Travelogue Days 12 through 29

Catch up travelogue. There are some stories hidden in this chronology. I will get to them.

Day #12 and #13. On Friday, June 30 we drove from Broaddus, MT where we encountered Chance Lambert. Camped for two lovely days in the Custer National Forest, twelves miles north of Rt. 212. Remote site one other camper. Great toilets as usual. Quiet camping getaway.

July 2, 2017, we headed west on 212 to Lame Deer, MT, in the Northern Cheyenne Tribe Reservation. At a reservation IGA a friendly Native American told us about an Indian Pow Wow that was going on just east of town. So away we went. A community gathering of many Native Americans and others, a parade, complete with mounted cowboys, cowgirls and one Indian chief in dazzling, full head dress. Dancing and drumming competitions. This was the last day of the Pow Wow, so we traveled on to the Little Big Horn National Monument at Crow Agency, MT where on June 25-26, 1876, Col. George Armstrong Custer, two of his brothers, a nephew, a brother-in-law and two hundred and sixty-nine American Army troops met their bloody deaths at the hands of a band of Northern Cheyenne, Lakota Sioux and Arapaho Indians lead by Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and Chief Gall.

The massacre of three hundred Lakota Native Americans, two hundred of which were women and children took place not far from Crow Agency, on December 29, 1890. at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, then and now the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. We went here also.

These were sad times for Native Americans.

The victims of the Wounded Knee massacre were buried in a mass grave in a community cemetery along with many other local Natives Americans dating to the present. Ironically, many of the more recent burials were natives that served in the US Armed Forces in World War I and II, and Vietnam. Some of these were almost certain to be related to the massacre victim’s families.

On to Billings, MT. then north to Roundup (population 2000) and east to Musselshell (pop 100) where we stayed in a free town campsite with water, acceptable toilets in a cottonwood grove, on the Musselshell River. Day #14.

July 3, 2017. Day #15. Back to Roundup for July 4 weekend festivities, which were prodigious to say the least. Parade, beer barrel tug of war, rodeo, music and other activities. Spoke to the festivities coordinator who moved here five years ago to uncomplicate her life. Mow she’s the events coordinator for the town. Go figure. Drove north on 87 to Grass Range, MT (population 110) through some of the driest country we have encountered yet. The only store for fifty miles. Lucky for us they had ice cream. The store attendant told us it had not rained since early spring and that there was very little snow cover this past winter. Saw a guy carrying a side arm and wearing a beaver skin hat. That was enough to spur us on to the Charles M Russell National Wildlife Refuge on the Missouri River, another fifty-mile drive on hot dusty roads. We camped on the river in a delightful spot and met the camp site host couple, Fred and Carol, who just happened to be from Hamilton, MT, where Sarah, my daughter, is living. In the evening, we drove a twenty-five-mile loop tour through the refuge looking for mule deer and elk.  Deer but no elk. Saw a really old ghost homestead. Ninety seven degrees at 9:00PM. That night it got down to fifty-eight.

July 4, 2017, Day #16. Headed north 191 to Zortman MT (pop 69). We had heard that those sixty-nine souls and a few others in the area put on quite a grand annual July 4^th parade. With that many people involved we figured we might be the only spectators. On the way in we noticed smoke in that direction, talked to people closer to Grass Range who told us about a fire burning pretty much out control in the Fort Belkap Indian Reservation, which the village of Zortman borders. When we got there a friendly local sheriff informed us that Zortman was shut down and the good people of the town had cancelled the parade. But he would certainly allow us to go in to fuel up. Which we did. In the town square, and I use that term loosely, there were three recreational vehicles parked side by side with a few grizzled cowboys sitting in a row in lawn chairs. As we rode by I asked about the parade and one old cow poke said, “Well, turn around right up there, drive back by and wave at us, we will wave back, and there’s your parade”. Which is what we did. Peals of laughter from those old tanned, wrinkled faces. In fact, the parade had been canceled and the town’s people were planning a “I survived the fire” parade to occur in a couple of weeks. On the way, out we saw fire jumpers preparing to go into that steep, hot, dry, burning land, mostly Native Americans, going out to protect Zortman and its people. We watch a helicopter tanker dip a bag in a local lake and make a run into the fire. Very dramatic.

On to Hays in the reservation where we rode through a canyon, saw a natural bridge and visited the St. Paul’s Catholic Mission. Then on to Havre, MT and west to camp free at the Fresno Reservoir. Complete with jet skis, power boats, many large recreational vehicles, generators, lots of noise, clean toilets (sort of). Managed to carve out a relatively pleasant camp site on a hill away from the chaos below, with a commanding view of the lake. As evening crept in and the hubbub below lessened, a beaver swam by to restore my faith.

July 5, Day #17. Back to Havre to service the Dodge then south on 87 to Big Sandy (population 600) then east for forty-four miles on a gravel road to Judith Landing and the confluence of the Judith and Missouri Rivers, where we camped on the banks of the Missouri River in a very nice, clean and free site. Right out there, one hundred yards from the shore Meriwether Lewis and William Clark with Sacajawea and her infant son and a few very brave young men passed by in heavy wooden boats in their exploration of the Louisiana Purchase. The story is that Napoleon didn’t know what he was selling and Thomas Jefferson didn’t know what he was buying in that deal, so Lewis and Clark headed west from St. Lewis to figure that out. Along this stretch of the river, there are a number of places where archeologists and historians have determined that Lewis and Clark camped. I looked out over those waters and imagined them coming by in those heavy wooden boats, headed up the river against a strong current, sailing in a favorable wind, most likely rowing or poling their way along, or using mules on the banks to haul the boats along in one-hundred-degree heat. Today, here at Judith Landing the temperature got up to one hundred and six. By the way, we read that William Clark named the river, the Judith River that is, after a young lady he knew who lived back in Virginia. I want to find out more about that deal.

