “I don’t recognize any of this.”  When we finally get into the older part of the town, we are stunned.  There are galleries, massage therapy businesses, sushi, and yoga places.  We stop at an eatery that had been the only restaurant in town 30 years ago.   We find out that original Eureka Café was closed, but then the daughter of the former sawmill owner (Wes’ former boss) had reopened it as a retro chic diner.   At one gallery we visit, the shopkeeper says, “Oh yeah, if it weren’t for the Canadians, this town would be dead.”  They come here to shop and for recreation.  An automatic 15% discount on taxes, and a favorable exchange rate means great bargains for them.

We go set up camp in the little town park where Wes’ life changed.  He had just lost his job at the lumber mill, and was camping out, trying to figure out his next move.   He saw an older man, riding a bike with saddlebags, come down the hill into town.  He ended up at the same little park.  Wes had a long conversation with this former City University of New York  (CUNY) professor who left his position to go explore America.  It was 1973.  The talk stretched into the night, and the next morning, Wes loaded his tent, sleeping bag and what-all into a backpack, and rode off with Bob Rowe, to ride across America.   Traveling with this odd genius was Wes’ personal tutorial.  Years later, when I heard Wes’ stories of these travels, I fell in love with him and knew I had at last met my traveling companion.

I had gone up to the main street to go to a thrift store.  On the way back, I followed a young man riding on a much too small bike, who went to a small tent set up next to ours in the community park.  As it turns out, he was an economic refugee, out of a job, staying in the park, trying to figure out what to do.  I lent him a tool to raise his bike seat; he immediately broke the tool.  He offered to trade me a screwdriver for the broken bike tool, with the caveat that he had no money. I didn’t want his tool, but incident does encourage him to work on the bike and make it work better and fit him better. 

He said, “I rode this bike over 150 miles to get here, hoping I can find something.”  Over the next hours, as he smokes cigarette after cigarette, he tells us of his efforts to find a job and a place to live.  A friend of his has cabin he can stay in, but he can’t find the friend, and any way the cabin doesn’t have either heat or electricity.  He seems quite beaten down by his experience, almost rudderless, not quite at-- but not far from-- desperate.  We ask if he has tried in Williston, ND, the famous oil shale boomtown.  He tells us a story being hired as a subcontractor there to paint modular school rooms, only to have the contractor pocket the whole fee and never pay them.  “I thought I’d come back to Montana, where at least people tell ya’ the truth.”  A local couple from town bring him some food and drink, and offer some suggestions about where he could get work.  He offers reasons why their suggestions won’t succeed.

That night, we secure everything and go to bed early.  In the middle of the night, we are awakened by someone hollering.  “Yo, yo, yo”  then “Hey, I’m yellin’ as loud as I can.”   At first we think it is our hard-luck neighbor, but then realize it is coming from a different part of the park.  After the ruckus goes on for a while, Wes decides to go investigate.  Across the park, Wes sees a youngish man, staggeringly drunk, reeling about, trying unsuccessfully to put up a tent.  Apparently, he was trying to rouse the other campers to get some help.  Very shortly afterward, a truck pulls up and we hear the voice of a young woman. “Mike, Mike, c’mon.  Get in the truck.  C’mon Mike, get in truck.”  After a bit of back and forth, Mike finally relents and off they go.  There is no sign of Mike or his failed camp making the next morning.

Before we can fall back asleep, a big storm blows in bringing strong winds and lashing rains.  Our tent with a full rain fly holds tight, even though it leans crazily in the gusts.  The next morning, we see our neighbor’s tent has not fared so well.  Although it is standing, it is clear that its tiny rain fly only kept part of the rain out.  We guess his sleeping bag and clothes must have gotten wet.  We tuck a little cash in his bike bottle rack.   We hope he buys groceries.  We take our leave while he gently snores.  We are not the people that will change his life, but we hope that someone rides down that hill and does.