Yin and Yang

From: September 28, Castrojerez, Spain

About: September 22, 2016--Pamplona and the Hill of Forgiveness

After our lovely stay at the Iriguibel Sercotel in Uharte, we return to the Camino and almost immediately face a choice: follow the Camino on busy suburban and urban streets, or follow the shaded Riverwalk on the River Arga all the way to town.  Despite the extra 5 km, we choose the river and don’t regret it all.

It is a Sunday morning; there are lot people meandering, skating, walking their dogs,  pushing their kids in strollers.  Lot of bikes go by …pelotons of speeding racers in logo drenched jerseys and shorts, families on comfort bikes, sweating weekend warriors on mountain bikes.

The greenway links numerous parks on which 3 features stand out, like the number of parks which have extensive community gardens. In addition, Spaniards are mad for handball and its Basque variation, pelota. All but the tiniest of towns has a semi-enclosed handball court. We also walk by 4 big public swimming complexes, with indoor and outdoor pools, slides, and wading pools. As the day heats up, the crowds at these pools grow and grow.

Finally, after about 6 miles, we are nearing the center of Pamplona. We need to cross the river and go up a steep bank to get to the city center. The riverwalk continues, but right at the junction of the biggest garden, and another swim complex, I spot a stepping stone pathway across the river leading to a traverse  up the hill.

We are right under a 17th century garrison and steeling ourselves for a climb in the hot midday sun
I see a family of swimmers appear through double glass doors not connected to any building. Upon closer inspection, it is an elevator to the top of the bluff. Well, all right..

Upon exiting  the elevator, we walk  past the ramparts overlooking the river and are surprised to learn that these too are the work of the estimable and ubiquitous Monsieur Vaubon. Just past the barricades, we walk around the most of the circumference of the world famous and disappointingly active bull fighting ring, where big red and blue banners advertise past and future events.

We make our way through the city, where everything but the bars, cafes, and churches are closed. The many squares are full of people. There are quite a few times when we have to make our way through crowds. With our backpacks, walking sticks, and walking clothes, I feel like the world’s biggest mark. In Camino-lore, Pamplona has a well-deserved reputation for pick -pockets, so we keep our wits and our wallets about ourselves.

We go deeper and deeper into old Pamplona, past the ritzy shopping districts, past the tourist- thronged antiquities, past the sensible shops of the Calle Mercaderes until we find the “street” of our lodging.  Down a street no wider than a narrow alley, the establishments and the patrons seem downright seedy.

When we find our “gastropub,” where no one is eating, the chunky, short-haired bartender greets us enthusiastically, while also giving us the once over.    He grabs a set of keys, and hustles us outside to an adjacent door.  Just before he opens the door, her grabs a young blonde woman with long, frowsy hair, leather jacket and tottering boots, and gives her an enormous, full-on kiss on the mouth.  He lets go of her without a word between them and takes us into a narrow hall, up a flight of stairs to gathering room in which numerous four foot tall bags of laundry are thrown in the corner.

The whole thing seems shady and weird. We agree, then immediately worry when we pay for the room with our credit card.  The bartender gives us a key and tells us our room is #10 upstairs,  “Arriba!  Arriba!” he says, pointing up.

We start climbing the narrow, turning stairs.   1 flight,  2 flights, 3 flights—5 flights to an utterly bereft and charmless room.  Dull grey walls, two small single beds, a flat screen TV, and a small bathroom with a small window overlooking the neighbors’ cracked tiles and hanging laundry.  We have stayed in hermitages with more personality and better amenities.

Well, no matter.  We will be gone tomorrow. We spend the evening exploring the town, trying and failing to find the open Carrefour's supermarket.  My mapping app kept saying it was right by us, but several circles of the area never reveal it.

It was getting toward dark and even the pubs were beginning to close. We stop for a bite not far from our  “D-luxe accommodations” and ask the Basque bartender about the Basque name for the city.  He tells us “only Castilians (said with disgust) and tourists call it Pamplona. To the real people, it is Iruña.”

As we return to our lodging, we see the same frowsy blonde with the leather jacket and towering heels wobbling down our gloomy street.  She is very high or very drunk and is being followed by a thuggish fellow who is whistling repeatedly at her. Two creeps up the street watch this scene with amusement. It hits me this young woman is probably a prostitute.

