Day nine—North Dakota

I stayed up a bit late reading again… which meant that I got started a bit late. I decided to not bother with breakfast, and wait to have lunch at the Space Aliens Café just north of Bismarck.

The drive into North Dakota was mostly uneventful. I followed the guidebook’s recommendation and drove up through the Indian reservation, rather than on the main federal highway. I discovered after the fact that the state of North Dakota didn’t actually put up a sign at the border, so I won’t have a picture of a sign with “You are now entering North Dakota” on it. Oh well.

When the road I was driving on (1806) made it into Mandan, it ended without any comments about how to get to I-94, or anywhere else. I drove around Mandan briefly, and found a visitors’ center. The center had piles of art-quality Indian merchandise on sale. I spent a while looking at all the cool stuff, although I didn’t actually buy anything.

Onto I-94, off on route 83, and there was the Space Aliens Café. It was very silly, with lots of alien decorations and such around. I sat at the bar and chatted with the waitress. It turns out that it’s actually a small chain. I pointed out that opening one in Roswell would probably be very successful… and chatted about other stuff. It was interesting getting a friendly explanation of why the waitress didn’t want to live in a big city, even though she’d never really seen one. I thought about that for a bit afterwards… I guess I like living in an a major urban area, even if I don’t actually live in the city itself, because of the incredible variety of opportunities to do things.

I drove up route 83 some more. According to the guidebook I bought in Omaha, there’s a coal-fired power plant that gives tours. Unfortunately, when I got there, the security guards explained that the tours were ended after 9/11. As if a coal-fired power plant in the middle of nowhere in North Dakota was going to be anywhere on a terrorist’s hit list. -sigh-

I also stopped at the Knife River Indian Village. This was kind of cool; aside from a pile of Indian artifacts, they had a summer earth-lodge put together. The ranger gave her canned speech about what lodge life was like, and then answered questions.

Then it was up and over into Montana. I decided to stop at the second minor city instead of the first, so that I’d have covered the extra miles. Somewhere along the way, in the middle of nowhere, I had a rather insistent call of nature… apparently something I’d eaten didn’t agree with me. (I’m betting on the Subway sandwich from the day before, but that’s just a guess.) Fortunately there were no disasters, but I determined that it’s really annoying trying to find a bathroom in the middle of nowhere in Montana.

I stopped in Glasgow, picked a hotel, dumped some more quarters into a video poker machine, and got some dinner. Being in beef country, I figured I should actually try eating a steak. I’m now much more appreciative of the variety of foods and vegetables available in California. The steak came with a salad bar trip. The salad bar did include lettuce and pickles. But that was about it for vegetables; there were potato and macaroni salads, chocolate pudding, jello with fruit in it, and so on. The steak itself came with a dinner roll, some French fries, and a vegetable—some cut corn.

Day ten—Montana

Montana is big. I started the day near mile marker 500 on route 2, and ended the day near mile marker 50.

Along the way, I followed my parents’ advice and took a side trip through Glacier National Park, instead of going around it. They’d seen some sort of TV special about “The Road to the Sun” or some such. The extra distance out of the way was worthwhile. The road is kind of windy, but it winds through some utterly gorgeous terrain. There are mountains and lakes and packed snow, with lots of trails and campsites. At some later date, I’m going to have to go back there and spend a week doing camping and exploring in the area.

The Western two-thirds of route 2 in Montana are basically rolling hills and grasslands, with about ten miles from one ridge line to the next. Lots of wide open spaces, but fairly boring. The Eastern third of route 2 in Montana is tree-lined and swooping through hills. It was extremely beautiful. I could drive through stuff like that for hours, happily… and I did.

I also managed to successfully have several brief cell phone conversations today. I point that out because cell phone service has been very flaky in rural areas. Apparently Cellular One/AT&T actually built up their network in Montana.