Another long one today, my next to last Perpetual Saturday. Sunday is coming on Thursday – an Interstate run down Mona from Park City to Arrowcreek. But that sad tale will await the Epilogue. Or the Outtakes, or the Intakes.

So this day was likely my longest, as I wanted to ride the best roads in the Black Hills, see Rushmore and Crazy Horse, and get to Lander before sunset. That and I didn’t start out super early as the morning tipi was comfortable, the Termesphere Gallery beckoned and I had to read the paper. Or somesuch nonsense.

First stop was Silver City, South Dakota, a beautiful little hamlet tucked over the mountains from 385 on a mostly 15mph road. To make matters more interesting, I rode the Edelweiss Mountain dirt road OUT of Silver City, 8 miles back to the highway. McCovey and I still had it from our Polebridge practice. Saw one other car and about two dozen cattle on/beside the road. We went slowly into that good morning.

So Needles Highway was next, gorgeous, and I had to pass a few slowpokes. I mean scenic driving is fine, but not virtually BACKWARDS.

So, onward.

To Lander, from Lander and to Elko, I have seen the oddest diamond yellow signs. They are not comforting. They say “Open Range, Free Stock.” Note they don’t say livestock, and I am pretty sure they are not free even if they are dead, that is not live, stock. Having cows by the side of the road like Halloween store pop-ups is not particularly comforting, but I believe this sign is a warning that such would be the case. And has been. I wonder of the folks who came UP with the sign were just trying to mess with us.

“Those city folks may think these cows are free and when they take one, we can shoot ‘em!”

“Wait, though, since we’re calling them stock, does that mean they can take them for free if somebody already hit and kilt them?”

“No, we shoot ‘em if they try to do that, too.”

Look, riding 473 miles in a day when much of the first half of that ride hovers around 30 mph leaves one a LOT of time to think. And I am not saying that I was thinking clearly here. But ask yourself! Why “Free Stock” and not, oh say, “Livestock on Open Range?” The only way I can work it out is that they wanted to confuse me. And Lynn can tell you, it’s not THAT hard to do.

Once I left Custer, it became a slog. Empty roads, high speed, hungry, hurried, tired. I stopped for food at Isabella’s in Newcastle, Wyoming. It was empty at 2pm, and delicious. But I had to SCAT. After turning west on something like 470, within 2 miles it was completely empty and I was up at 90. A grey pickup truck racing toward me passed and lit up like a Christmas tree in my rear view mirror. This had happened once before in South Dakota, but that John Law did not turn around and get me. He was just showing he knew.

Festus Law (it was Festus County) was on my tail because he HAD accomplished a very quick and well executed 3 point turn. I “yes sir’d” the hell out of this pleasant fellow and officer as I took off my helmet and turned the SF logo away so as to show him this Nevadan “grey ghost.”

He asked if I was in a hurry to get back to Nevada. I politely answered, “no, but I am worried about getting to Lander by sundown. I apologize that I was going too fast.” He said that he would take it easy on me and went back to his truck with my license.

After 5 minutes he came back, said this road is posted at 70mph, and encouraged me to keep it in spitting distance of that. I was still 4-5 hours from Lander, but I thanked him and kept it to 75 for a solid 20 minutes.

Nice guy, but I immediately wondered, especially given all the questions I got in Nevada, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and now Wyoming…. If I had a California license plate, would he have done the same thing? I am thinking definitely “no.” It has something to do about the way he said “getting back to Nevada.”

The last 3-4 hours this day were long and lonely, but they had their own special show. The sun was 3 hours from setting and from about Wright (a coal mine town that leads to Midwest, through Casper, Moneta, Shoshoni, and Riverton) there were dark, forboding clouds spotted low in the sky and playful white cumuli up high. [Yeah, I don’t know, GO with it. We’re gliding down the highway….] The sun kept moving down and creating new light and silver lining and ray shows, each completely different from the previous. 50 of them, at LEAST. I only stopped to film the next to last act.

Lander is to rock-climbing as Moab is to mountain biking. Fantastic little 7500 person town with some western style. I arrived at another terrific AirBnB. Check it out:

I always enjoyed Paul Simon’s Slip Slidin’ Away. Beautiful song, but paralyzingly sad, depending on your POV. I’d wake my son and tell him. You could look it up. Hell. I probably have.

God only knows
God makes his plan
The information’s unavailable
To the mortal man
We work our jobs
Collect our pay
Believe we’re gliding down the highway
When in fact we’re slip slidin’ away

Slip slidin’ away
Slip slidin’ away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you’re slip slidin’ away

I don’t live that way. Refuse to. If I am gliding down the highway, I’ll enjoy it. No need to seek Desolation, Angels.

