THE LONGEST DAY
Ahhhh, Solstice! The longest day is here again, and we put in a ride that was shorter on miles but felt like the longest ride. BIG headwind for us today, plus sun and bugs too meant that after 50 miles when we saw the sign that proclaimed: WOLF POINT! LEWIS AND CLARK SLEPT HERE, WHY DON'T YOU? we said, "yeah, why don't we?" So we are ensconced at the Sherman Inn (hopefully this isn't General Sherman's place) for the evening, and have already paid our first visit to the Wolf Point Cafe. I picked up the Great Falls paper to check out the daily Lewis and Clark diary entry, which I am officially hooked on. Is the rest of the nation caught up in the Lewis and Clark bicentennial celebration, or is it just a regional phenomena along the trail? I'm really enjoying reading and seeing the exhibits related to their journey of discovery. In today's entry, they ran into a grizzly bear.
Update on the things along the roadside: Trash still has a commanding lead on the board, and after 1100 miles, I have divided it into the most prevalent---beer cans/beer bottles/beer cases, and next prevalent, diapers. Don't know if those are related or not. Then dead animals, which have changed from mammals to birds in this part of Montana. BUT, there's a new item climbing the charts! There is an ASTOUNDING number of those little magnetic ribbons that people think are stuck to their cars---all day long I see the yellow troop support, or red white and blue ribbons, or whatever cause it is that is du jour. Those things just aren't sticking to the metal out on the HI LINE.
I have seen a lot of live birds, in addition to the dead ones---we started out along the coast seeing lots of eagles, osprey, heron, loons and ducks. Then, I started seeing birds I've never seen before. While climbing Logan Pass, I saw a chicken! Way UP there, too. Now, while descending the pass, I had little pinprick white lights all through my vision field, so my companions discounted the "chicken" I had seen as part of a grander delusion. It didn't help when I described the chicken as having red feathery eye brows. Well, I looked at a Montana bird guide, and found out that the "chicken" was a grouse. With red feathery eyebrows!
The last thing I see on the road are the roadside memorials. An unbelievable number of them, and at each one I remove my mind from wherever it has wandered, and focus in on the person whose life (or maybe death) is being remembered. In Montana, there is some kind of organized force that puts out uniform markers for roadside fatalities---each death is marked with a red metal pole, topped by a crisp white cross. Families or friends usually personalize these markers with the familiar trappings: silk flowers, feathers, trinkets, stuffed animals and photos. Sometimes these crosses are clustered on one pole, yesterday I saw two separate memorials each one with 6 crosses. It's easy to look at the road and imagine what might have happened, and hard not to think about it as I'm riding by at 12 mph. I think people should slow down.
Update on the things along the roadside: Trash still has a commanding lead on the board, and after 1100 miles, I have divided it into the most prevalent---beer cans/beer bottles/beer cases, and next prevalent, diapers. Don't know if those are related or not. Then dead animals, which have changed from mammals to birds in this part of Montana. BUT, there's a new item climbing the charts! There is an ASTOUNDING number of those little magnetic ribbons that people think are stuck to their cars---all day long I see the yellow troop support, or red white and blue ribbons, or whatever cause it is that is du jour. Those things just aren't sticking to the metal out on the HI LINE.
I have seen a lot of live birds, in addition to the dead ones---we started out along the coast seeing lots of eagles, osprey, heron, loons and ducks. Then, I started seeing birds I've never seen before. While climbing Logan Pass, I saw a chicken! Way UP there, too. Now, while descending the pass, I had little pinprick white lights all through my vision field, so my companions discounted the "chicken" I had seen as part of a grander delusion. It didn't help when I described the chicken as having red feathery eye brows. Well, I looked at a Montana bird guide, and found out that the "chicken" was a grouse. With red feathery eyebrows!
The last thing I see on the road are the roadside memorials. An unbelievable number of them, and at each one I remove my mind from wherever it has wandered, and focus in on the person whose life (or maybe death) is being remembered. In Montana, there is some kind of organized force that puts out uniform markers for roadside fatalities---each death is marked with a red metal pole, topped by a crisp white cross. Families or friends usually personalize these markers with the familiar trappings: silk flowers, feathers, trinkets, stuffed animals and photos. Sometimes these crosses are clustered on one pole, yesterday I saw two separate memorials each one with 6 crosses. It's easy to look at the road and imagine what might have happened, and hard not to think about it as I'm riding by at 12 mph. I think people should slow down.
posted by Laurel @ 5:12 PM
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