We met the camp hosts, Marge and Craig Purdy, from Stevensville, Mt., just ten miles from Hamilton where my lovely and talented daughter lives. Great camp site. Very remote. Paid $2.50 for clean toilets and site overlooking the river. Took a swim. Great toilets, hand sanitizer, waste baskets plastic bags, no spiders. A big plus for Emily, who is bug adverse.

July 6, Day #18, Headed south to Winifred, thirty miles over gravel and dirt. Had one-pound hamburgers in a café casino. Watched a woman eat French fries and feed a poker machine about fifty dollars. Very expensive French fries. Then drove south on 191 to Harlowton. Saw mule deer hopping their way through tall, irrigated wheat. Camped at Spring Creek in the Lewis and Clark NF, another very pleasant sojourn. Met a woman in her eighties driving a big diesel truck and hauling a recreational vehicle by herself.  

July 7, Day #19 -21. Hamilton, MT. Spent three days with Sarah and Chad, my daughter and son-in-law, who, in a fit of wanderlust, moved here last April, where she is a nurse practitioner in a local setting. They are living their dream in the Bitterroot Valley surrounded by mountains, elk, mule and whitetail deer, sandhill cranes, wild turkeys and cowboys and Indians.   

July 10, Day 22, Monday, headed north to National Bison Range, a magnificent wildlife preserve, where we saw bison, many elk, deer and antelope. Camped at Finley Point State Park, Flathead Lake. No more state parks. Expensive and crowded.

July 11, Day 23, Disaster. Headed for Kalispell, MT. A fellow motorist flagged us down to point out that we were dragging our power cord. The dope driving the van forgot to connect it this morning. Had to replace the cable in Kalispell. Headed out toward Glacier National Park where all camp sites were full. Not an uncommon phenomenon in American’s national parks.  We camped in the Flathead National Forest in a remote, free site, ten miles on gravel roads. Beautiful lodgepole pine, ponderosa pine forest.  

Days 24 and 25. Stayed at Avalanche Creek Camp site in the magnificent Glacier National Park and toured around with one hundred million other folks. Big horn sheep, mountain goats, spectacular mountain scenery, narrow, winding road across Logan Pass. An ironic name for a national park today. When the park was established in 1910, it had about one hundred and fifty glaciers. That number is now at thirty-seven. Since 1966, ice locked in glaciers has declined by thirty-seven percent. Going, going, gone.   

We left the park on July 14, and spent days 26, 27 and 28 on the Tobacco River just outside of Eureka, MT. about fifteen miles from the Canadian border, in one of our best camp sites. On a bluff overlooking the river. Free, clean toilets. It was a weekend, so there were a few locals coming and going, kayaking, fishing. One other camping group. Turns out we were camped right on the Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail, that starts in Glacier National Park and winds itself for over twelve hundred miles across the Rocky Mountains, the Selkirk Mountains, the Pasayten Wilderness, the North Cascades and the Olympic Mountains from Glacier National Park to Cape Alava, WA on the Pacific Ocean. Over our three-day stay we watched over thirty intrepid souls walk by headed for the Pacific. One guy was carrying over fifty pounds. The next guy called himself a minimalist. Said his “base weight” was twelve pounds. With food and water, the total weight he carried was twenty-two pounds. Fantastic people. Each a world of stories I’m sure. Very pleasant conservations.  

July 16, Day 29 – On to Canada.

Stay tuned for some stories.

An Old Debt

Hello friends.

Its Sunday, July 16, 2017. I’m writing this while sitting in the shade in our fabulous, USFS camp site on the Tobacco River in the Kootenai National Forest just northwest of Eureka, Mt, about fifty miles from the Canadian border.

Whitetail and mule deer, golden and bald eagles, osprey, northern rough-winged swallows, bank swallows, great blue herons, spotted sandpipers, rufous hummingbirds, common loons and more. We have been camped here for three days, watching birds and a few locals come and go, fishing, kayaking and hanging out.  A few Montana rednecks and evangelicals lurking about, looking for unsaved souls, not the rednecks. Not sure what they were looking for.  Since we have been in this area we have been prayed for and questioned as to our acceptance of Jesus Christ as out personal Lord and Savior. More on that phenomena later.

This spot is smack dab on the twelve hundred Pacific Northwest Trail, not to be confused with the Pacific Crest Trail. We have watched twenty or more hikers go by. One guy’s pack weighed fifty pounds. A young man just went by carrying twenty pounds which included five days food. Lots of ways to get that journey done. Not one of these folks have asked us about our commitment to Jesus Christ. They are on their own enlightenment journey not the evangelical kind. Just now a bald eagle flew by, being vigorously harassed by an osprey. Tomorrow we are headed into Canada.

Now for the story.

This past Friday we were in Hulett, Mt for breakfast. I was backing Flicka II into a tight space and, ever so slightly and gently, turned just a little too tightly and, as a consequence, jackknifed. I heard a little snap, just a little one, one that should have been a warning, but being a college educated man and prone to considering “higher” matters than the sound of tearing steel, I ignored it. What could possibly go wrong. I probably imagined the sound anyway.  

