June 5-8

June 5, 2016- Roger’s birthday

My day started off well with the sighting of a new bird, the lark sparrow.  Today we just relaxed, took a walk around the campground and fixed rib eye steaks on the grill.  Giving Roger a break from driving was a treat in itself.  But we also celebrated with a glass of wine to bring in his 69^th anniversary of life.

June 6, 2016

We got a late start, leaving the campground about 12:30p.m.  Temporarily, we will be leaving the Lewis and Clark Trail for a couple of days to travel to Glacier National Park, in the north west corner of the state.  Along the way we saw an unusual site.  There was a place next to the highway, where someone had placed several metal sculptures of different animals.  There were two different types of dinosaurs, an eagle, a big horned sheep, a bear, porpoise and several others.  

As we continue west, we’ve noticed that the prairie has become more arid.  The grasses are more beige than green.  The small creek beds are dry and the prairie land seems more open than before.  I realized there are no electric lines or poles on either side of the road.  We don’t know if they are underground or if there are separate small power stations at the few homes in this region of Montanan.  Most of roads leading off the main highway are gravel, instead of paved.  With such a small population, it is probably too costly for individuals to pay for paving. 

The prairie has also begun to have clusters of small, light grey colored bushes and the grasses are shorter.   There are also some tiny yellow flowers on some of the grasses.  Off to our left there is a row of trees about a half a mile from the highway.  We assume they must be growing along a small creek.  After consulting our map, it appears to be the Milk River.  Just beyond the town of Malta, we finally began to see more trees and larger shrubs growing in the natural landscape.  There are still some planted fields, but predominantly it is still prairie land.  

At the Town of Chinook, we did a short detour to Bear Paw Battlefield, a Nez Perce National Historic Park, 16 miles south of Hwy 2.  The prairie along this route has oil pumping stations about every half mile on both sides of the highway.  When arrived at the park, there were large signs that gave a brief summary of the battle between the Nez Perce Indians and the U.S. Calvary.  The Government had ordered the Indians to give up their homeland and move to a small reservation.

The siege lasted for four months.  Some of the Indians escaped into Canada and joined Sitting Bulls camp near Ft. Walsh.  After hundreds of the remaining Indians had been killed, the Nez Perce finally surrendered, as their families were starving and freezing in the onslaught of the winter weather. 

After Roger transmitted for a couple of hours, we ate dinner and headed back to Hwy. 2.  Along the way we saw another pheasant.  I could not believe how fast he was running to get away from us.  Then a few miles down the road, Roger saw two prairie dogs.  He told me he had seen one earlier in the afternoon, while I was reading. As we pass the tiny town of Lohman, the land had considerably less flat prairie and more of the low rolling hills.  It has become more populated, with towns 10 to 20 miles apart.  Because Roger has been driving all day, we stopped at the Wal-Mart in Havre for the night.

June 7, 2016

I am amazed how the landscape changes so unexpectedly.  The mountains have disappeared and we are surrounded by flat land again.  When I look into the distance, it feels a little like we could fall right off the edge of the earth.  But then we “squint” our eyes just a little bit and we can see the very faint outline of distant mountains, giving us just a glimpse of what is to come.

The farmers have certainly taken advantage of this flat fertile land, because it is completely tilled farm land, acres and acres of turned soil.  At the crossroads of the town of Gilford, there were large ponds on either side of the road, with lots of different birds.  Roger stopped and parked the RV and we walked back with our binoculars to observe them. 

There were a couple of killdeer and one new bird, the American Avocet.  Two of the larger Avocets were very unhappy about our presence and decided to show us this was their territory.  They each began to “bombard” us, flying straight toward our heads, then veering off at the last minute.  For some reason, they seemed to dislike me the most.  Maybe that was do to the fact they could see me better in my pink shirt. 