We climb the stairs to our cell, noting there would be no escape if this old building caught on fire. As far as we can tell, we are the only people in the building.  Finally at the fifth floor, we lock ourselves in, then watch bad Spanish television until we are sleepy.  Around 11:30pm, we hear people coming into the building.  Raucous voices filter up the stairs.  There’s all kinds of activity, doors opening and closing, people shouting—well into the night.  I listen and worry. Wes manages to sleep with help of  sleep mask and earplugs.

The next morning, we are out of there as soon as possible.   There is no sign of life in the lower floors, except an abandoned, not quite empty, cognac bottle in the hall.  We are glad to leave and can’t agree whether this was a house of prostitution or not.  Shaun: yes.  Wes: maybe.

We make our way to the new part of town with its stacks of apartments and wide streets.  We drink coffee in the morning sun and look west to the big ridge on the horizon—El Alto del Perdon (Hill of Forgiveness).  We will be glad to return to the quiet by-ways and highways of rural Spain.

We follow the trail out of town, past a few small towns with their red tile roofs and pelota courts and city wells.  It is full hot now and our climb over the ominously named ridge has begun.  Under the shade of a tree, Wes is visiting with the same Asian group we had seen the other day.  As I arrive, a rangy dog with a full loaf of bread in his mouth runs through the group, then stops in a newly plowed field to devour his purloined breakfast.

The group, three of whom are from Taiwan, and the other from Korea, ask us to sit, but fearing our legs will seize up if we stop, we trudge on.  The hill is steep, the path rocky, and the sun hot. We move from one shady spot provided by overhanging brambles to another. 

Up ahead, we can see bands of new apartment blocks lining the ridge. It looks like a desolate place to live, even though it has good views of the valley below.  We stop for a moment and watch the trucks and traffic disappear into a tunnel under the ridge.  That seems like a better idea than sweating our way up the Hill of Forgiveness.  At least in the short term.

Up the hill in the heat, Pamplona in the distance

When we enter the little town near the crest of the ridge, red-faced pilgrims are sprawled in whatever shade they can find.  Some offer their beers in toast to our effort. It is not long before we have one as well, to raise to the next overheated climber.

We don't tarry, however. The sun is not going to get less fierce.  So it’s the classic 25 steps, breathe, 25 more assault on the summit.  We are welcomed to the land of rock, wind, and windmills  by a large iron sculpture and multiple signs donated by the movie The Way. 

Just over the top, a skinny,  smoking blonde peers out from a food trailer that must have been hell to pull up to this desolate spot. Nearly every pilgrim rushes over to by something cool to eat or drink.
Before us, a new valley and the end of the Basque homelands. 

The climb down is as hard as the way up.  The path is a tumble of fist-sized rocks which roll beneath our feet. We gingerly place each pole on the steep decline, and try not to slip, each step smacking our tender toes.

We have just a few kilometers to our next lodging, the aptly named Refugio del Perdon. After presenting our dusty, stinking selves at reception, we are soon whisked away in a small SUV to a new apartment block just up the hill.  In the door, our young host shows us around.  Here is the fully equlped communal kitchen, here the attached eating and sitting room, beyond is an enclosed back yard.  Up a couple of flights of stairs, here is our room: Queen bed, wooden furniture, a loveseat and coffee table, a big bathroom with whirlpool bath, shower, bidet, and toilet.  Out on our private balcony, the  reds and golds of a desert twilight begin to glow.

After washing ourselves and our clothes, we walk back down to the inn for our dinner. We share a table with three Norwegian women and two American women from Tucson, Arizona. The Arizonans have just completed their first day and are a bit shell shocked by the heat and the difficulty.  The Norwegians are on holiday, eating, drinking and walking sans backpacks from Roncesvalles to Logroño. 

The food is simple but good, the wine exceptional, and the conversation stellar.  We laugh and talk about work and life and politics until all the other tables are cleared and the staff is standing there, rag in hand, staring at us. We take the hint, and go our separate ways.

Back at our deluxe accommodations, we have to laugh at the yin and yang of our lodging adventures.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring.  Lo veria.  We'll see.
                                                                                            

Pamplona Riverwalk with stork nest and community gardens

T+71: Dash across North Dakota, Part 1

Mile 2180: MOORHEAD, MN

After the difficulties, delays, and delights at the borderlands between Montana and North Dakota, both Wes and I are worried about time slipping by.   We plan to leave our lovely room in Medora around 6 am.  We climb out of the bottom of the badlands and travel about 12 miles to the incredible view at the Painted Desert viewpoint, when we hear a beep.beep.beeping of a car.  We turn to look and it is Terrie and Ricki, our original benefactors, coming to say goodbye and wish us well.  We exchange numbers and emails and hugs.  They drive off and we press on.