So down the road we went on our way to Broadus, Mt. passing through more scorched and dusty land, through Hammond, Boyes and finally into Broadus, all towns with less than five hundred souls aboard. We are beginning to get into butte country and they are named. East Fork Butte, Morellas Butte, Fighting Butte, Preston Butte.

Our primary objective for being here was to get water, not an easy task in this country. We found out that the local library was the place. The librarians were very nice and gave us a key to the faucet. That’s right, a key to the faucet. While I was attending to that Emily wondered around checking on things. She called out to me that there was something I should look at on the trailer. Which I did and it wasn’t pretty.

My ever so observant captain had discovered that a weld holding the anti-sway bar on to the hitch had parted. An anti-sway bar is not a critical piece of equipment but it does stabilize a trailer and reduce swaying. Hint, that’s why they call it an anti-sway bar. It helps one maintain control if a trailer tire blows out.

So, there we sat. I remained silent for a few moments, painfully remembering yesterday’s snapping sound which was getting louder by the moment, the one I had decided to imagine yesterday. I chose not to tell Emily about yesterday’s jack knifing event. No sense in confirming suspicions she may already have about a certain traveling companion.

It was 1530 on a Friday afternoon in this hot, sleepy, dusty agricultural town. Probably not the best time to find a welder, which is what we needed, after I had come to the painful conclusion that this thing needed fixing. A guy at a Conoco station told where we could find the only welder in town so away we went to Chance Lambert’s shop.

As luck would have it he was not there. But right next door was Lil’s café. Lil’s café looks like the kind of place that Tom Waites would hang out in if he was a poet, musician cowboy looking for material. Plain, quaint and earthy. “Cash only, that means you.” But the waitresses could not have been nicer and Betsy Sue, after hearing our dilemma, pulled her cell phone out and called Mr. Lambert. She got him on the line and after a little chit chat gave me the phone and our adventure with Chance began.

He was in town and supposed that he could help but that I should know that he had a “little” drink. After a guffaw or two by me, I asked him whether it was one drink or five drinks. He said he was starting on his second. I said well I hate to put a damper on the start of your weekend but two drinks don’t sound like a whole lot for a welder. “What could go wrong?”, I asked. “Maybe plenty”, he replied. That got another guffaw from me.

For me the actual task at hand, getting the weld fixed, somehow became less important than meeting Chance Lambert. He hesitated briefly and said, “Well, I’ll just finish this one and come along in a few minutes”.

Sure enough, pretty soon he shows up. I was expecting a grizzled old guy in his sixties with a three-day beard, bloodshot eyes and tobacco stains on his chin, but Chance turned out to be a handsome, clear eyed, beanpole of a man in his late twenties, with catcher mitt hands and an easy-going gait. Slow talker with not much to say at first, but he hadn’t run into the likes of me before, probably had never met a Virginian. Probably not prepared for questions, questions, questions. As it turned out he had only been east one time and that was to Alabama to visit a friend who he had gone to welding school with him.

He looks at the broken weld, disassembles the parts, studies them for a while and goes to work, with me following him around. I started by asking about irrigation in this country. He was very happy to tell me about that and as it turned out he had a pretty commanding knowledge of local hydrology. He spoke about the artesian wells along the river that delivered fifty gallons of water a minute and the shallow dug wells that dotting the prairie that delivered much less. He said if you don’t irrigate here you don’t grow anything.

He went on to talk about growing up on his family’s seven-thousand-acre ranch which he explained was quite small for this country. He said they could support the about three hundred and fifty cattle on it. A more typical ranch in this country is tens of thousands of acres.

After more questions from me he talked about going to college to study welding, his business and driving big trucks on the side. We were having a collegial and happy conversation. Chance was an easy-going slow- walking, slow-talking guy and he clearly knew what he was doing. While we talked he worked methodically, grinding, cleaning and finally welding. Emily asked him about wearing a welding helmet, which he was not at the time. He got all three of his helmets out and explained how each one was different and what they were used for.

The work went well and I got a sense that it was being done professionally and with great care. He primed and painted the finished product which gave us more time for pleasant talk. After an hour and a half or so we were pretty much ready to go on our way. I asked him what we owed him, fully expecting a sizable tab what with it being after hours for him so to speak and certainly a premium figured in since we had interrupted his drinking. He looks away uncomfortably I thought then back and said, “I suspect if you have a twenty in your pocket that will do.” I said, “No I don’t have a twenty, but I have a fifty, and that’s what I’m giving you.” He said, Oh, that’s way too much. There wasn’t much welding to that job.” “Well, a fifty is what you are going to get”, I replied. Back in Virginia if we could’ve even found somebody on such short notice to do a job like this it would’ve cost a lot more.

Then I told Chance a story a story and I’m going to tell it to you now. It goes to part of the reason I gave Chance a fifty. Call it repaying an old debt.

In the mid-seventies, my life-long friend Steve Moore and I were traveling out West. We were driving my 1967 Volkswagen camper van. We had great adventures and one of them took place outside Grand Junction, Colorado. About ten miles to the east, the van engine suddenly quit.  Turns out a pulley had sheared off. On engines pulleys support belts that transfer power to engine parts. No pulley, no go. So, there we sat. Pulled off the road and watched traffic stream by. These were the days of no cell phones, no internet.  But I did have a thumb. I stuck it out and hitchhiked into Grand Junction with my broken pulley. Steve guarded the fort while I was gone. It was about a ten-mile trip to town. By the end of our travails that day he was able to read almost a whole book.

