Monday, August 14, 2006
Havre and the Sweet Grass Hills
West of Bear Paw is Havre, at 9,500 people the biggest town on the High Line, covering about 570 miles of US 2. The road and I have been more or less following the Milk River for a while, alongside the Great Northern Railroad, which connected and created all these little dots a hundred years ago. I get to Havre as the afternoon is turning to evening, and I ought to be able to find someplace decent to eat, but I'm tired and hungry, and being tired and hungry I neither make good decisions nor feel the energy to explore too strenuously.So I land at a place called 4 B's, which turns out to be a chain with eight or ten locations in Montana and is basically a Denny's with a sepiatone interior and a casino attached. The food is pretty terrible. I ought to be eating a big old angus steak with men wearing cowboy hats, but instead I'm eating recently-thawed trout and hash-browns.
I have been learning this about myself: I get cranky and make bad decisions when I'm hungry. The former I probably knew before this trip; the latter has been impressed upon me more than I would choose.
There's something called "Havre Beneath the Streets" in Havre, but the hour being afternoon turning to evening, I've missed it. There's not much hopping in Havre but the casinos, of which there are plenty. It is, by all appearances, another town that works hard and drinks hard. Or maybe it drinks hard because times are hard.There are a bunch of tacky-looking motels, but I'm still trying to get to see my cousins in Browning and/or Missoula before the next millennium. I do stop at a payphone to call Reggie, since my phone still waits somewhere ahead of me. As if having it would make a difference, given Nextel's "coverage" in this part of the world.
There's also a sign directing you to another country nearby:
The most entertaining thing in Havre turns out to be the historical interest sign. One doesn't ordinarily expect to find phrases like "tolerably virile persons" and "seeking surcease from vocational cares and solace in the cup that cheers." Maybe somebody was bored, or maybe somebody's supervisor felt some obfuscation was preferable to "They drank and whored 'til a fight broke out, and then they shot each other." In any case, it may be hackneyed writing and bad history, but at least someone responsible for putting up the roadside markers in Montana has a pulse.I drive on until dark and past dark, which I hate to do because even the flat plains of central Montana are worth looking at. Another sign informs me that I'm not seeing the Sweet Grass Hills, which US 2 bends to the south of and which, if you can trust the sign-writer, are of great cultural significance to the Blackfeet, as well as an important spot for hunting game.
The longer I drive this road the longer it seems it will be until I return. So I decide to pull in at some small town and find a place to sleep. There aren't too many chain motels around here, and the mom and pop places tend to turn out the lights at 10 or 11 pm, so I pull into the city park. You can camp in the city park in this part of the country, and a couple of motorcyclists are doing just that. For my part, I put the seats back and stretch out, staring through the moon roof at the big sky full of stars .
In the morning I say hello to one of the motorcyclists. It's the Sturgis time of year, but they've chosen to avoid that mess, he tells me. I realize that I'm glad my route isn't taking me through South Dakota, after all. They strike their tent; I rearrange the gear and head west without breakfast.
This is what the Sweet Grass Hills look like in the daylight:
It's still flat here, the winds are still blowing down the streets of tiny towns, and the trains of the BNSF still pass me, full of coal or going back for another load, every ten minutes or so. If I wanted to be a millionaire - and there's nothing about the way I've led my life so far that suggests I do - I'd figure out how to build wind farms all over the place and ship cheap and green electricity back to Chicago.