The route has us riding Interstate 94, which is both fast and kind of hateful.  The shoulder is very wide, but there is lots of debris. It is amazing what we see along the sides of the road.  More cans and bottles that you can imagine.  All manner of dead animals, especially deer, raccoons, and countless birds.  I have been keeping count of the number of single shoes I see: 38 thus far.  As we pass the fields of corn, soybeans, and wheat, we are also crossing fields of grasshoppers.  Some seem suicidal, jumping into our rolling wheels.  We note that grasshoppers are cannibals and can be seen eating the carcasses of their brethren.  There are clothes, and bags, and innumerable cell phone bits.

At Dickinson, ND, a rapidly growing boomtown with a giant plastic land on its outskirts, we hang out in various fast food joints while we wait for the temperature to drop below 90 degrees.  We agonize whether to stay on the interstate or take the route through the farmland.   At around 5pm, with temperature still over 90 degrees, we come to a crossroads.  Do we stay on the somewhat hateful but fast interstate, or do take the scenic backroads which are more beautiful and interesting, but much more difficult.   As the founders of a theatre dedicated to the creation of new work, which do you think we take?  The unofficial motto of Matrix Theatre Company, as we jokingly say, is  “We do it the hard way.”  You know we took the scenic route, though we were tempted by the fast and ugly route.

We head out, over hill and dale.  It is Sunday, and we did not pick up any food in Dickinson, assuming we can stop in the little town of Taylor when we get there.  By the time we are ten miles out of Taylor, we are out of energy.  We count the miles to the little town. When we get the town itself, everything is closed.  It is still another 15 miles to the next stop, where we plan to stay.  Running on empty is a damn good way to lose weight.   As we approach the little town of Richardton, we see for miles a beautiful double spired granite church building.  It is a Benedictine Abbey, tall and elegant against the evening sky.  It seems out of place in this land of corn and sunflowers.  We find out later, much later, that the Abbey takes guests.  (We are jealous when we hear this.) We get to Richardton on a wing and prayer and pull into the only thing open in town: the local tavern.  The only food is frozen pizza, which tastes damn fine at this point in the game.

When we pull up to our motel, we are happy to note that it is next door to the Hamburger Butcher Shop.  It is not what you think.  The name of the family is Hamburger.  We were lucky enough to have dinner with them in a crowded restaurant back in Medora.  This was three generations of a family who described themselves as German Russians.  The wife’s family name was Gaab and they come from land now considered part of the Ukraine.  Apparently, this part of North Dakota attracted many people from that part of the world.  There are four people in this group, mother, daughter and husband, and their son, Truman Hamburger.  Truman is all of 9 years old, bright and verbal well beyond his years.  He tells us of his entomology classes and his day being a bat boy for the Minnesota Twins.  He is fascinated by our trip and asks more questions than his parents and grandmother would like. 

Right after we make our payment, we open the door and there is Truman. He saw us ride by and came running out to greet us.  He runs back to tell his parents, who stop by and who treat us to coffee the next morning.  As luck would have it, both times the Hamburgers come to visit, I am in the processing of changing clothes.  Wes has to do all the relationship building.  We exchange emails and promise to be Truman’s pen pal. 

After Richardton, we cycle through ups and downs, mostly facing a pretty stiff wind.  We see an outcropping of phragmites near a railroad crossing, the first view of this invasive species we have seen since leaving Michigan.  At the next restaurant, we warn the locals about this bane of a giant reed, but they don’t have the slightest idea what we are talking about.  I still feel I should write the North Dakota Department of Environment.

When we cross the freeway, both Wes and I decide we have had it, and that expeditious and easy has its purposes.  The ride on interstate 94 is tedious and noisy.  However, the long hills are moderated and evened out for truck traffic.  North Dakota is an ocean frozen in time.  The waves rise to the west in north/south undulations.  We pull up a big hill, scoot down the other side, over and over. 

It starts to rain.  Interstate bicycle riding is even less pleasant when being splashed by giant eighteen wheelers.  We are very happy to stop at New Salem, where the most remarkable feature is a 30 foot tall plastic dairy cow on a bluff.  The room is great; we have a nice visit with touring motorcyclists.

The next day is an epic run through deep valleys in sharper and sharper undulations as we enter the Missouri River valley.   The river is massive at this point.   The bike route takes us through a series of parks, golf courses, and wetlands.  We are so happy to be in shade, real shade from real trees, the first in many, many miles. 