In Grand Junction, there was a Volkswagen dealer but they did not stock the pulley we needed. Go figure. The dealer advised me to go to a certain junkyard and see what they might have. Back then junkyards were not quite as sophisticated as today. Then, one wandered around to find a matching wreck. You find the part you need, pull it off the wreck and pay on the way out. Good idea except I didn’t have any tools. At least not with me. They were back at the fort. Which is where I hitchhiked to next. All the way back to the van. After securing the tools I reversed course and made my way back to the Grand Junction junkyard. Lucky for me people driving by were quite accommodating.

Back at the junkyard things didn’t go so well. No matching pulleys. The junkyard guys told be about a guy on the east end of town who ran a welding shop. Lucky for me. That’s on my way back to the van. So, I went hitchhiking again. Stuck that well practiced thumb out just when a Grand Junction cop rode by and, using a bull horn, politely informed me, an obvious tinhorn, that hitchhiking was illegal in Grand Junction and would net me a one-way jail ticket if I persisted. By this time, I was hot and dry and pretty exasperated but dutifully I walked eastward until I got to the city limits where the thumb went back out.

I made my way to the welder whose name, if I ever knew it, is forever gone to me. He was an older guy and living by himself in a shop with machines, iron, sculptures, trailers, pipe, railroad cars, broken down trucks all over the place, a lifetime’s work of fixing, building and creating big machines, little machines, you name it he had probably welded it. He was a delightful man, easy talk. I showed him the broken pulley.

Did I mention that he was in a wheelchair? He pushed himself around picking up various tools, mounted the pulley on a clamp and began to piece it together, all the while checking for proper alignment, important for a rapidly rotating engine component. He was careful, methodical and clearly enjoyed what he was doing. And he was good at talking and he did most of it. Two things that come to mind were that he had recently lost his wife which he was very sad about and that he was a veteran and that he was very proud to have served his country. I told him a little bit about myself and about the adventures that my friend Steve and I were having. He enjoyed that said that he was from Grand Junction, had always been a homebody and admired people who ventured out to see the world. He finished the weld, ground it down, polished it up and took great pains to examine it to make sure it was true. He handed it to me and said, “that ought to do it.” I said, “how much do I owe you?’ He smiled and said, “nothing”.

I was shocked it was very hard to believe that this guy would not take a nickel but he insisted. We said goodbye and parted ways. I thought we had parted ways anyway. When I went away with my just like new pulley whistling a tune and feeling pretty darn good. By golly we were about to get on our way. I arrived back and told Steve of our good fortune and my encounter with this fabulous guy. I took the pulley to the back of the van where that fine German-made engine set ready to be fired up and that’s when I realized that I had left my tools with the welder.

One cannot imagine the pain that I was in at that moment, a turning point in my life. But I pulled myself together and plodded on.  Faced with adversity one must rise to the occasion.

To Grand Junction I go, hitchhiking my way back once again. I guess the good news of the story is that plenty of people picked me up. My new welder friend and I had a good laugh about my travails. He said he knew I would be back and he wasn’t going anywhere. So, we visited for a few moments and I thanked him again and again and away I went. One more trip back. I was able to install the pulley, replace the belt, fired that engine up and away we went. And all it cost me was a whole lot of hitchhiking. A Steve got to read a book.

So that’s why I gave Chance Lambert fifty bucks. An old debt repaid.

Back at Chance’s shop I shook his catch mitt hand and away we went. After taking our leave of Chance and Broadus, MT. we headed west toward Ashland, MT, left the main road, traveled for twelve miles on a hard packed sandy, gravel road to camp on the East Fork of the Otter River. We were in the Custer National Forest in a remote campground with the usual USFS, very clean, vault toilet. There was one other couple there in a recreational vehicle, the Montana state flower. They cheerfully waved greetings. Otherwise we were alone in this beautiful, hot, dry place. We stayed there for two days.

Thank you for reading this story. It’s not that exciting but it’s true.

My next entry will be a catch-up and I’ll tell you about more the days on the road and our adventures.

Good night and good luck.

Crossing the One Hundreth Meridian

Good morning. At least it’s good morning here. It’s Thursday, July 13, and I’m writing this from Avalanche Campground in Glacier National Park. More about Glacier later. I’m going to give a brief travelogue of a few days of our adventure. Then a story.

After our stay in Bessey, we headed into the Nebraska sandhills. They are called sandhills for a reason. They are really big piles of sand. For as far as you can see, sandhills covered was sparse prairie vegetation; bunch, spear grass and grama buffalo grass. The limiting factor to life out here is water. There are blowout areas where no grasses are found. And they have ants. millions, billions of ants. Very few places that you can walk without stepping on an ant hill. Don’t do that. It pisses them off. One reason we are not tent camping, at least not in this country.

We start to see prickly poppy, a magnificent white flower that accents the roadsides. We pass a one hole golf course, complete with golf carts. That must be a joke, but you know those golf crazy people. Lots of western meadowlarks popping about. Driving on Route 2 through towns like Theford (population 200), Seneca (population 33), Mullen (population 500), Lakeside (population 12), Ellsworth (population 32), Alliance (population 8,500) and finally to Crawford (population 1000). We start seeing trains go by headed east, loaded with coal. Each train has over one-hundred cars. Turns out they’re coming from Gillette in east Wyoming, where young, adventurous men mostly are mining lots of coal. Coal ain’t dead. We must have seen and heard fifty trains go by, each with three locomotives. All headed downhill to southeastern states to power electrical generation.

