Day 7, July 3. Drove to Havre.
Three little words, “Drove to Havre”
was to be my entire entry. But then we got to Havre. This is our
third time in Havre, Montana, and I still hate it. Havre is the
biggest town on US-2 across the north of Montana and, because of
this, it provides certain amenities: WalMart, Kmart, McDonald's. It
allows you to stock up on provisions before continuing on into the
unadulterated wilderness. But it is a town built entirely on a
railyard and the oil and gas industries. It's loud, it smells bad,
and it's loud. And it smells bad. And every single one of the photos
of “People at Wal-Mart” on those not-quite-nice-yet-mostly-hilarious websites was taken at the WalMart right here. First
of all, more suspenders are worn on men in the Havre WalMart than in
the rest of the contiguous United States combined. Second, well, I don't even
know where to begin.
And then people go into the store, buy
their fireworks, and light them off right in front of the entrance
to the store. Patience, people. Patience. The past two times we
stopped over in Havre, we stayed in a campground that 1) requires you
to parallel park your camper; and 2) is separated by a wall from a
working rail yard. I don't know how many of you have ever had the
experience of being in a railyard while freight cars are being
slammed into each other. I never have, except for here. Perhaps
you've been standing right next a cannon when it fired, but you
weren't expecting it. It's the same sort of thing. The loudest thing
imaginable, shakes your whole world, perhaps makes you soil yourself
just a little bit. And it does that ALL NIGHT LONG. Enjoy your
vacation.
So this time we thought we would try
the other campground in town. The place where the owner freely admits that his
best publicity/advertising/recommendation is Railyard RV. And
this place is quieter, but just differently horrendous. More
mosquito bites in 5 minutes outdoors than we will hopefully get the
whole rest of the summer. And it is literally in someone's backyard.
And, mind you, I don't say “literally” like the youngsters when I
actually mean figuratively. We are currently actually in someone's
backyard and it is not a particularly nice backyard. It is quieter
than the railyard, yet there is a next door neighbor, right through
the bushes behind our camper, who seems to have some project
underway. And this project requires him to strike one large and impressive piece of
metal against an equally impressive piece of metal over and over and
over again at precisely 115 BPM. Perhaps he's listening to dance
music on headphones while working.
We did stop early this afternoon at the
Fort Peck Interpretive Museum that had all sorts of cool dinosaur
stuff. It was pretty awesome, and I highly recommend it. And in one
of the museum displays of a recreated saloon from when they were
building the dam was a Knabe piano. Built in East Rochester?
Hmmmmmmmmmmm. (Stroking beard while pondering interesting
coincidence.)
Tonight dinner was at the Wolfer Diner,
and it was pretty spectacular. Nearly all of us had the ½ pound
cattleman's burger, which was delicious, but then made us feel a
little sad by the time we got to car as large amounts of beef tend to
do. Great service, great food. If you have to spend a night in
Havre, MT, check out the Wolfer Diner. Highly recommended.
Late night, took Iz to wash the truck.
From all the North Dakota clay, it was as dirty as it had ever
been.Was surprised to discover that the foamy brush had an extra-short hose attached to it. Currently driving vehicle that sparkles
like new on the right side, and is an abomination on the left side.
On the drive through eastern Montana
today we saw an entire herd of cows laying down on the ground and
were quite surprised by the sight. We saw the rancher and asked him
if there was some reason for this odd behavior. “Oh sure,” he
said. “Those are ground beef.”
*Shout-out to Sarah for the fantastic
ground beef joke.
** I have another outstanding cattle joke that is not fit for publication in this PG-13 environment. Ask me sometime.
Friday morning begins our second week
of this journey. It is the 4th of July, and is now 16
years since I married my lovely Elizabeth. Early tomorrow afternoon
we will arrive in Glacier National Park, a place that has always,
since the first time we saw it, felt like home.
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