Stats: Today - 58 miles; 1341 miles to date
Elevation climbed: 623 ft; 42,577 feet to date
Temp. Low: mid 50's High: mid 80's
Mix of sun and clouds, east headwinds 5-20 mph
Recently my stats have shown that every day there has been a mix of sun and clouds. My only explanation is that in Big Sky Country you can see everyone else's weather.
Today we had a slow start. Shortly after we woke up it started raining so it took a little extra time with packing to be careful that we didn't get anything wet that we didn't have to. We still had to pack a wet tent fly. After we finished packing it stopped raining.
The other thing that gave us a slow start was the headwinds. Today was the first day that we had significant headwinds. They must have been close to twenty mph. We had them for the first twenty-one miles. At the twenty-one mile mark we turned off of Hwy 2 and went on a quiet and nicely paved reservation road and though we rode parallel with Hwy 2, about three miles from it the wind was not as strong, only about 5-10 mph. The reservation road might have been a little lower and thus out of the wind. We welcomed the change.
For lunch we really only had one option today and that didn't come until about 2:00. With the hot sun we were low on water and really needed a break. And God provided for us. Oswego is a very small community that only had one place to get food. It was a bar and cafe, or at least that's what was written on the front of the building. When we went in and asked about food the bar owner said, "There is no cafe. We've changed owners and the State has to approve the changes before we can reopen it." He said the only food we have is (frozen) pizza. So we chose the one we wanted, he heated it up and it was actually pretty good.
At the bar were two other guys that we talked with. One of the guys, Benji Daniels, is a Sioux Indian Artist. He gave us a couple of his brochures that show his art. He sculpts using scrap metal, iron, bronze and other metals into massive sculptures. His art has been on display around the country. One of his biggest sculptures is of a buffalo's skull. In his brochure he writes, "One of the most powerful symbols of the American Indian People is the buffalo. This massive (2.5 ton 24 foot long) sculpture makes a big statement about the passing of the buffalo." We plan to see this sculpture when we ride through Medora, ND next week.
As we've been riding across the northern tier of our country we've ridden through the reservations of several Native American tribes. While it's been fun to see where the deer and the antelope play, we've seen many historical markers along the road that explain the significance of the land to the various tribes. However, more important than the land are the people. One of them was a recent host, mentioned in our post from Day 23.
Genevieve was our generous Warm Showers host in Cut Bank, Montana. We had a fascinating discussion about Native American tribes, as both of her parents are members of two tribes, the Gros Ventre (Aaniiih) and the Nakoda (Assiniboine). Genevieve grew up on the Fort Belknap Agency reservation , which we biked through on Sunday. She said life on the reservation growing up was a totally normal childhood, with the addition of native language classes. She said that all of her friends who wanted to attended college and earned degrees.
One of the benefits of taking a bike trip like this is meeting so many interesting people. While many, many people ask us about our trip, we have learned a lot about the people in the communities we pass through. We pray that God would use us to show his love to people.
After a hot day we arrived in our destination of Wolf Point.
Our campsite behind the motel in Glasgow.
Another dinosaur?
Thin cloud cover
A tree
A dry field
A river almost dried up
Same river, other side of road. For the last three days we've been riding through some pretty arid land. People say that it clouds up like it wants to rain, but then they get nothing. This is the worst year they've had since the late 1980's.
This puppy didn't want to chase us. He just trotted along the road with us. He didn't even make a sound.
Good-bye to the Hi-Line and the Great Northern Railway. In Wolf Point we turn and go south for a day.
Benji Daniels, Sioux Indian artist
The guys in the bar called this the "Indian Highway". It was a nice quiet road.
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