Captain's Log - Day 25

Riding across the wind swept plains on his trusty steed, the cowboy lifts his hat just enough to wipe the sweat from his brow. The sun blazes down on him and his young bride and the flies and bugs swirl around his head but he is used to them and hardly notices. They have been on this trail for weeks and will reach the ranch in just two more days, that is, if they press on. Tired and thirsty, he pulls the cork from the tin canteen, offers it to his bride, then takes a deep draw of the warm water saving the rest for later. The grass is well blown to the south as the wind relentlessly pounds on everything in its path, but the cowboy is undaunted and remains determined to reach the ranch.

A coyote watches from the railroad tracks and the cowboy wonders for a moment why he doesn't take the train. Laughing to himself, he knows why - it would be a tremendous loss to be trapped inside the cage of the rail car instead of enjoying the fresh air of the plains and feeling the muscles of his stallion ripple under the saddle, and so he presses on.

The pronghorn doe and her fawn scamper across the trail, sensing the danger and knowing that if they don't hurry on their way, they could be in mortal danger so they run. The cowboy takes a breath and simply enjoys the moment with his young bride.

Those were some of my thoughts as I rode Black Beauty across central and eastern Montana. The bugs were there - the proof is all over the front of my bike! The coyote was there on the train track. The stallion was there standing on a ridge watching over all the other horses on the plains. The pronghorn antelope doe and fawn crossed right in front of us as if they wanted to be our hood ornament. The trains passed by all day long. What a day!

We truly thought we would need all of our warm, cold weather stuff for our time in Glacier National Park and that Nevada would be the real warm riding. Ironically, we were in light shirts yesterday in Glacier and Nevada kept us in all of our warm stuff. So when we took off this morning, we were just wearing our denim shirts cause the weather forecast was for sunny skies and 80 degrees. Haha. A few miles out of town we stop to put on our coats. A few more miles and we stop to put on our chaps. It was chilly.

This is a pretty common sight across the state. There are abandoned houses and barns all over along with some really nice ranches. Flatlands of huge agricultural farms led to rolling hills best suited for ranches.


We went from crystal clear mountain streams and rivers to far fewer muddy, slower moving streams. I thought this abandoned bridge looked pretty cool.


The wind was really bad today. One blast caught Dawn by surprise and almost blew her off the bike! If not for her cat like reflexes she would have been picking herself up from the ditch! Once, when a semi passed us, the wind blast about brought us to a stop. Now, from 70 mph to an instant stop almost puts you over the handlebars! But not us, we held tight and pressed on!

This sprinkler seemed like a bit of overkill. It is one of the giant sprinklers they use on their crops, only this guy set it up to water the park. This thing sprayed water all over the sliding board and merry go round - I mean it covered them with water! We thought it was going to knock this tree over!

These grain elevators/storage are all along the rairoad tracks at every town. Some are bigger and more modern, but they all have them. They were really neat - kind of like the old west.

Tomorrow? We plan to run Highway 2 across North Dakota and end up on the other end of the state. God has been good to us, very good! So hopefully, our string of good weather will continue tomorrow.

By the way, thanks Adam for helping Granpa out with his computer! You 'da man!