We walked across the street to the other pond and discovered another new bird, a duck, called a blue winged teal.  There were three eared grebes which were in their breeding stage, making them easy to identify.  There have golden tufted feathers around their ears and red eyes.  Additional golden feathers appear on their sides, contrasting with their black backs.   There were some other birds farther down the pond, so we decided to go back and drive the RV closed to the pond.

There was a large gravel area that was being used as a staging area for highway construction.  We drove down the gravel road of this parking area, then drove closer to the pond.  All of a sudden we sunk in the dirt. Roger tried to back up.  But we weren’t moving. “Oh Boy”!  We were in trouble now.  There was nothing we could do but look for help.

We walked the equivalent of three blocks, into the tiny town of Gilford and flagged down a truck.  A young 17 year old boy named Haiden was willing to help, but he needed to go ask his Dad if he had a chain.  Haiden’s Dad’s name is Ted.  When he could not find a chain he sent Haiden to their friend’s house to get one.  Ted tried to use their truck to pull us out, but the RV would not budge.  So Ted called his friend, Mike.

While we waited, Ted told us a way to determine whether the ground is too soft to support a vehicle.  The telltale sign is the white powdery substance lying on the surface.  It is actually very fine salt that settles on soft dirt after heavy rains.  We had been seeing these white patches of ground for many miles, even back as far as North Dakota, and wondered what they were.

 I asked Ted what crop was growing in this area and was very surprised when he told us it was wheat.  It is so thick and green.  He explained that the color is due to an abundance of rainfall.  The problem is that too much rain can cause wheat to develop a bronze fungus that can destroy the plants.  Hopefully the soil will dry out before that happens.

 Mike and his 14 year old daughter arrived shortly.  But his truck, though newer and more powerful, still didn’t move the motor home an inch.  Mike didn’t give up.  He drove to another friend’s house and returned with a huge tractor.  I was skeptical, which I shouldn’t have been, since I had been praying to “Dear St. Anthony and dear St. Anne”   to please find us help and they always answer my prayers.

The tractor did the trick!  It pulled us out without any problem what so ever.  Roger tried to pay Mike for his time and trouble, but he would not take the money.  We thanked him profusely and I said, “God bless you all”. Though we could look at this from a negative perspective, I was so happy that Roger took it all in his stride and even began singing,  “On the Road Again”.

This was an experience that introduced us to four new people, 2 men and their teenage children.  During our time waiting for Haiden and Mike to come and go, we learned that Ted is a machinist.  Haiden is learning the trade, but states that his younger brother is much better than he is.  Mike works for the railroad and also farms.  There current crop is hay, because the wheat prices have recently declined. 

Mike and his wife have eight children, with the youngest being one year old.  The daughter who was with Mike is active in the rodeo and just won first place in an event at Glacier National Park last week.  She also placed in two other events.  Rather than acting conceded, she readily admitted that this coming year will be harder, because there are more competitors at the high school level.  The older children are all home schooled by their Mom.

Mike and Ted’s families belong to a church that is getting ready to go camping together.  It is an annual event that they all look forward to.  When I asked where they were going Ted said, to a place called “Bear Paw”.  I laughed and told him we had just stopped there the other day.  It was a real pleasure to have met these two families.  If we hadn’t gotten stuck, we would have missed the enjoyment of getting to know them.  God does work in mysterious ways, turning challenges into opportunities to love one another.

In the very next town we came to we were grateful to find a car wash with an outdoor sprayer for tall trucks and RVs.  Roger pulled in and washed the motor home.  It had collected huge amounts of mud in the wheel wells and on the bottom of the coach.  When he finished and continued our drive, we were shocked at how well we could see through the front windshield, which had previously been covered with bugs and dust.

After driving west through the town of Shelby, we saw another field of windmills.  I counted 96 that I could see, but there may have been more just over the slight rise of the hills.  At the town of Cut Bank, Montana the welcome sign read: “Where the prairie meets the Rockies” and, sure enough, the elevation began to increase and the faint outline of the white capped Rocky Mountains began to appear. 

