It’s a Big Dam Country — Day 23

From Minot, ND to Glas­gow, MT. Cool, over­cast. It didn’t actu­ally rain but it was very threatening.

Hwy 2 is often an inter­est­ing road in that it varies between two-lane and newly divided four-lane. This occa­sion­ally leads to con­fus­ing lane strip­ing on the por­tion that used to be two-lane.

I stopped at the Wal-Mart in Willis­ton. Couldn’t be more dif­fer­ent from the W-Ms near home if they tried to be. Huge, wide aisles, well lit, well signed, *clean*. Replen­ished some sup­plies and headed back out. Head turner on the way out of the park­ing lot. You’ll notice that the Wal-Mart Logo is nowhere near the sign that says Liquor.

Along the road there are lots of these lit­tle oil pumps slowly mov­ing up and down. Hyp­notic.

The main attrac­tion for the day was the con­flu­ence of the Mis­souri and Yel­low­stone rivers. Unlike that other con­flu­ence I tried to see this one is open and invit­ing. The North Dakota His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety main­tains an inter­pre­tive cen­ter that sits in the mid­dle of a wet­land wild-life refuge.

The Yel­low­stone River is the longest un-dammed river in the con­tigu­ous Untied States.

The coolest part of the visit was eat­ing lunch in the com­pany of 20 or so Goldfinches. The cen­ter puts out feed­ers and keeps them well stocked.

This lit­tle guy is not a goldfinch but he was very inter­ested in what I was hav­ing for lunch…

One more goldfinch.

Next door (sort of) is a recre­ation of the Fort Union trad­ing post. Built by the Amer­i­can Fur Com­pany in 1828 it was not a mil­i­tary instal­la­tion. Trade con­tin­ued until 1866 when Fort Union was torn down and the tim­ber etc. was used to build Fort Buford. (Which was a mil­i­tary installation.)

It looks way too much like a Dis­ney­land recre­ation to me but the orig­i­nal was white washed at the insis­tence of the man­age­ment who though it made the place more ‘impressive’.

There were these lovely blue flow­ers in the park­ing lot. I have no idea what they are — except pretty.

From Fort Union I tried to get back up to Hwy 2 using 58 North. Didn’t get far before the “pave­ment ends” sign sent me back the longer way around. It wasn’t the first time I’ve ques­tioned my choice of vehi­cle. There have been a lot of local dams up 5 –10 miles of gravel road that I have passed on. On the other hand absolute com­fort at 70(nominal) with the top down is just too good to pass up.

Got a whiff of nos­tali­gia when I stopped for gas in Cul­bert­son, MT. Do you remem­ber this guy?

Two more quick images from the road between Cul­bert­son and Glasgow.

This is rail­road coun­try — here’s another piece of main­te­nance equip­ment. I’m stay­ing in the largest hotel for 100+ miles around. There are two full size buses and 5 of the large trucks that can also run on rails used for maintenance-of-way
trucks. (BTW the Wikipedia link is a stub — any­one have a good links for iden­ti­fy­ing the types of vehicles?)

All over the west you find houses that have been aban­doned. Some­times with new houses built right next them. This one doesn’t have any­thing near it except the range fence.

Ran­dom Stuff:

70 mph on a divided four-lane is not con­ducive to stop­ping for the odd photo-op. 70 on a two-lane is bet­ter. 60 on a two-lane is even bet­ter and not at all hard to get away with out here. Locals are usu­ally dri­ving that slowly any­way and the rest know how to pass politely.

Towns along Hwy 2 in Min­nesota, N. Dakota, and much of Mon­tana exist to house/service grain ele­va­tors and the rail­roads that trans­port the grain.

I need one of those lit­tle wifi detec­tor things. There is no cell phone data ser­vice out here — but I know that most towns have a town hall, library, school, or com­mu­nity cen­ter with open wifi that my Crack­berry could talk to. I just don’t have quick way of detect­ing them.

Song and Lyric of the Day:

The moments of plea­sures never do last
Are gone like a suit­case full of your past

Ashes by Now — Emmy Lou Harris

More sign­ers should cover Spring­steen songs.

The changes in the color of the worn asphalt make road pic­tures iden­ti­fi­able to the expe­ri­enced trav­eler. (Ooo, rose beige — that would east­ern Montana)

I have fin­ished read­ing Gruber’s Forgery of Venus (good) and begun Giaman’s Neverwhere.

Today’s Route:

View It’s a Big Dam Coun­try — Day 23 in a larger map