We entered the Ponderosa Wildlife Area near Crawford, NE where we had intended to camp. Just outside the WMA we begin to see acres and acres of what appeared to be fifty gallon barrels deployed on about a fifty-yard grid, hundreds of them. A very strange site indeed. We came to a sign that warned us of radioactive contamination. Not good. We drove on to the wildlife management area for a look see. Black flies drove was out. No one else around this open hot dry country. I waved down the only car we saw and it turned out to be two cheerful, retired geologists who had moved to the area fifteen years ago to open a ‘rock’ shop. They told us all about the uranium injection mine that we had just crossed through. Turns out that we were sitting right on top of it. The uranium is extracted from deep below the surface by injecting a highly basic solution into the ore which dissolves the naturally occurring uranium salts. That solution is then pumped to the surface into a settling pond where the water evaporates and they scrape up the uranium salt. They went on to tell us that uranium prices were down so this particular mind was not active but was under what they called a maintenance plan. They told us that we were perfectly safe and that the radiation levels were quite low. That doesn’t explain why Emily’s hair was glowing. The barrels are pump stations. So, the land is sieved with wells sucking the uranium out. “Does the land above the mine ever collapse since you are removing lots of subterranean material over time?”, I asked.  “It happens. It’s a problem”, they replied with eyes wide shut.

We decided to seek another campsite and discovered a park in Crawford. Another one of these free campsites in a well-maintained park. We camped beside a young man named Stephen, a musician, who was biking his way from Olympia, Washington to Lincoln, Nebraska to join others in his band, Oketo. He was carrying everything he needed in two bike packs. Lots of Eurasian collared doves and western meadowlarks in the park.

Next morning, we had breakfast at the Dairy Sweet just outside Crawford, bought some rocks at a local rock shop, and headed on into Chadron for supplies. That night we camped at Cottonwood Springs, a US Army COE recreational site, just outside of Hot Springs, South Dakota. Coyotes nearby. Headed for Badlands national Park the next day. Bird of the day, the lark bunting, state bird of Colorado. The ones we saw obviously preferred South Dakota where people are more genteel.

We drove through Wind Cave National Monument the next morning and saw a coyote. American bison, mule deer, pronghorn antelope and discovered our new favorite animal, prairie dogs. Thousands and thousands of prairie dogs living communally in extensive prairie dog cities. A remarkable, social society of just about the cutest, furry thing on the planet. In Pringle, South Dakota we saw what was billed to be the largest bicycle sculpture in the state, probably the only bicycle sculpture in the state if not in the world. We passed a monument to Crazy Horse in the making. This monument is in the vicinity of Mount Rushmore and the site of Wounded Knee. We didn’t go see Rushmore. Chose Crazy Horse instead. That seemed more appropriate since this land used to belong to Crazy Horse, his people and other tribes of Native Americans.

We finally made our way into Badlands national Park where we camped at the free Sage Creek campsite with about fifty other people. Tent campers, folks with horses. Nice, clean toilets mostly young adventurous people. That night we heard coyotes.

Nostalgia, nostalgia. This reminds me of a time long ago when I was in this country before. Sometime in the mid-seventies my lifetime friend Steve Moore and I came west and camped nearby under a full moon and woke in the early morning to find that we were sharing the camp with four or five big mule deer.

We drove through this stunning park the next morning. My kind of park. Very big, open, hot, dry, dusty and magnificent. Remarkable canyon views. Saw bison, prairie dogs, bighorn sheep, pronghorn antelope, mule and white-tailed deer. Very few visitors. Virtually no traffic. Not like Yellowstone. We bought gas at Cowboy Corner then drove on through Oglala up to Scenic. Long distances on gravel roads in this open, prairie country.

That night we camped alone in the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands by ourselves looking out over stunning prairie vistas. A golden eagle greeted us and sailed by on his way to supper. We watch a thunderstorm develop. You can see them miles away out here. The storm announced its arrival with fifty knot winds, hail, then hard rain. We sat in the car for about an hour and a half while it thundered, blew and poured rain. It was furious and relentless. God added spectacular lightning just for emphasis. It must have rained two or three inches in an hour and a half. Then it was over, just like that. Evening came and we sat quietly watching life unfold in the grasslands. The golden came back, soaring overhead, mule deer and coyotes at dusk. Passed a very pleasant night by ourselves on the prairie.

Next day on to Wounded Knee, South Dakota, where on December 29, 1890, US Army troops under the command of James Forsyth massacred one hundred and fifty to three hundred Miniconjou and Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux Indians. Two hundred of the Indian causalities were women and children. About ninety Indian casualties were fighters armed with bows and arrows, clubs and tomahawks and led by Chief Spotted Elk. Forsyth commanded approximately five hundred army troops, armed with artillery pieces and repeating rifles. Land where this tragedy took place is in the Lakota Pine Ridge Native American Reservation.

There are lots of pieces to this tragic story. Google, it and draw your own conclusions. There is a memorial of sorts, a community graveyard that includes a mass grave where the victims of this terrible incident were hastily buried. It also includes more recent graves of other native Americans from Wounded Knee and the surrounding area, many of whom were veterans of the U.S. Army, many who had served in World War II and Vietnam. I found it remarkable that the relatives of ancestors massacred there would so willingly serve in the very army that had slaughtered their ancestors. Maybe young native Americans in 1920 living on the Pine Ridge Reservation with very little other options in their lives joined the Army to get out. I think the answer goes deeper. I think it has to do with a certain resilience, flexibility and pride these people have. I don’t know.  