 We have ridden 40 miles before breakfast (truly lunch by that point), so we decide to stay, despite the relatively short distance covered. We need to do some re-supplying.  We visit the local mall (a complete shock); I get new shoes.  We get a room at one of Bismarck’s landmark motels, The Ramkota.   This is a big fancy motel, circa 1968.  We enjoyed our stay immensely and wondered if it was being outcompeted by the plastic-land motels and suites that have grown up around it.

The next day is one of the most difficult of the bicycle trip.  It is HOT.   We leave Bismarck early and have fun for the first few hours.  The landscape is challenging and there are few services.  There will not be a place to get anything until the little town of Hazelton, some 45 miles from Bismarck.  When we turn on to highway 89, also known as the Lawrence Welk highway, the sun is blazing, we have drunk most of our water and we still have 12 miles to go. We going south, facing directly into the sun and hot wind. I can barely go and Wes is getting further and further ahead of me.  At one point, he looks back and cannot even see me.  He circles back to see me struggling along the highway, plugging away, but moving slowly.  It is tough going, but what is the choice?  All we can do is plug away. 

We have dreams of a sandwich and cold drink dancing in our heads.  We make it to town completely beat and find out Little’s Joe restaurant is closed.  At the grocery store, we drink several juices and eat ice cream and are thrilled to find out they make smoothies. (They make the best orange crème smoothies in the world.)  All sorts of people come over and check on us.  They ask about our trip, but really, I think they are worried about the two red-faced and sweaty bicyclists in their midst.

I am done in.  I feel dizzy and need to lay down. I go outside to rest on a bench.  A paunchy fellow with shorts pulled up well over his capacious belly comes and sits by me.  He is a retired earth science teacher.  He tells us that North Dakota is quite anomalous, both geographically and hydrologically.  For one thing, much of this state’s water drains, not to the Mississippi, but to Hudson Bay.  When we leave the high perch that is Hazelton, we leave the Missouri River drainage.  We will come across an ever increasing number of ponds, pools, and small lakes, many of which are not fed by surface water.  In fact, Devil’s Lake, in north central North Dakota, is completely fed by underground waters and even so, has risen several feet in the past few years.  The town is now below the surface of the lake, which is held back by dykes.   North Dakota, by rainfall alone, should be a desert, unable to grow wheat, much less corn and soybeans.  However, it sits on a layer of clay which holds the water and which is fed by underground waters.  This is what makes the miles and miles of cropland possible…and why North Dakota is so much more lush and green than South Dakota.

He tells us that the Bakken Field, the source of the huge boom on the west side of the state, has enough oil for 75 years and when that is done, they have discovered another pool of oil beneath that one.  He has no patience for wind or solar energy.   When we point out that this would be prime territory for both, he laughs and asks, “And what good would that do me in the middle of winter, eh?  Without batteries, the whole thing won’t work.”  About that time, an elderly neighbor interrupts our conversation and requests his assistance to back up her car.  Even though we have learned a lot, we are relieved when he goes to help her.

To Be Continued…

 

Posted from Milaca, 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+40: A Tale of Towns and Passes, Part 2

The coffee shop closes at 5pm, so we have to go.  It is still over 100 degrees.  We decide to make a quick shot to the next town, where there is a grocery store.    We push as fast as we can.   We pass through a landscape of rickety shacks, nice houses with watered lawns, industrial fruit farms with pickers’ cabins.  There are super skinny, burning-eyed young people all over the place.  We assume that these are some of the many “tweakers” mentioned by the barrista.

I make a wrong turn off the main highway, and we find ourselves in “Tweakerville”, suddenly having to push our bikes up a rough, dirt grade, in an neighborhood of beat up little houses with beat up old trucks, and old furniture, trash, and junk in the front yards.  We see a 7- 11 across the way and make our way to it, as fast we can.  We are panting and sweating profusely. 

Inside, we drink as much as we can, eat ice cream, take cold rags to our overheating bodies.  It is close to 6pm and there is a steady stream of working and poor people of European, Latino, and Native American ancestry coming in to buy beer and pop.   The store clerk commiserates with us about the heat and tells us that these temperatures usually don’t arrive until August, but lately they have been coming earlier and earlier.  He directs to the local Safeway, just up the hill.  It is still close to 100 degrees, even though it is after 7pm.    One guy takes a look at our bikes and trailers, and says, “That doesn’t seem to be a very good choice for riding today.”  What can we do but agree?