Well I know that it can’t last
Someday this ride will stall
Rubber on the road & the blood inside
‘Cause even mighty mountains
Someday might crumble & fall
Keep the rubber on the road & the blood inside

Ketch the Midnight Ghost, people! We haven’t stalled yet!

Anyway, I started on a beeayyyooouuuteeeful, but cold and windy North Dakota morn.

I mostly refuse Interstates. With the exception of Randy Rogers/Sean McConnell’s song, Interstates suck the life out of time. They get you there faster, but every smell, most vistas, and seemingly all drama and surprise are sacrificed.

Day 12’s ride was truly epic. Gorgeous left-right-left-right navigation from Devil’s Lake to Spearfish, SD with some Black Hills riding thrown in. McCovey and I rode 19W to 281 to 19W to 14 to I-94 to 6 to 21 to 31 to 12 to 65 to 212 to 85 to Alt14 to Deadwood and the Black Hills. I had no map of the Dakotas, so I studied Google Maps and made my own. 14 through Anamoose was desperately needed. 31, 12 and 65 were stunning.

Even on a cold and windy morning, the battle is small and the rewards huge. Yes, the wind buffets you some. Approaching 18 wheelers on country roads happen, probably 5-6 times an hour, and depending on the rig, you can get buffeted pretty aggressively. Closed tankers are smooth sail-bys. Biggest buffets come from cattle cars with all of those openings. They won’t do anything to you and the bike, it’s like getting hit by a very light pillow from directions you can’t see. No big deal.

I could see the edge of the clouds running east to west. The temperature was 50 degrees, which at 80 mph is COLD. The clouds lasted for maybe 120 miles and seemed like a ceiling just a couple of hundred feet up to the opaque grey. But eventually I could see the end stretching as far as I could see, east and west. And when the sun hit, all that was left was the pure two lane ride party.

And it was a party, with one significant exception — 23 needed miles into Bismarck on Interstate 94. And that, my friends, is a battle. Because not only do you lose the smells, the drama, the vistas and any possibility of surprise…. You join the battle. On I-94, all the colors faded, all the smells disappeared but that oily one. All the interest waned. Except for the battle. This is the land of the 18 wheeler going in YOUR direction, one after another or side by side. The turbulence still creates light pillow whacks. But there are a LOT more of them. It’s like breaking tackles against a team of midgets. You are being fought, and you can’t fight back.

But it was only for 23 miles. Color and wonder returned after a coffee-and-waffle Bismarck specialty shop and a return to the REAL road.

I don’t listen to anything on the road – I think it is more important to get into that zen mode of searching for every bad thing that could happen, particularly driveways and deer. So I play music in my head as I mentioned early on.

THREE TIMES on this trip, this stay-in-your-head, zen ethic has paid off on deer alone. OK, really only two. Twice I saw, slowed/stopped in time to avoid either a deer or their family member  — the third was in a hollow down to my right in the Black Hills – she never hopped up on the road. Big eye contact, though. Phew!

OK, where was I? Oh yes. Interstates SUCK.

So here’s my song:

Zig Zaggin’ away
Zig Zaggin’ away
You know the more you’re on the Interstaaaate,
The more you mourn Zig Zaggin’ away

Sang it for hours. It’s the little things.

I headed out VERY early so I could do a little Black Hills riding, too. Great roads, great rides. The Sturgis rally of a week ago brought up to SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND people to a state that only has 8. Not at all my thing. They had been here, but they were all gone. Traffic was light, riding was free. I rode through Deadwood and Lead down to Buckhorn, WY, then back up through gorgeous Spearfish Canyon to Spearfish and my AirBnB with Brad and Lynn Larson.

This was also a special day for McCovey. No one else has ridden that bike since the fabled Bob Berg sold it to me with about 1500 miles on it. If I had to guess, I’d say it was 1550, but it might have been 1450. Either way, McCovey past 21450 and 21550 on this ride, making our team 20,000 miles to the good. I don’t know if he earned his stripes or I did, but either way, I’m proud of us.

Check it out! What an AirBnB and what hospitality! Lynn and Brad invited me to Crow Peak Brewery for beers and we talked music, Dick Termes’ art and family. Brad and Lynn MAY even join a future Braun Brothers Reunion. And if you have some interest, check out the Termesphere Gallery and what Dick is up to! Brad told me the best Oly and Sven joke I’ve heard, and yes, I returned serve with Oly & Leena. Oh, the huMANity!

Lynn works at Termesphere Gallery. Dick Termes is a fascinating artist known by the M.C. Escher family and at MIT for his unique approach to perspective. Check out the video HERE at his online gallery.

Twice now this trip I have had wonderful AirBnB experiences. I feel like I made new friends with Brad and Lynn Larson. Thankfully, Lynn had recently sold both of Dick’s “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” spheres of Wrigley Field! Whew, that was a close one.