That night we camped at the flying V, lodge/campground just north of Newcastle, WY. We took our first shower. Now that may come as a surprise to you but deal with it. We were delighted to meet Twyla, who with her husband, owns the lodge. Nobody else here. We got the grand tour. She told us that they primarily catered to elk, antelope and mule deer hunters and, much to our consternation, prairie dog hunters or more precisely groups of people who came out to what she called “prairie dogs shoots”. This is where, guys primarily but not always, using high-powered, scoped rifles to shoot prairie dogs from hundreds of yards away. The more you kill in a session, the greater esteem in which you are held by your comrades. The prairie dog is considered a pest species out here, a varmint if you will. They are successful and plentiful in this country. Who the hell wants a prairie dog city tearing up property. I sure hope some more advanced civilization doesn’t one day come to consider humans a pest species and pick us off one by one for fun. That wouldn’t be civilized now would it.

Thursday, June 29 on to Sundance Wyoming and Devils Tower, a magnificent volcanic extrusion from which surrounding sedimentary rock washed away and left this magnificent fluted, 875-foot monolith standing guard over the prairie. We spent a large part of that day driving around in the Black Hills National Forest looking for a camp site. Covered a lot of ground but just couldn’t find an easy place to pull off. But we saw hundreds of white tailed deer. Camped that night back on the main road at Bear Lodge in a very fine site with a couple of the folks. Hundreds of white tailed deer during the day.

The next morning on to Montana, where the men are strong, the women good looking and the children are all above average. We came to be in Broadus, MT. Hang on to the reins and dig in the spurs, a story comes next.

Sweet Dreams all you cowboys and cowgirls.

Buck and Slim on the move

A West Virginia Story

Finally, today, Monday, June 19 we got away from Stanton at 1030. We drove south on Interstate 81 to Lexington Virginia and turned west on Interstate 64. We are headed for a camp site in the vicinity of Gallipolis, OH for the night.

Flicka II Ready for Action

Close to Beckley, we passed the exit for Pax WV, the coal town where my mother was born in 1930 and lived with her sisters Janet, Louise, Edna Mae and Helen Jean and their brothers, Willie, Buck and Joe. They grew up in a shabby but quaint little house on the railroad tracks. Well, Helen Jean was actually not a sister. One of the other for real sisters who shall go unnamed was raped at a very young age by someone in the community. Helen Jean was the result. Family history is sketchy on this tragedy. Some have said that justice was done but not necessarily in the court systems. If there is a silver lining in a story like that it’s that Helen Jean was raised and loved all of her life as one of the sisters. And these sisters and brothers were loving people, each and every one.

One hundred and sixty-seven people live in Pax today, probably about the same as when my mother lived there. Her father and brothers, other male relatives and neighbors were hardscrabble coal miners or heavy equipment operators. Many drank hard in the off hours. Most smoked. Many ended up with emphysema and black lung disease. Some died in the mines. Many were disabled in mining accidents. A brother’s son lost a leg in the mines.

When my mother was thirteen or fourteen, the railroad took their house to expand their tracks. After that they lived in a series of trailers and other small homes. During this time, her father committed suicide leaving their mother, Cassie, and the children to fend for themselves. Joe, the youngest brother was killed one evening with a friend while crossing or sitting on the railroad tracks in an old Ford sedan. Details are scarce but I have heard more than one relative say alcohol was involved in that tragedy.

Many of the women in the village married miners. Some got out. First chance they got, my momma and her sister, Louise split for Staunton Virginia, where they got jobs as telephone switchboard operators. My mother met Kenneth, Louise met Melvin, and that was that.

My mother’s sister Janet, a saint on this planet, was married to Jim, a hard drinking, heavy smoking, equipment operator who worked for the mines in many capacities. In later life, he developed emphysema and black lung and spent much of his time under an oxygen tent. Not daunted by physician admonishment about smoking in an oxygen tent, one day he lit up, set himself on fire and, as they say, that was the end of
Jim.

Jim and Janet had four children, Scott, Greg, Donna and Eddie. Eddie, was born with spina bifida, a congenital condition in which the spinal cord fails to develop or close property. In Eddy’s case the lower spinal cord was open which required daily wound care to prevent infection. Most spina bifida babies are paralyzed as was Eddie, from the waist down. He was also hydrochepahic, a condition in which the deep structures in the brain accumulate fluid and cause the head to appear and in fact be enlarged. Eddie lived in a wheelchair for his twenty-six years.

In spite of his physical abnormalities and limitations, he was cheerful, smart and well-read for a ‘shut-in’ in those days in West Virginia coal field towns when home health services were meager at best. He was a loving soul with kind words for everybody, simply beside himself with joy when we showed up for a visit. He had quite a collection of 45rpms from the thirties and forties. It pretty much fell to Janet to take care of Eddie for his entire life. Being paralyzed from the waist down, among other maintenance health tasks, every day for his entire life she had to gently knead his stomach to facilitate bowel movements. Eddie died just about the time Jim went into his oxygen tent. So, Janet got to shift her caregiver skills from Eddie to Jim.

