The Long and Winding Road*..

..that leads to my door is mostly US Route 2 from Bonner’s Ferry, Iowa to Saginaw City, Michigan. This route of good pavement and little traffic is a relaxing delight to drive at between 55 and 65 mph.


In West Glacier I took a quick view of the famed mountains of Glacier National Park. The park personnel is just readying for the summer tourist onslaught and hadn’t plowed most of the roads yet.

Going up the nearby Marais Pass (5220ft) on the west side is all nice and green. Just past the peak however, trees quickly change to high desert vegetation as the Blackfeet Indian Reservation is entered. This high plain stretching for 100s of miles to the east is wheat farming country and most of the towns along the road and the adjacent railroad are small decaying farm towns with massive silos, spaced around 20 miles apart. They have hopeful names such as Dunkirk, Inverness, Kremlin(US Style), Glasgow, Harlem, Zurich, etc. Some cities tell the population and one stated that it had 512 happy people and one curmudgeon.












In Montana the locations of traffic mortalities are marked by standard white crosses indicating how many people died. These crosses really standout and are testament to the dangers of driving.













Entering North Dakota,one could see more orderly and well-off cities and greener fields. In the eastern half, windbreaks started appearing many being evergreen trees seen nowhere else. In one city one could see huge wind mill blades although in both Montana and North Dakota there were no to few wind power generating towers visible – here in the land of wind. One other item of interest noted here is the presence of native American (aka Indian) radio stations where one can get lessons in native vocabulary, hear public interest announcements regarding drinking and suicide, hear NPR news, advertisements, and lots of chanting which I really started to enjoy after initially forcing myself to listen to it.

In Minnesota northern style forests started appearing and further along the lumber trucks started rolling again carting this time not lumber for construction as in the west but lumber for paper production. Driving for hours in a green canyon of trees is not as interesting as driving in the treeless plains as the trees hide most everything and one can’t look over them. So one plays music and listens to the radio offerings which in these parts as in most other parts of the west are dominated by country&western and religious broadcast, an occasional PBS station, and lots of right-wing hate and misinformation talk radio with notables such as Limbaugh, Hannity, and Beck. I’ve gotten to really enjoy C&W.

After crossing the Mackinac Bridge into northern Michigan, the environment seemed familiar again with bad Interstate roads and everyone in a great big rush wasting fuel to get to somewhere. My last motel night was in Gaylord, Michigan, a touristy town with its architectural shtick being little alpine roofs in front of every establishment. From here it was a visit in Medina, Ohio with in-laws Phil & Pat and Susan’s brother Stuart who just happened to be visiting for a few days.

Coming soon to this blog will be a summary of the trip and what it meant to me.

* Beatles