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Published: September 29th 2012
The riders are leaving behind Montana after covering 387 miles over six days for a 64 mile a day average. They bumped up the average on the final days, going 75 miles two days ago and 72 yesterday. I know these figures not because I'm a conscientious blogger but because the riders are obsessed with these numbers. Fred has machines that quantify every aspect of the ride. Both of them enjoy discussing, and marvelling at, these numbers. I know these numbers because my dad gives me the mileage rundown at the end of each 10-mile interval, often adding, "put that it in the blog!"
The farther east we got, the eeirer life on the road became. Between Lewistown and Glendive we passed through a great, yawning nothing. Well not exactly nothing -- we encountered badlands, collapsing barns, shabby, yet whimsical, motels, and an assortment of townies. Roscoe was one of the Jordan townies. "I live in the Fire House!" he told us when we passed each other on the way to breakfast at the Cenex filling station. The night before my mom and I had been walking down Main Street and when we passed that Fire House. The building front
Hell Creek
Cowboys drink here -- one even wore spurs. We ate appropriately bloody steaks.was gone, making the exposed interior look like like a stage. Roscoe was at his mark, leaning back in an ancient chair, and watching a TV clear across near the opposite wall. He broke the "fourth wall" (that traditional division between the actors and the audience) and greeted us in an indeterminate accent. We discovered that Roscoe did not care for peanut butter and that the dog that followed him was not his. On the other side of Main Street stood a concrete structure that like so many in Jordan was in a state of slow decay. It was also covered with a dinosaur mural. We slept at the Garfield Motel, which offered cavernous rooms decorated like the school notebooks of an exuberant 12-year-old girl-- lots of glitter, colorful borders, and stencilled flowers that I guess made up for the lack of windows.
In Circle we stayed at the Traveller's Motel, which proved both browner and smellier than the Garfield. Circle, however, made no lasting impression. It lacked the hint of menace that made Jordan, with its Hell Creek Tavern and hideous, wasp-filled laundromat, endearing.
This past week I've been one of three sag drivers, meeting the riders
The ladies
My mom and Lois photograph Fred as he approaches the edge of Montana and the end of 387 miles. at the 10 or (depending on the confidence the riders had in their legs) 5-mile intervals with water, bananas, and peanuts. But today my mom and Lois headed back to Park Rapids. The original fellowship is sundered. The result being I will be alone out there, waiting at each interval. The riders, when they stop, will no longer be able to count on that unceasing flow of encouragement those women offered. Nor will they be able to count on much help in finding bike shops, decent restaurants, or the next motel. Nor will they be able to illicit genuine sympathy for their vairous ailments. No, this quest has turned. The riders will have to increasingly rely on each other if they want to reach the end of the road. I suspect a great test awaits Fred and my dad tomorrow on the road to Pollock (we are not sure on the pronunciation). As of now the possibility of tuning in ABC for the Nebraska-Wisconsin game looks dim. The effect this might have on my dad, already exhausted by winds from the southeast, are not easy to predict. And me? As I write this, I'm sitting in the Bismarck Expressway Inn,
and in front of me is a flat screen TV with basic cable options. I can't say I'm immune from doubt.
The quest continues.
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Tot: 0.11s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 11; qc: 47; dbt: 0.0823s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Mrs Grrrr
non-member comment
a historian's opinion
So, do you think this is what Lewis and Clark felt? Or is it because you have to cross the terrain on bicycles and cars?