In my early years once every so often my father would clean up our 1957 Chevy Bel Air, load us in and away we would go on a ten-hour trek on Route 60 from Staunton through Lexington and over to Pax to visit the West Virginia clan. No interstate roads then.

During one of our visits Jim decided to pack us all into two cars and drive to Gallipolis, Ohio to attend an old timey, riverboat minstrel show. Gallipolis has a very fine city park right on the river. Imagine a sultry August night in 1962 on the banks of the Ohio River with hellgrammites and luna moths flying about. Hot dogs and hamburgers, French-fries soaked in vinegar, cotton candy, snow cones, cherry cokes and homemade ice cream. A magnificent paddlewheel steamboat docked on the banks, and after some necessary speechifying by local officials, a very fine theater company offers a minstrel show, complete with white folks in black face, singing gospel songs mixed with show tunes. It was marvelous, especially to a kid from Staunton, VA who had never seen such a thing as a paddlewheel steamboat. I will never forget than night and will be forever thankful to Jim for that evening. Rest in peace Jim.

So that’s why I wanted to revisit Gallipolis, Ohio.

But our first destination was a US Corps of Engineers lock and dam just outside of Belleville, West Virginia. A free camp site with bathrooms, just a few roaches, mostly dead, and a commanding view of the river and dam and lock through which barges are pushed and dragged by magnificent tug boats. Besides a few fishermen who left just after dark there was no one else there. It rained, we ate and hit the sack early. But not before watching a few barges and tugs negotiate the lock. The Ohio River lserves as a vital commerce artery for cities and towns along its course.

Mighty Ohio River, Belleville, WV USCOE Lock and Dam Barge Traffic

The next morning after coffee we hit out for Gallipolis for our visit. Not much has changed in Gallipolis. If anything, it seems smaller. Today about 3000 people live there and it’s seen better times. The park is still there and I’m told they still have occasional riverboats that come to offer shows, probably not white people doing blackface though.

There are a few notable people from the town, including a couple of professional football and baseball players, the usual mix of politicians, country music singers and artists. Two people of particular note in my view are Skip Battin, a musician and former member of the Byrds, the New Riders of the Purple Sage and the Flying Burrito Brothers. Now that’s something. Who among us has not listened to one of these groups. Raise your hand. If you haven’t, get a life.

The other is Bob Evans, noted restauranteur. You know those Bob Evans restaurants. To honor Mr. Evans Emily and I decided we should eat at one of his restaurants while in Gallipolis. That’s what we did. I had sausage gravy and biscuits. Emily her usual scrambled eggs and toast. After our meal as we were leaving two waitresses came bouncing out because they had seen our little trailer and were duly impressed. They demanded a tour which we delightedly gave them.

After that away we went, on Day 2 of our journey, across Ohio, through Chillicothe, around Dayton, staying well south of Indianapolis, onward through Champaign, Illinois and all the while, Mr. Evan’s biscuits and gravy were churning and turning and fermenting and fomenting a noisome concoction in my stomach. By the time we got to our next destination, a very nice public park in Gibson City Ill, I was running a fever, experiencing nausea and cramping and generally feeling lousy.

Gibson City, as we found many mid-American small towns do, runs a pretty cool operation when it comes to traveling campers. For ten bucks, you can stay in the small but pleasant city park. At dark the town shuts down so you pretty well have the park to yourself. The ten bucks includes access to very clean and pleasant bathrooms and a shower. That’s a good thing because I visited the bathrooms about a dozen times that night. I’m not sure I have even had food poisoning before, but I suspect I did that night thanks to Mr. Evans. No fan no more Mr. Evans. We shared the campsite that night with a thirty-something, tent camping, pleasant young lady riding a 500cc Kawasaki motorcycle from Florida to Portland, OR, by herself. 

The next morning, we ventured forth on Day 3, bound for the Mississippi River. We crossed over at Burlington into Iowa, passing great soy bean and corn fields growing in the black fluvial Mississippi flood plain soils. On to Fruitland, Iowa, population 173, where we camped on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River at an abandoned US Corps of Engineers recreation area near the Port Louisa NWR. No one else there. No facilities. Emily got to use her brand new Luggable Loo, or as we call it, the Lug-a-Loo. I’ll let you guess what that’s for. It rained in the evening, making for very gooey Mississippi mud. Watched two red-headed woodpeckers chase one another around a tree.

Day 4. Thursday, June 22. We drove to Muscatine passing river levees and more great corn and soy bean fields. Then crossed Iowa on secondary roads, avoiding Des Moines, generally on Route #92 to Council Bluffs, crossing the Missouri River at Blair, NE, then on to Scribner, NE, population 857 where we found the magnificent Dead Timber NE SRA just north on the Elkhorn River. The landscape changed considerably on the way across Iowa and into the Nebraska, getting more arid and open. The campsite and facilities were immaculate. One other camper. We ate and went to bed at dark. Later I got up to take care of business and was astonished to see literally tens of thousands of fireflies at work. The trees were lit up with them. Combined with the thousands of stars and the milky way on that clear night it was heavenly. God’s finest light show.