So today I learned that I will be unable to attend the Lost Creek Dude Ranch in Jackson with Lynn and friends due to remodel issues and the like. I expect to be on the Interstate from about the Wyoming-Utah border to home. That’s a lot of broken tackles and a lot of buffetings. It is tiiiimmmee for hommmmee!

I’ll leave you with our friend Willy Braun of Reckless Kelly talking about a wild ride HE once had. Here’s Mona!

From this point forward and forevermore, I’ll be calling I-80 through Nevada “Mona!” It’s what I’m gonna do! See what I did there?

Last evening, Rudi’s wife Diane joined us for dinner. We went to The Ranch — Devils Lake’s finest, and it was indeed. Steaks, sure, but pork loin, BangBang shrimp and meatloaf to die for. Diane says “it’s the Chef,” and I am a true believer. Then she made it clearer, “no, this is our only chef. At The Ranch, they never hire cooks, but quality chefs and that makes all the difference.” Indeed!

Diane is well matched with Highlander Rudi, as she is also a person dedicated to service. She has spent her career caring for adults and children with severe disabilities. I have SO much respect for the progress she has helped people make. That and until Rudi recently upgraded his spaceship fleet, she also helped with the farm equipment. Every where we went together, we found someone Diane worked with. These people are WIRED.

Speaking of spaceships, Jeff Bezos would be SO jealous, because I got to ride in one, too! I even got the “Banker’s Seat.” Skip to about 1:00 to see entry.

North Dakotans are fired up about 3 out of the last 4 days having driving rain. While I am happy for them, my family is coughing in the Nevada foothills, California needs rain, too, and I am whipped around on McCovey like a pennant at the ballpark. At Candlestick. For a night game.

A closed glacial basin unconnected to any rivers, Devils Lake is fed only by precipitation and runoff and emptied by evaporation alone. Consequently, the water has both fanned out and virtually disappeared several times over the past 4,000 years. When my Mom was a kid (not that it was 4000 years ago, Mom), the lake was probably in the range of 3,000 acres — it is now 211,000 acres…, over 330 square miles. Or so Google says. Rudi says 140,000 acres, and I trust Highlander. You should, too.

Rudi is an architect and construction management expert.

Highlander also told me today about blizzards here. I am used to that meaning driving snowstorms. HERE it means that you stay inside or risk your life. Here they even have horizontal blizzards…. The sky may be clear, but the wind can blow so hard, everything is a white-out and impassable. Good fun on he way to ice fishing. Given Highlander, sorry, Rudi, was also a medic at the Spirit Lake Indian Reservation, he has seen some crazy blizzard outcomes in and out of town that are a bit too gruesome for this log.

Let’s simply focus on the fact that you or I would need 7 lifetimes to accumulate his hobbies and skills.

Having said that, between the wind summer and winter, perhaps that is why Devils Lake has an outstanding Curling Club. And before I tell you that I met the gentleman who not only does the ice for bonspiels here, there and everywhere, I also met the gentleman that maintains the complex refrigeration system. This guy Rudi told me about even helped find and install a brand new refrigeration system within the Curling Club’s limited budget from a firm in Toronto. Finally this guy Rudi knows even helped design and build the sign ificant improvements at the Curling Club required to take advantage of such a terrific new technology.

I am telling you, Rudi and Diane do it all, including hosting never-before-heard-from relatives wanting to dig up information and insights about their mothers. They research and spelunk the roads to find the answer. And then they get back to work!

(Maybe I should have been more patient with that guy back at the North Dakota sign on his 42nd state that wanted to talk about his mother in the driving rain.)

Nope, still wouldn’t do it. Because I am not Highlander.

Thank you, Diane and Rudi, for your time, interest, humor, stories and all around greatness. You ROCK!

All packed up and headed to Spearfish in the early hours. But I will miss Devils Lake AND their signage.

I left Williston after 27 rain-soaked hours on a windy, sunny high plains morning. McCovey had never moved from under the Mainstay canopy. He was restless seeing cabs arrive each evening to take me to my dinner and bar residency at the WIlliston Brewing Company. It’s a good spot — easy to maintain distancing, good food, Idaho pours, etc.

Today, August 21st, would have been my Mom’s 100th birthday. Yes, she had me at a quite advanced age!

As I get to Devils Lake, I am reminded by the paradox that was Annabelle. She was kind, attentive and a fine parent. She was also a person who liked to be seen as proper and inside the boundaries. I was no hellion, I was a “good kid,” but I seemed to find a way to stay WAY outside what she considered “the boundaries.”

