Jul 31, 2014

Thumbnail is a sculpture of a bull rider outside a museum in Browning which was a sorry little town and lots of examples of a community struggling. The title of the sculpture is 'An Honest Try'. There were a couple of substantial school buildings and a large modern Community Hospital with ambulances in the town but the rest of the town appears to be an exercise in despair. Very sad to see.

 

Our first shot not far out of town (and there was a similar one on the other end last night) was a sculpture and a 'Welcome' to the Blackfeet Nation. This is interesting as Norm had quite a conversation with a security guard last night who had played basketball with two Indian teams from British Columbia and Alberta (and he had played in the A Team) on a tour in Australia in the 90's and Norm had mentioned that we had thought the tribe were called 'Blackfoot' but we had seen references to 'Blackfeet' in signs through the day. He said the actual tribe names were different to those names given to them long ago by white men and in President Kennedy's days he had used that term as an inclusive term for all the Plains Indians who used to burn the ground so they could see the footprints of their enemies and they had black moccasins, and the term stuck and doesn't worry them. The name didn't mean anything to him but they had a great talk together about families and traditions and really enjoyed themselves.

 

We decided to take Highway 89 today to skirt around the edge of the mountains and retain a lasting view of them for as long as we could and for our trouble encountered 20 kms of a freshly tarred road but we maintained 30 - 33 kmh over it which kept the bikes pretty tidy. This is a shot after we got off that which appealed to Norm of a wheat field (we think) with the mountains in th distance

 

And after travelling over large areas of rolling grasslands, the grass high but not all that deeply covered and quite stony, we came to more sandy soil as well as some irrigation and again, good soil plus water means productivity.

 

And more intense agriculture again and diversification into oil (right hand side), man I'd like ne of those pumping away 24 hours a day in my back yard!

 

The sign said 74 miles to Great Falls.

 

We lunched at Choteau and after passing through a number of very marginal little communities and towns it was good to get to a more substantial place and one obviously doing better than many in the outlying areas. This is the Teton County Courthouse which was a substantial Sandstone building (quarried locally) in the process of having it's cedar shingle roofing replaced.

 

And a shot of the old silos in town. I love these old iron silos. We came across the newer version some kms from town after lunch as we headed for Great Falls in the hope of beating the thunderstorm which had developed behind us as we had our lunch.

 

And this is the 'closest' sight to a big hill in close proximity since we left this morning so after passing it I stopped and looked back to take a shot and you can see the rain gathering behind it. Incentive to get on the bikes and keep going.

 

Once we got into Great Falls we decided to visit the Lewis and Clark Interpretative Centre before we booked into our hotel as it wasn't all that far from it. In our travels along the Oregon Trail we had tripped over many mentions as it was these two (and their band) who had explored the region looking for the great 'Northwest Passage' via river from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean on the express orders and support of President Thomas Jefferson only to discover it didn't exist. They travelled up the Missouri River where at Great Falls they discovered a series of waterfalls and the expedition party had to drag their dugout canoes (loaded with all their supplies) out of the water and construct wheeled trolleys to transport them around the falls and it took them a month to cover the distance. When they came to the head of the river they traded with the Shoshonee Indians for horses to go through the mountains and then built more boats to travel down the Snake and Columbia Rivers to the Pacific. It was 2.5 years from when they left until their return with having to bunker down for two winters in the process and they started meeting boats coming out of St Louis as they were coming into Port. We don't have any photos from here as we took fright when we got to a window after watching a great movie about the expedition to see the thunderstorms moving in and left quickly and this is a shot of some of the falls preserved downstream of a dam wall on the Missouri River as we hightailed it to find a fuel station (as we have a big day tomorrow) and get checked in before we got very wet.

 

And this is a shot across the road from a shot we stopped for. The sign out front says 'Milwaukee Station' and I don't know if that's right or not but I liked the building.

 

This is the building across the Missouri River I stopped to take the shot of, the Missouri Courthouse and I was going to shrink it in and show more of the building but thought we would show you what we were trying to beat.

Bits and Bobs:

 

Have seen these signs for a couple of days and finally found a spot we could stop. These are the signs for cars.

 

And these for trucks on what we would call at best an Arterial Road.

 

And a shot of the roof work at the Teton County Courthouse. Norm and I would have loved all tis when we were attaching the shingles to the roof on our house in Minniedale Road, cherry picker and a saw no less!

Last Night's Accommodation:

Holiday Inn Express Hotel and Suites, 50 Museum Loop, Browning MT

Relatively new building and typical of the Holiday Inn Express Suites we have used previously nice and spacious and comfortable with all the services we need as well as pool and business centre. Included parking and wifi (very effective) and hot breakfast. No restaurant on site but next door to a Casino so cheap meals there. All part of the local Blackfoot Tribe undertaking to provide employment opportunities for their people and hopefully generate some income for the community in the long run when they are all paid for. In any case they are making a good effort here and the place was clean and well maintained and all the staff we came across throughout were cheerful and helpful and we wish them well.