Fort Peck Mt.

If you are ever in this area it is worth a side trip to Fort Peck. The town has about 400 residents but it is a happening place. This sign sort of explains the history. One thing that caught my attention is the last 4 words "ever built by man". These folks are pretty proud of their dam.

This is a very good regional theater . The inside is as interesting as the outside. They have been putting excellent live theter here for decades and there is a lot of competition nationwide to become a member of the cast. My son Jeff told me about a theater major friend of his from Wright State who got her first paying acting job in Fort Peck a few years ago. I looked through some of the shows they have put on and it reads like the history of Broadway. They are starting a new production of The Wizard of Oz this Friday but as much as I would like to stick around and see it I have to keep moving in order to get to Council Bluffs Iowa for the start of Ragbrai.
This is one of the places I want to revisit.

This was also interesting in Fort Peck. The Luthern and Catholic congregations share the same building. I was wondering why this is not done in more places with all kinds of denominations. Think of the savings for both etc etc. which would mean being able to devoted a lot more resources to helping members of the community. I guess that would make too much sense to too few people to actually work.

This is a pic of the part of the beautiful lake formed by the Fort Peck Dam (the largest ........ever made by man). Besides the usual boating/fishing there are some very nice designated swimming areas with actual sandy beaches. I was watching a bunch of folks enjoying themselves by the water yesterday when a lady started screaming because a huge bull snake was moving along the beach. It had to be 6 feet long and I really wanted a pic but it disappered before I could get camera. What was funny is that people could not decide whether it was safe to be in or out of the water afterwards. It did stir things up quite a bit and made for lots of excited discussion on the beach.

Nashua Mt.

I am just not used to seeing that space between these 2 words.

A reader of this blog who shall go unnamed ( his initials are R.O.N.S.I.M.O.N.) has been whining that I have not shown any pics of post offices --especially old western ones. Apparently this unnamed reader has a thing for P.O.s . I was going to completely ignore the situation but as I was riding into Nashua today ,which is about the size of a large business envelope with 3 postage stamps on it, I noticed the sign on the right of this building. This is the MAIN post office in town. Maybe tomorrow I will be able to locate one of the branches in town, and get a photo of that as well.

This bell is about 20 feet from my tent and unlike a lot of decorative bells it is fully functionable. I hope I do not have any of those reoccuring nightmares where I get the urge to get up and attempt to sleep ring the closest bell. That would be embarrassing--it is one thing to do this at home on occasion (Miss Sassy keeps a small cowbell on the night stand for those instances) but in a strange town in a strange state where vigilante folks carry guns around openly with a bell that could probably wake up the mosquitoes in Saco which is 100 miles away , could get a little dicey.

My home for the night. The bell is just out of the pic to the right.

btw--as I was coming out of the shower (semi cold with a button you need to press every 15 seconds to restart the flow) I meet John from Colorado who asks me if I am camping for the night. He must have been tipped off by the tent.
Anyway John tells me he has been living in his pickup truck parked about 50 yards away for the last 3 weeks. He uses the shower and bathroom regularly. He was traveling randomly around the country for awhile when he blew the engine in his truck here . He is working for a guy around town to earn the $2900 it will take to fix so he can move on.
I liked this guy immediately. He reminds me so much of myself in another life time when I hitchhiked around nthe country with no game plan beyond that particular day. I told John I would buy him breakfast at Bergies in the morning and look forward to talking more with him.

As I write this I remember clearly my first road venture . My sister Kathy drove me to old route 40 near Eaton so I could hitch to St.Louis to see the Gateway Arch which was about a year old. I was a soph or junior in high school and could not understand why my mom said "if you do this stupid thing I am locking the door behind you --so don't come back" I kinda knew she was not totally serious and went anyway. My mom was a saint and I was a shithed a lot .

Well it is getting too dark to see the keyboard well enough to keep from making more mistakes than usual. Time for checking out the inside of my eyelids.

Even though there have not been too many flying around I am taking precautions in the event one of those bastard sons of bitches (another old time Frenchtown expression) mosquitos gets inside my tent. I am no longer defenseless like when I am concentrating on balancing a bike going 4 mph up a steep hill. I will not be a helpless victim tonight.

I am taking my anti dog/bear/Hells Angel canister of pepper spray in with me as well as my moose gutting pocket knife with the 5 inch blade. I won't go down easy but if it does happen I will be taking that mosquito with me.

Glascow Mt to Nashua via Fort Peck Mt

W@hile exploring Glascow Mt. this morning I came across some interesting stuff. The first was this Earnhart Jr. car parked in the National Guard Recruiting Center parking lot offering free pics (if you were 13 or older and gave them your email and home address--so they could "send " pic--clever --very clever). Anyway it was a free hotdog and diet Coke . This is a pic of 2 powerful machines--that is my bike in the foreground. BTW, the guy taking the pics was not happy with me because I was kinda screwing up his pics .

Not sure what the local high school mascot is but considering the other Glascow in Europe this would be a good one, if it isn't already.

Believe it or not this is a real live elk that the local Elks club hired to pose in front of their building during daylight hours. At least that is what Frank , who had a Glascow Elks shirt on told me when I complimented him on how nice it looked. Frank said it is not uncommon to have elk hire themselves out and do this sort of thing in exchange for protection during hiunting season.