While proud of and tied to her family, she seemed to despise North Dakota, its weather, its lack of change. She was very proud of her Scandavian heritage and all of her distant, ND relatives, but she was most comfortable doing so from California. She was certainly courageous to leave at a fairly young age, attending the University of Washington for several years and making her way down the coast to the San Francisco Bay Area where she met my Dad in her early 30’s. Even under questioning, she did not discuss much about her time between North Dakota and California, say ages 16 – 32. My sense is, and I remember hearing about this faintly somewhere, she lost someone early in that time frame to war or accident. I just don’t know and no one would tell me. No one remains, now, that could tell me. I have some pictures, though, of a very young Ann with a handsome soldier. It’s lost to time, as we all eventually will be.

What I DO know is what happened when she met this handsome guy in San Francisco who had traveled the world, including all of Europe, Lebanon, Egypt, the Ivory Coast, Saudi Arabia and even Ohio, a man who had “post-war and more” bought a Studebaker (really, Dad?) and travelled the country to see where he wanted to settle after all the crazy he had seen. He chose Baghdad-by-the-Bay, she was all in, and I became a Giants fan forever.

She never really got over losing him in 1977 and having to face the last 30 years without him. She soldiered on bravely, but whatever darkness remained from her first loss certainly got harder with the second. At least that’s my unabashedly creative, romantic theory.

She wouldn’t talk about the former, and could spend hours revisiting the latter. And isn’t that ok? I’ve often opined that anyone who tries to tell the bereaved “I understand because I’ve been there,” is full of it. Misery may love company, but grief stands alone. Grief requires some drowning, and who knows what thoughts another is drowning in? Some need to talk it through, some need to gain distance, some just need to learn how to breathe again.

ANYway, she was a piece of work who loved her family and particularly her son. Completely, if not always empathetically. Perhaps it was tough for this woman who wanted many but only had her one child. It was hard for her to watch me make aggressive, off-the-path decisions in my early adulthood, emphasizing skiing, hockey, jumping out of airplanes and leaving great jobs and situations for unknown adventures. They say every good relationship has tension — ours had plenty.

My Dad had two words he would often offer her in her more shall-we-say “characteristic” moments. They are the title of this offering. One day in the mid-70’s, I came home after a looong day (doubleheader) of playing baseball in 100 degree heat to a note on the front door. She left notes for us everywhere. It said, “Your Dad is probably in the backyard. Phone doesn’t work. I’m at 201-291-4556.” And the doors were locked.

Oh, Annabelle.

She would offer aggressive opinions on air conditioning in New Jersey, the appropriateness of my date’s attire or why the guy at the local 7-Eleven could “barely even speak the language.” This just 2 or 3 minutes after telling us how proud she was of her Norwegian father who moved here to homestead and “couldn’t even speak the language!” Oh, Annabelle.

I told her once that so many people don’t realize that my children are adopted, because they look like us. “Sometimes God does things like that,” she said. She said lots of nice things to me, and to others. But I think that was the kindest thing she ever said to anyone. Maybe that ANYone has ever said to anyone.

Oh Annabelle!

She tried to be unfailingly kind, and usually was. She loved us, our children and life itself. And it’s an honor to be here seeing and feeling her roots.

So I get to Devils Lake and am met by my 3rd cousin — I think the only relative of mine remaining in town. Our grandmothers were sisters.

AND he is Highlander! Or Highlander II, sorry Brett. (See Grett’s Highway 24 Adventure waaay below.)

Rudi Bloomquist farms 1400 acres on his own. Well, but he does own a spaceship. You’ll see. He also is an architect and construction management genius, having helped restore local churches, buildings and even resetting a steeple that became the leaning steeple of Devils Lake. He is an EMT, a First Responder and firefighter. He ski’d like a madman in Steamboat in his youth, living in homes he was building (on less-than-pristine snow days only, of course.) He is a family historian and all around terrific guy. He is renowned as a Curling icemaker, and has made ice for many a bonspiel, and don’t we ALL love a good bonspiel?! We didn’t and are not going to talk politics in this day and age, but suffice it to say he is a thoughtful centrist who likes real truth. HaySeuss wept. Again. He is Highlander.

Rudi, a man of many responsibiities, spent hours showing me around the community and took the time to spelunk our way to the property my great grandfather JCW Anderson had founded out on what is now a dirt road named 53rd Street NE.

To do so, we stopped at another farm and asked about the Elvram (sp) and Johnson farms. After, of course, discussing the recent rains and if they mattered a fig for this most recently completed wheat harvests. We met a hardworking, interesting and helpful fellow who helped us triangulate to the promised land.

We went into another farm to check in and found THIS WAS IT. Unfortunately, nowhere near as currently promising as it once was or as was the property from which we triangulated. The current occupants seemed, shll we say, quite a bit less fit in any (read “almost . They informed us that the big old barn had been knocked down and buried “over there” and the new house had replaced the big old house that had succumbed to fire. Rumor had it that old JCW had poured two inches of concrete on the overbuilt 2nd floor to ensure he could develop some quiet from all the kids upstairs. I’m simply reporting the facts.

