May 9, 2019
Musings on the Road
Glasgow to Wolf Point
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This was our ninth day of riding, and we were starting to reap the benefit of pedaling some 350 odd miles across our home state, “feeling stronger every day,” as the song from the 70s says. The route on Highway 2 which runs parallel to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe is known as the High Line (with a few alternative spellings) because it marks the northern most route of the original Great Northern Railroad that shaped Montana’s history. We had ridden hundreds of miles along rolling farmland and prairie, (mostly) enjoying the vast space stretching out all around us. When traveling through, whether a day in a car or on motorcycle or a fortnight on a bicycle, the mind wanders and free associates with what the eye sees, linking the present to memories as the day progresses. The landscape stretches on and on, arid prairie alternating with irrigated crop land with widely spaced farmhouses situated off the road, some tight against a low hill for protection from the wind.
The eastward road from Glasgow goes uphill about a mile and a half, then levels out on a plateau which extends all the way to Wolf Point. We were on that hill about 10:00 with the wind at our backs and with plenty of time to go the 50 miles to our destination at Wolf Point on the Fort Peck Reservation.
We stopped for bagels and peanut butter about noon upwind from a big machine Scott said was planting seeds for a late summer harvest. (He grew up on a farm and knows these things.) Before I could get the peanut butter out of my handlebar bag, he said, “You know, this land was not made for you and me, it exists, but not for any person.” Bruce Springsteen’s haunting rendition of “This Land is Your Land” had been running through my head all morning. Weird that we had the same song in our heads, or maybe not, considering we had been together for 38 years. ‘The Boss’ said it was Woody Guthrie’s answer to Irving Berlin and meant to convey that the United States was for ALL citizens, not just the privileged or wealthy. The song captures so perfectly our sense of owning the view we rode through.
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I also played Joni Mitchell’s “Clouds” in my head and Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright.” I’m just glad Scott didn’t say something about Meatloaf or one of those ballads would be stuck on repeat in my brain all the way to Wolf Point. I asked him what he thought about as he rode along. “I don’t think about anything deep. I do wonder about the seemingly limitless capability of humans to throw trash along the roads. And fill up the side hills and fence lines with abandoned cars, junked machinery, and general trash. To pass the time, I just sing silly songs all the way.”
Riding along endless fields brought to my mind Andrew Wyeth’s painting “Christina’s World.” https://images.app.goo.gl/b7azvPbrJzuULmkL7. I thought about Christina, remembering vaguely that she was someone Wyeth knew, she was disabled and unable to walk. The remarkable thing about this painting is the mystery it manages to evoke on a hazy summer day, showing the back of a woman with fragile limbs half turned to a weathered farmhouse on the horizon. We can’t see her face or inside the house, so our imagination wanders and fills in the gaps with our own experience. A Google search can find actual details about Wyeth’s models for the woman, the land, the farmhouse, and barn. But this is art, so we can simply be there on the hillside and be inspired to expand it in our own story. For those who want a happy ending, this is what the real Christina Olson supposedly said about the painting. “Andy put me where he knew I wanted to be. Now that I can’t be there anymore, all I do is think of that picture and I’m there.” Same with me.
Back in the real world on the road, our pedaling brought us to our destination at Wolf Point at 16:00. The favorable winds helped us make up time, even with the later start. We checked in to the neat and tidy Homestead Inn. For $79 plus tax, we got a room on the ground floor and just enough space to keep our bikes with us. Plus a continental breakfast. The laundry room was spic and span, $2.25/load, including wash and dry.
Scott ventured out, sans panniers, to the Missouri Breaks Brewery for a refreshing the Porque Pine pale ale.
We had a satisfying dinner of cheeseburger and beef & bean burrito at the Old Town Grill, recommended by the motel clerk as the best place in town. You can walk the entire business district in 15 minutes, and we did. The historical marker says the town started as a trading post on the Fort Peck Reservation in 1879. Fur trappers killed several hundred wolves one winter and stacked the frozen carcasses on the bank of the Missouri river, where passengers on the steamboats saw them. We replenished our snack supply at Albertson’s then had to go to Lucky Lil’s Casino for a second, but less tasty, beer. We were snug in bed by 21:30.
Today's ride: 50 miles (80 km)
Total: 426 miles (686 km)
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