Dead Timber Nebraska State Recreation Area, Elkhorn River

Day 5. Friday, June 23. Drove across Nebraska on Route 91/92 through towns like Clarkson, population 650, Humphrey, population 750, Burwell, population 1,200, and Dunning, population 103, finally arriving at the Bessey Ranger District  in the Nebraska National Forest, near Halsey, NE, population 76. From the entrance station we drove about twelve miles on pretty rough road to the backcountry Natick campsite where we found five people and eight horses. Gained about one thousand feet elevation. A gem of a camp site. In high and dry country. Clean vault toilets. So, what is a vault toilet. Well, basically it’s a big concrete box in which one provides donations of natural waste products. I’ll leave that to your imagination. We grade the toilets we use crossing the country according to condition, odor, cleanliness, etc. This one gets an eight. We had good water from a shallow well with a hand pump and lots of poison ivy to avoid. Ponderosa pines and killdeers accented the landscape.

                                     Good Advice

We have now crossed the one hundredth meridian, that longitudinal line that splits North America roughly into two regions. To the east where average annual rainfall in above twenty inches and to the west where its below twenty inches, some places substantially below that. Life out here for plants and animals starts to become a matter of managing a scarce resource – water. To the east, generally folks can grow most crops without irrigation. To the west, to reliably grow hay and other crops, one must irrigate. This spot marks a transition for us to hot, sometimes very hot, days, and cool nights. More on western water resources later.

A sign in Cozad, NE, just to the south of Halsey marks the spot where the one hundredth meridian intersects the routes of the Oregon Trail, the Pony Express, the transcontinental railroad and the Lincoln Highway. We are getting into big time cow country. Most people out here, in one way or another, work or support agricultural enterprises.

In Natick, we met Sue and Mike who had hauled their two quarter horses, Rough and Tough up that long road from Omaha for a visit and some high-country trail riding. They have been coming here for years. Cheerful folk living cheerful lives. They love their horses.

Landscape, Natick Campground, Nebraska National Forest

So that’s a recap of our first five days. Another story coming soon.

Thanks for reading and adios.

Prelude

Hello friends.

Its Saturday, July 8. Emily and I are now into the twentieth day of a grand tour of western regions of America. We left Stanton on July 19.

Over the last few years we have been cruising about in our stout sea boat, Flicka, a 1979 thirty-two-foot Allied Seawind II ketch. We have had have marvelous adventures traveling down the intra-coastal waterway (ICW) and cruising the Chesapeake Bay and coastal waters from Virginia to Florida. For now, Flicka is taking a well-deserved break and is living on the hard.

This summer, we are doing a four month, land based adventure, heading west with no particular destination in mind other than to see our son, Henry in Bellingham, WA and our daughter, Sarah in Hamilton, MT.

We bought a thirteen-foot travel trailer for the trip. By trade name it is a ‘Little Guy’, made by NuCamp Industries in Ohio. We call it Flicka II. It weighs only 970 pounds empty, basically a bedroom on wheels. No air conditioning, no TV, no frills. It does have a galley with a DC powered cooler, a two-burner propane stove and a five-gallon water tank and sink. We can easily pull it with our Dodge Grand Caravan. There is no set up, we can pretty much pull into any Walmart parking lot for the night, always a personal bucket list item for me. Absent that luxury, we are headed for public lands; US Forest Service forest and grasslands, BLM lands (Bureau of Land Management), national parks and monuments, county and city parks, wildlife refuges and the little towns in-between. There are plenty of out of the way places to camp. You have to seek it out. Check out freecampsites.net for a look.

So, we are going to roam our way across this great land. America has fabulous cities, great architectural and natural wonders, and many interesting cultural and historic places, all worthy of a visit. But it’s also filled with everyday working people living out their lives in small towns.  Many have not traveled far from where they were born. Many have ‘come home’ after long absences.  Some have come to small towns seeking a less complicated way. Like the lady from Seattle who had moved to Roundup, Wyoming, population 2000, to simplify her life. Now she is that town’s chairwoman for organizing Fourth of July festivities and other annual events which, surprisingly enough, in this very small town, are many. Life is certainly ironic sometimes.

These places may not be as glamorous and exciting as the big cities and may not be your usual and customary travel destinations but they sure have their history. Its these places and folks that I’m most interested in, people with stories just like you and me. People like to tell you their stories. Just ask them.

Like the man I spoke with on our first night out. We had pulled into the US Corps of Engineers Belleville Dam and Lock on the Ohio River north of Point Pleasant, WV, not far from Gallipolis, OH, for the night. You will hear about Gallipolis later.

The Ohio River has a number of dams and associated locks that facilitate commercial maritime traffic on the river. We were the only people at Belleville beside an older gentleman sitting in his car watching barges come and go. In passing I asked him what he knew of the dam and lock system. He spoke about that a little and then said that he had noticed that we were from Virginia. He shared with me that he too was from Virginia, specifically from Lee County, down in the southwest part of the state. Then he paused for a moment, looked out toward the river then back at me and said that he had grown up in Lee County until his teen years and had never known his father. He said he had always regretted that. Then he wished us safe travels and walked away.

So, on this trip I’m going to do a lot of asking and listening.  I will blog to report on places we go, the people we meet and the stories they tell. And tell some of my own as well.

All of us lead interesting lives and have our own stories. I don’t presume to think that what we’re doing is any more interesting than what anyone else is doing. So, I’ll point you to my blog and you can visit it as you wish. The address is http://flickavoyages.blogspot.com/. I’ll make periodic entries in a rough chronologic order. I’m already behind. We left on June 19 so I’ll bundle a few days together for each entry.

On the blog site, you can enter your email address to get alerts to postings. If you do read my stories I hope you enjoy them. Don’t hesitate to tell your own. Comment as you wish.

Happy trails.

Steve