There was much more to come, including riding in a spaceship and meeting Diane! But that’s post-Annabelle’s roots….

I got back well before midnight, but vodka is not always your friend. Finally hit the (very cold) road through Glacier at about 7. Started at 41 degrees and did not get warmer than 57 all day. All 570 miles of day. It took seconds to put on the warmest shirts and glove and jacket liner while sealing up the jacket and helmet vents.

Not every “hit-the-road” works to perfection.

Well I know that it can’t last
Someday this ride will stall
Rubber on the road & the blood inside
‘Cause even mighty mountains
Someday might crumble & fall
Keep the rubber on the road & the blood inside

Desolation Angels

The last line is the KEY. That and heated grips. You’ll see.

Multiple pilot car-managed Glacier work areas and the cold stopped any early momentum, and I was cold and hungry. Got to the strange and wonderful Griddle in Shelby, Montana. Man, when they serve you a side of meat for breakfast, it is beside your breakfast for ages. Glacier big.

There were 405 miles to go, I had a slooow start and had to bust it. We probably earned nearly 100 miles, averaging 90 mph over Dances of Wolves terrain, before it started to rain. Rain, sleet and wind for at LEAST the last 300 miles. Of more Dances with Wolves terrain. Gas stations with no canopies. BIG trucks on the two lane road just burying opposing traffic, or even distanced followers, with clouds of stinging mist. Wet and cold, just like Samuel likes his, well never mind about that. More later on the real-life character whose real name shall not be disclosed but who I shall call Samuel.

And all was still well with the world. You know why?

Heated grips.

You may say its baseball or high heels or a fine Mt. Veeder Cabernet. You might think it’s Jeff Crosby’s guitar or Lynn Goodman’s wit or George Clooney. But no, my friends, the world’s GREATEST capability is heated hand grips on an adventure motorcycle. You might say, like Crash Davis, the small of a woman’s back, or a constitutional amendment against the Designated Hitter. But I digress again. If you have a bloodstream and are cold on a bike, you just pump up the heat to TWO dots and let your hands do the rest. Your mind may forget the lyrics to Desolation Angels that you were singing in your helmet. You may forget your key or put your rainpaints on BEFORE taking your wallet out to buy a water, but it WILL NOT MATTER. Because YOU, my friend, have heated grips.

With a good wind screen and an adventure bike, rain is no problem. It takes hours and miles to get really wet, and I had both. In abundance. Set to 11. But 11 can’t beat 2 dots of heated grips. No m’aam sir.

What I noticed from Bigfork to Willison:

• Tired can last. At one late gas stop, I misplaced my earplugs, found them, geared up, misplaced my key, forgot that I needed the bathroom and began the cycle all over again. Makes me cold just thinking about it. Oh, and the rain pants thing.
• There are trains along Route 2 of scale and beauty. Russ Hatch, be aware! Passenger trains, long lonely freights, tankers-only and siding management, all with that graceful, huge-momentum movement, and always going a bit slower than I was, side by side. I was particularly taken by how you could see how the cars are really beads on a necklace, using the short length of their cars to bend not just horizontally on turns, but vertically over hill and dale.
• There are casinos in every small town in Montana – and Indian reservations, too. I expect a correlation, but not all were obvious. It seems like there is affirmative casino action in even the smallest motes of a town, far from reservations. Who is there to play in a casino with an “open” sign that looks like a ghost town? Who says, “yep, loved The Shining, I’m IN!”
• One time I noticed I couldn’t see. Hit me right away. Led to an immediate turnoff to a, wait for it, closed casino, where I stood in the vestibule to clean glasses and visor. A proprietor unlocked the door and gave me some paper towels before affirming my right to play, even when closed. I thanked him, toweled off, and rode away.
• Had I known it would rain throughout the day, I might have tried to avoid all this somehow, and that would have been worse. I was prepared and it all worked out.

So after about 237 hours, the North Dakota sign came into view, and I pulled into the turnout. It was still 50 yards away in the pouring rain.

I trudged over, took the picture, and some other guy had left his car with Michigan plates and was walking toward the sign. He wanted to chat. As I walked by, I learned that this was his 42^nd state,

he transported animals for a living,

he wanted to know my story,

and wanted to chat

. about his mother, I think

With 8 miles of range left in the tank, I pulled into a Williston gas station and could not remember the name of my hotel. (MAINSTAY, you idiot!) I filled up McCovey, figured it out under the CANOPY (HEY MOTES, [Day 1 reference], get it TOGETHER, will ya?) of a real gas station and took my sodden self to my new temporary home.  

I took over the guest laundry, showered, and took a cab through the pouring rain to the lovely Williston Brewing Company. Good food and sports. I’ll go again tonight, as I finally became cogent enough to cancel the Fargo leg of my trip. 100% chance of rain did not bode well. No reason to ride across the state to attend a ballgame that will DEFINITELY be rained out. Even if it isn’t.

