I had a very enjoyable 3 day break in Lewistown, making myself at home with my former professor Al Eggers and his wife Jo. I credit Al with sending me on my professional trajectory, encouraging me to take a computer programming class four years before the invention of the PC, putting me in the right place at the right time with the right skills that served me well for over 30 years.
Al and Jo took me on a couple excursions. A pretty drive up to the spring that feeds the creek which runs through town, the Judith Mountains that are next to the town, and a visit to the American Prairie Reserve. The latter is an ongoing project to acquire sufficient contiguous prairie land to support the native prairie biome. Cows aren’t invited so local ranchers don’t approve, it’s a topic of high local interest. We’d hoped to view some bison, and while they did not materialize I did get a very good look at the land and was left deeply impressed. The prairie intimidates me. Except for in the very occasional river valley there are no trees, nothing but grassland extending to the horizon which is so far away in every direction. The lack of any potential shelter anywhere made me uneasy. I’m curious if I would have had the same apprehension if I’d driven here instead of cycling. I suspect not, certainly not as much.
With Al’s regional knowledge and some good paper maps I’ve come up with a route for the next few weeks. I’m not allowed to ride my bike through Glacier National Park because we need to get as many cars through there before the glaciers melt, so I’ll be skipping that. Instead am planning to ride north into Canada and ride the border west, bypassing Idaho and eastern Washington before reentering the US and heading south.
It is this stuff, molten and squeezed between the rock layers, that pushed up the local mountains. Water entering tilted rocks around the domes are what feeds the local aquifers