Mike had told Roger that there was a Lewis and Clark monument on Hwy 2 near Meriwether.  We found it at the top of a hill.  It marks the farthest point that Lewis traveled west on the Maria River.  We took pictures and then Roger made radio contacts for about an hour.  Our only disappointment was that the monument was full of graffiti.  Some people had even carved initials into the stone steps.  How very sad that some individuals choose to see negativity where there is such extraordinary accomplishment.  We are so glad Mike mentioned this site, because we both enjoyed it.  It also has a wonderful view of the Rocky Mountains, from a distance.

As we finally arrived at the base of the mountains, the scenery reminded us of our trip to Norway.  The road into Glacier National Park is called “Going to the Sun”.  At the entrance gate, the park ranger said we could only drive six miles into the park because our RV was over 21 feet long.  But even smaller campers only had access to a total of 13 miles, because crews were still clearing the road farther into the park.  

As we drove along, beautiful St. Mary Lake was on our left.  We located the small campground, but decided to drive across the road to the boat dock before settling in for the night.    The lake was so beautiful with the huge mountains surrounding it.  When we walked out on the pier, Roger talked to a man who had just come in from fishing.  The water was so very clear.  When we put our feet in, we found out it was also very cold. 

When we drove into the campground, I gained a new understanding of the word “primitive”.  We had been told that none of the campsites have electricity or water hookups.  But there were not even any mowed areas.  You were definitely in the wilderness.   We did discover a new animal in the campground.  Actually, we have seen a couple before and thought they were prairie dogs.  But the little news paper we received at the park entrance had a picture of one that was labeled, “yellow bellied marmot”.  He is a cute little fellow, who makes a “peep” sound like a bird and burrows in the ground.

Another good thing about the campground was that there was no electrical noise to interfere with Roger’s radio.  He had great fun transmitting this evening.  He had what is called a “pile up”, where numerous people try to contact him.    

June 8, 2016

This morning we left the east side of Glacier and proceeded south.  We crossed over two fast flowing rock bed creeks that were so beautiful they made me smile at there swiftness.  It feels like they are rushing toward a happy reunion with family or friend.  As we headed to the next Glacier Park entrance, Roger spotted a falcon on one of the electric poles.  He pulled over so we could watch him with our binoculars.  That allowed us to identify him as a Prairie Falcon, another new bird.

There is very little snow on the west side of Glacier National Park.  But the sheer height of the mountains is still amazing, especially when you are at the bottom looking almost straight up to the top.  I found myself saying, “Oh!, Oh!” as we would come around a curve in the road and a portion of a river would come into sight. 

There are the strangest looking flowers here in the park.  They look like nothing I have ever seen before.  The flower sits at the top of a long stem that has no leaves.  The blossom is a cluster of tiny cream colored flowers, rounded at the top and oval at the bottom where it meets the stem.  From a distance they remind me of mushrooms, because they stand taller than the surrounding vegetation.  I found a picture of them in the Glacier National Park brochure.  They are called bear grass.  The majority of the forest consists of tall fir trees.  They cover the slopes of the mountains, as well as the narrow valleys.

There was a small picnic area right on Lake Mc Donald, where we ate lunch and took pictures.  It was so peaceful and quiet.  After a while we had the place all to ourselves.  It was so tempting to just stay here for the night.  Roger did take a short nap, then we drove back down Hwy 2 to the Middle Fork of the Flathead River. 

We parked the RV so we could walk down to get a closer look at the river.  Roger noticed the dark sky and suggested we take the umbrella with us.  That turned out to be an excellent idea, because it started to rain as soon as we got on the bridge.  Then the rain became hale, bombarding us with marble sized balls of ice.  We ran to the nearest building, which was a restaurant.  Roger bought us a hot chocolate and a big chocolate chip cookie to share.  By the time we finished our treat, the hale and rain had stopped. 

We returned to the RV and Roger found directions from a person who had previously activated his radio on the Flathead River.  We drove through the forest and found the gravel drive that led to a spot right on the river bank, where we stayed for the night