So about Samuel. His name isn’t really Samuel, but before I realized what he actually thought about stuff and things, he introduced himself to me downstairs at breakfast. I was playing a little Jeff Crosby as I wrote this blog, very quietly, and he heard it and started to tell me about how, at 52, he is still the front man for his band in Minot, ND. He seemed nice, asked about my trip, wanted to talk about his music. So I sent him some links to Jeff’s music, to Reckless and to this blog.

And then he broadened the conversation into Californians, socialists, immigrants, the homeless and those “damn BLM events in Minneapolis.” I questioned his thinking but said I never let politics get between me and a friend. I calmly discussed an alternative point of view, like, I agree that the homeless problem is indeed a problem. But did Chad (oops) really think that the answer was that every one of them simply had to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get on with it? I mean, what do you do with the people who simply cannot muster the ability or capability? “Well I did it,” was the answer. He was a man dedicated to a “representative republic” because too many men were too stupid to participate in a democracy. This ground was covered, in, oh, Rome, monarchies, etc. I asked how you draw the line. All I know is that it seemed to include him and he was skeptical about just about everyone I know being smart enough to be represented.

When we got to George Soros intentionally destroying world economies through currency manipulation and hundreds of people he knows with “AK’s” building cabals of 5 people each preparing for the time they are simply going to go fight the people that are trying to “steal our freedoms,” well then I said, “Who are you going to fight?” I mean who and where do you think the people are trying to steal your freedoms and what are they doing?

“Probably the left” was the answer. And “you have no idea how many thousands of gun owners are getting together over these issues RIGHT NOW.” I asked him to be specific. Did he think I was going to have a gun and try to force good government on him? What IS good government anyway? We were back to George Soros and communists and socialists.

On the one hand, I think Samuel is trying to be a good citizen as he sees it. He has a good career and is a compelling salesman and conversationalist. Except for that whole qualifying your customer thing.

On the other hand, I told him we were most definitely NOT going to be friends.

We wished each other as well as we could, and both left shaken that there are people on the other side thinking THAT.

Whew.

As I sit here at 2pm on my newly minted “off-day,” I await my residency at the Williston Brewery this evening. I still seek a massage from an overbooked oil town. Doubt grows, sorrow floats, but my energy and excitement about North Dakota has not abated. ON it!

Devils Lake tomorrow, Rudy Bloomquist on the tour and a steak dinner, rain or shine. But it looks like shine!

Even if it rains.

And I’ll ketch me the midnight ghost
We’ll roll down that Western Coast
Fields of green
Valleys of wine
St. Theresa, don’t you worry
We’ll make it on time

Desolation Angels Chorus

So I had originally planned to go to Helena, which I have never seen. Had a cozy little AirBnB and no idea what I would do there other than ride some great roads in and out. I am sure it would have been fine.

But.

As I often do, when planning any trip, business or pleasure, I see what there may be to see. This has landed me Sara Silverman at the University of London Theater (on my Gawd!), Chelsea/Liverpool, 44 major league ballparks, Reckless Kelly in Charlotte…, even Dodger games when they played whoever I was rooting for that day. But I digress.

So I rooted around to see if any of my favorite acts in Challis at the BBR were going to be in Montana somewhere. I did that on the Wednesday before Thursday, Day 1.

And sure enough, Jeff Crosby (he of the co-write on Day 3’s Lonesome on My Own) and Darci Carlson were going to be in Bigfork, MT. It was only going to cost me about 80 miles on Day 8, so that’s nothin’ and off to change the reservations we went!

First, of course, I finally had to stop by Polebridge on my way down the North Fork. I mean, come ON!

There I discovered that I no longer had a low-beam headlight and had to ride with the high-beam on. No one seemed to notice. Gonna have to fix that in North Dakota.

On to Bigfork for laundry at the laundromat, a quick shower and dinner with Jeff and Darci before the show. I could not agree less with Paul Theroux:

“You think of travelers as bold, but our guilty secret is that travel is one of the laziest ways on earth of passing the time. Travel is not merely the business of being bone-idle, but also an elaborate bumming evasion, allowing us to call attention to ourselves with our conspicuous absence while we intrude upon other people’s privacy—being actively offensive as fugitive freeloaders. The traveler is the greediest kind of romantic voyeur, and in some well-hidden part of the traveler’s personality is an unpickable knot of vanity, presumption, and mythomania bordering on the pathological. This is why a traveler’s worst nightmare is not the secret police or the witch doctors or malaria, but rather the prospect of meeting another traveler.”