We dawdle in the store, pick up and write overdue condolence cards, talk to my mom on the phone, and otherwise kill time.   Just after 8 pm, the temperature is still 94 degrees, but we have to go.   There is a little campground on the Okanogan River we are trying to reach that evening.   As the shadows deepen, and the hills of the Okanogan Valley turn purple, we make our way to Margie’s RV Park and Pottery Barn Just before we cut down to the river, Wes yells “STOP!”  In the purpling light, he takes a short video of the ranch against the red canyon walls.

Riverside is a tiny town of just 350 people.  Susie has told me it is a little hippie enclave and so it seems, although it originally was the last place steamships could reach coming up the Columbia.  We get to the grassy, tiny, RV park, and are greeted by Margie’s daughter-in-law, an exceptionally skinny and obtuse 50 year old, who tells us, “No need to register, just give me the 14 bucks.”  We set up the tent, take a quick shower, and eat a bit in the dark.  We left Wilson and Susie’s 18 hours and a world ago.

The next morning, we are up before dawn to beat the heat. We cycle into the little town of Tonasket, through mile after mile of industrial fruit tree farms.  There are little breaks of pines, but mostly it is sagebrush desert or it is irrigated fruit farms.   We ponder the irony that many households in Portland, which must get 5 times the rain of the Okanogan valley, actively use xeriscaping to avoid watering their gardens and yards.  In this valley, sprinklers go constantly and every house that can creates a little English countryside with flowers and grass to fend off the sagebrush desert.  We wonder what the river would look like without the industrial tree farms and heavy duty watering.

At the first site of Shannon’s Fabulous Food and Espresso, under an enormous Catalpa tree, we both curve in.  While sitting there, we are just inches from a group of older European Americans.  We listen to their conversation, while pretending not to.   There is a long conversation about going to the casino on the nearby reservation.  One fellow notes, “They told me they collect the sales tax, like everybody else, but they use it to support the tribe.”  His compatriot snorts, “Yeah, more likely, buy the chief a Cadillac.”  They confer a bit more, and decide that the men will go to the casino, while their wives will go to the Walmart.  One notes, “Seems like the wife has got the car programmed to go the Walmart, every time we get close to Okan, we just turn right into the Walmart.”  We note that two of these folks leave in Cadillac Escalades. 

It is still morning, but too late to start the crossing of the next pass to the town on Republic.   We will have to spend the day. We ask about camping, and the waitress, says, “Stay here!  You can stay in the yard, and use the bathroom in the café.”  Without the map, and my phone dead again, we agree.  This proves to be a mistake.

I undertake a series of updates and repairs, while Wes reads at the whole food coop.  (This is typical for us.  I like projects; Wes likes stories.)  While tooling around town, and checking on Wes at the coop, I see that the town in split into three camps. 

There are the young alternative types, tattooed, pierced, and braided, teaching classes on permaculture, organizing and running the food coops, setting up massage and yoga parlors.  There are the industrial farmers in conservative haircuts, cotton plaid shirts tucked into pressed jeans, driving big American trucks.  Then there is a big group of young workers.  If they are Latino, they eat at the Mexican food trucks  outside in the heat.  There are also lots of skinny young men in beat up old trucks.   At the local dive bar, I have long conversation with a young man who had gone to school at Wyoming Tech to become a diesel mechanic.  Instead, he had become a fishing and hunting guide.   He used to take doctors and dentists from back East when he first started, but now “it’s all tech guys, geologists, and financiers.”  I am somewhat surprised to see him take a pinch of chewing tobacco as we talk.  It has been years since I saw someone “take a bite of snoose.”

We attend a perfectly awful concert of under-rehearsed and off-key bluegrass music in their lovely heritage park, where at least the people watching was good.  This is still the land of little dogs, which are welcome everywhere, including restaurants.  We are tickled by a pair of Chihuahuas who come over to visit us and who are the yin and yang of dogs. One named “Pacho” is very frightened, shaky, with his tale constantly between his legs; his “brother” Rip, described by his “mom” as having  “Riptitude”—was gregarious, curious, and proud.  A man in Yellowstone told her that he “could see the timber wolf” in this little dog.

Back at café, guests linger long into the night talking.  We are uncomfortable putting up the tent while people are still eating, but finally give up and do so, feeling extremely exposed.   The road traffic is noisy all night, and they forget to leave the door open, so we don’t have access to a bathroom after all.

The next morning we are up at 4am, to start the next pass---up Wauconda Pass to the little town of Republic.

TO BE CONTINUED…