Have seen several piles like this in this part of the country. I wonder how many of these came from elk who did not take jobs in town.

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A short 35 mile day today. After checking out Glascow I headed for the Fort Peck dam which is the largest man made earthen dam in the universe. It sort of turns the Missouri River into a huge lake .
My short ride was not intended, I was heading for Wolf Point about 40 more miles away when I stopped at a convenience store in Nashua a small town located on Route 2 . The owner was very friendly and suggested I check out the town campsite next door. It was free and had a shower and very nice grass. I asked about mosquitoes and he said they were no problem "not like in Saco, the mosquito capitol of the world". He would even have the town fog around the campsite if I decided to stay--and they did. This sounded and looked promising and suddenly my legs said to me "take a break--we need it" so here I am sitting at a concrete picnic table writing my blog. The sun has set and it is getting a little chilly but very comfortable. No bugs to speak of.

The only deal is that about 100 yars away is the railroad track that runs alo9ng Route 2 . It is what the Amtrack runs on as well as a lot of freight trains. There is a crossing right here and I will have to handle those sounds, like the 7 horn blasts every train does before going thru the crossing.. It ain't quite like camping along side a burbling mountain stream but I will take it , especially after walking up to Berbie's and getting a salad , pizza and a chocolate malt --made with home made ice cream. They make it fresh everyday and damn is it good. My body is happy with me tonight.

Fletch Lives !!

As mentioned yesterday I met an impressive real biker and want to pass on his blog. I really do hope to meet up with him again down the road.
http://www.fletchride.com/

Malta to Glasgow 3

It was warm yesterday.

In most bike circles this would be considered an oxymoron.

This is Stephen Fletcher a west bound biker from New York to Seattle to San Diego. He is definately a real biker who took some time to chat with a OFG heading east. Fletch and his wife have been cast members of several broadway plays including Wicked which played in Ohio and was seen by several friends in Versailles.

Fletch was heading into ,mosquito alley , actually Fletch said he had had no problem with mosquitoes and had hardly seen any until he met met, he was wondering what that dark cloud was swirling around me and my bike. I gave him some water and my prayers. Actually He has a blog and as soon as we email each other I will include it. It has to be interesting.

More road art that you would not normally see when driving in a car.

Malta to Glascow 2

This is an important spot for the eastern Montana native Americans. Did not spend a lot of time checking it out.

That is Sleeping Buffalo Rock in the background. I have to read more about it, there has to be a reason there were so many cigarettes placed inside that wooden fence around the rock.

I was surprised to see this in Saco Mt. If you are over 40 you will know that before Tom Brokaw there was Chet Huntley and David Brinkley when it came to world news reporting. This must be where Chet grew up . I can understand why he left.

Malta Mt to Glascow Mt.

I had to wonder what the M-ettes are at Malta High.

When I first saw t5his store I was all excited about checking it out, but of course it was closed.

There were 2 of these extra extra wide loads on route 2 yesterdy. They were some sort of buildings that took up most of the berm on the right and half the left lane as well. There were 3 warning vehicles that let you know what was coming.

I rode by several roadside/field burns of at least 10 acres each. You could see where the fires had been put out by fire crews. From talking to some locals apparently somebody was shootong roman candles into the side ditches along a 20 mile stretch of route 2 starting several fires.

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It is 75 miles from Malta to Glascow and at least for me it was mosquito gauntlet alley. As I write this I have 50+ bites on legs/arms and the worst is my back which is like one big red rash of bites. I had used a bunch of Deet and OFF on arms/legs they were only partially successful in stopping bites. What I was not aware of was that my back was getting bit thru the mesh back of the bike seat. I did not spray repellant on back and am paying for it today. These Montana mosquitoes are tough smart bastards and Calamine lotion the day after only does so much.

Actually as I was leaving Malta yesterday morn a lady in the grocery store parking lot asked me what direction I was heading. When I said "east" she said "look out, you are heading towards Saco , the mosquito capitol of the world". I said "how can they be worse than they are here?" and she said, "They are not so bad around here because we have been spraying, the mosquitoes here are the rejects from Saco. In fact I have a brother in law in Pennsylvania who would not believe how bad mosquitoes are around here , so we flew him out for a week a couple of years ago, we have not heard from him since".

There were places yesterday that I had to take off my glasses because the mosquitoes kept getting caught between the lenses and my eyes. The only relief was when I was traveling 15 mph or more but there was a 10 mph head wind and several good sized hills so there was a lot of under 15 mph speed.
I have a feeling that mosquitoes will be a big factor in my bike life for quite awhile. So far I have left a trail of fat dumb and happy critters all over Montana . I am sure that I am big news on the mosquito network and there are a bunch of them licking their chops down the road in eastern Montana, North and South Dakota and probably all the way to Washington DC. I can hear them now "Come one come all, Bring the whole family, It is Christmas and Thanksgiving in July, this guy is like a slow moving Golden Corral Chuck Wagon and he is heading your way. There is a lot to like about this bicyleist, so enjoy".

Son of a bitch!