Paul Theroux, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

Sorry Paul, love your books, see where you were going there (because I read it already) and I like your nephew, particularly in your Mosquito Coast. But I am not lazy, I am no freeloader and I enjoy other travelers. Wait till you hear about Samuel on Day 9, but for now, you’ll have to settle for the vanity implied by these scribbles and my presumption that anyone will care.

Onward.

Arriving in Bigfork, here is the first thing I see: “The Flathead V8 Ford Collection” at Lyle’s Man Cave. Cousin Lyle, are you HERE, too? I thought it was North Dakota…. I mean, look no further that the picture below with Michael to see one gargantuan flat head, but really, a whole exhibit?

The BIG news was that not only were Jeff and Darci playing, he had much of his band with him! I did not know. As I parked the bike and Michael Mitchell (HeySeuss or Garden Gnome, you decide), Ben Waligoske and Matt Fabbi had stayed with us in Sonoma, hung out in Nevada previously and were there, too! Old home week! (Missed you Andy!)

So we have a great dinner, a few drinks and head on over to the tiniest venue EVER to host artists of this stature. That’s what I’m going with, Refugees, so be proud.

I mean these guys can play with ANYbody. Write with ANYbody. And we’re in this lakeside, lakefront restaurant and bar. They play here because they discovered it and loved it a couple years ago and just come back for fun when they’re on the way by. There’s no money in it – just joy and good rooms in a favorite place. And THIS is where I decide to see them. Remember Willy’s lines, unless this is another Jeff co-write, which is possible. I was having dinner and drinks with people who love the same ethic. But unlike me, talented artists….

It’s bound to take its toll,
Out runnin’ wild and livin’ free
I’ve done some growing up,
But I never lost the child in me
We’re tossin’ dice at things
That might not ever be
All just to see what I can see….

Still more Desolation Angels

Here’s Jeff playing one of my favorites:

Several times now I have spoken with Jeff about the Brauns, their songs and thoughts. It’s a little like Sean McConnell writing for Randy Rogers and how stunned I was to learn that Sean had written much of 4 of my 5 favorite RR songs. Some of my favorite lines in Reckless and Micky songs, Jeff wrote. And I didn’t know until I mentioned them to him. It’s not like he said, “hey I wrote this.” I tell him things I really enjoyed in his music and theirs, and occasionally, more that a few times, he was cornered and had to say, “well, I wrote that.”

Pretty, pretty cool.

There’s the heart of the hook in my Mother’s God:

“Throw your heart in the river, hope it sees the ocean one day.”

There’s the whole discussion we covered about North American Jackpot in Day 3. Jeff brought the Grateful Dead notion to a new place:

“Feelin’ broke down on the golden road to unlimited devotion…”
[Watching satellites and airplane lights weave through these western stars….]

Hangin’ with Jeff & Darci, with Michael and Ben and Matt both before and after a show was a privilege and a time we all seek. Maybe you’re not a country or folk or rock music person. It doesn’t matter. What matters is finding and spending some time with artists and art you respect. It’s even better when you learn that they’re wonderful, edgy, thoughtful, dedicated people. Because we really only know about that last adjective.

Here’s Darci:

Two More Bottles of somethin, anyway….

I think Lynn ran away with it, but my gold medal count is climbing. Stay tuned for the road going on forever tomorrow in pouring rain. But I’ll leave you with this….

Jeff reached out the next day to see that I’d made North Dakota. I shared both agreement on the fine time we had and the deets of my trial. He sent me this photo of the gang with Jeff behind the camera, (like THAT ever happens,) and told me to get a beer, stat.

And so the tour REALLY begins. So far, we’ve had two long pulls to an all-time favorite festival, surrounded by family and friends and two days of great fun. But now the riding for the never-before-seen begins. Alone.

We’re there before we know
Just watch this Grey Ghost go
Steel on the tracks & the hammer down
Things used to move so slow
These days it’s roll man roll
Steel on the tracks & the hammer down

More Desolation Angels

I headed 428 miles due north to within one handful of miles from the Canadian border. The last 36 miles were up the gravel/dirt portion of the North Fork Road to a lovely AirBnB, off-the-grid home hosted by the amazing Angie and her weimaraner Sugar.

I questioned (as did others) why I wanted to stay 20-something miles away from any Glacier entrance, but the decision was a wise one. McCovey needed some time in the dirt. Actually, he was fine, but my skills were dormant. 4 trips up and down the road had us dancing like we meant it. But the first time…, oh the first time. Dear reader, I am sure you are like me, or all of us. When you have never been somewhere before, the distance to the expected sign or turn and the patience to wait is, well it’s…, it’s the human condition! I had all my gear AND a full backpack of groceries the first time up the road. Light was fading, bears were watching. McCovey was doing the “Unexpected Hula,” usually on gravel hills. I saw a total of 3 cars over the 48 miles from Columbia Falls and the road goes on forever.

But there was the Tepee Lake Sign, right where it should be and about 100 miles north of where my brain expected it. The homestead is actually named after my niece Winnie Shaw (I was astounded to find as I arrived.) Alas, I was mistaken. Winnie was Sugar’s predecessor and an all-time bear dog. Sugar has been trained not to take such risks.

And risks there are. You can walk back and forth to vehicles on the property, but any more than that requires packing bear spray. And mine arrived a solid day after I left for Idaho. Angie handles this property off the grid, by herself, with Sugar and what sounds like dedicated, kind and community-minded neighbors. They have to be. You are either in or you are out for the winter. When spring begins, so does the task of gaining enough wood for the next one.

And what a property it is! Go immediately to AirBnB and consider it. Spotless, beautiful with views of Glacier you will never forget.

The people sound fun – snowshoe softball draws teams of folks in the winter. Angie was amazingly hospitable. French press coffee, molasses cookies and the whole main floor for me with WiFi that remained on until the Giants game was over. This is an important note, because the home is completely off the grid, run by solar batteries and a propane generator as necessary. And WiFi sucks power, so is turned off each night. I just texted upstairs and all was good with the world.

Just 12 miles south is the tiny village of Polebridge, but I don’t ride the bike in the dark, and certainly not up a gravel road in bear country! The saloon sounded good, but the ride made it a hard pass.

As I prepared for the next day riding to the Sun in Glacier National Park, I learned that rain was in the forecast.

I dawdled too much the next morning writing and channeling the George experience, forgetting that Angie told me there was a pilot car for construction on the Camas entrance.

So I missed my 11am Lake McDonald tour by six minutes. I supposedly needed that tour so I could ride the Going-to-the-Sun Road. Of course I was already there and could have skipped it. But then I would have missed a covered tour with beautiful vistas in the rain. And I would have missed Claire’s earrings! You’ll see! So I hung around the Lake McDonald Lodge reading Bill Bryson for 90 minutes in the spotty rain. A Walk in the Woods started to warn me about not breaking down on the ride back to Tepee Lake….

As he prepared for the Appalachian Trail, Bill soberly noted that:

“Nearly everyone I talked to had some gruesome story involving a guileless acquaintance who had gone off hiking the trail with high hopes in new boots and comes stumbling back two days later with a bobcat attached to his head or dripping blood from an armless sleeve and whispering in a hoarse voice, “Bear!” before sinking into a troubled unconsciousness.”

Bill Bryson

Well I was taking a guided tour with people from Atlanta, Russia and Minnesota on a boat, then. No worries.

Beautiful vistas and interesting discussions about terminal moraines from Claire, our guide. She a dedicated and wilderness-savvy 21 year old millennial, or so it seemed, as every hike she took, question she solicited and factoid offered was “totally awesome.” I stayed silent, learned what I could and watched mainly the youngest kids’ wide eyes take in the the purple sky and Glacier’s scale. Near the end of the trip, Claire was nearby and I asked an off-the-microphone question about some weird clouds. She brightened, did not know, engaged her friend, and all of a sudden we were talking about Jason Isbell and the Big Sky concert Lynn and I wanted to have attended and she did. It sounded, you know it, totally awesome. As were her earrings that she got at a booth there. May all 21 year olds have Claire’s life spirit. And may all old men have more patience than I with repetitive millenial adjectives. Sorry, Claire.

From there, McCovey and I headed up the Going to the Sun Road and headed to Logan Pass in increasingly cold, driving rain. If you’ve never been on this road, it is two lanes, narrow, only one switchback with 5000 foot drops over foot-and-a-half high rock retaining walls. Usually. I am not afraid of heights but YEESH, one false move and McCovey stays, but I go. It was marvelous, beautiful and stunningly majestic.

You get the idea. Over Logan Pass, clouds struck and I could not see more than 10 feet. Realistically. Not an exaggeration. McCovey and I slow to a panicked crawl for about a mile. That was enough for me. Got below the cloud and returned back over the summit for a different, stunningly gorgeous perspective down the way I had come.

Made my way down the road to West Glacier, wet and cold and grinning ear-to-ear. This time up the North Fork, we knew what we were doing.

Waltzing McCovey, waltzing McCovey,

Who’ll come a-waltzing, McCovey, with me?

And he sang as he watched and waited ’til his billy boiled….

We had the lean and acceleration down, averaged about 40 through the turns flinging mud and boiling whatever the billy is on the North Fork road, past my cabin just south of Tepee Lake (!!!) Settled down to my sandwich and fruit downstairs and watched the Giants take the 2^nd game of the series from the Mets as my soaking clothes sat by the stove.

Well, at least I think it’s a sign. Glacier, we are coming back in the sunshine! C’mon, One, let’s Day Hike!

Just one question. WtF is a billy boil?