Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire On the road again.

Actually I did go inside for a look at the casino. Same ol' same ol' but they had free soft drinks. So I was in there for a while talking to the lady who was working the door. Turned out she was a single mom living in Havre who had been Tribal Police but who was making more money working at the casino. She said five years was the burnout time for Cops, that at five years you either stayed in for the duration or you got burned out and quit. She said she had become tired of the politics getting in the way of doing her job and quit.

OK, I had lingered two hours over lunch back in Big Sandy, and just burned another period of time inside the casino, still had time but if I wanted to be in Havre before dark I needed to roll, besides which once again there were stormed cells rolling in from the southwest. A bit later I had ANOTHER flat, front tire again. Flats up front are unusual, all that tire does is roll, flats most often occur in back, the drive wheel plus I was running on $160 worth of premium tires from Germany. One flat so far in 1,200 miles in back, but this was like the THIRD flat episode in that same distance in front. I had brung three spare tubes which shoulda been plenty for this last 145 mile ride, so now I was down to two and another multiple flat episode up front like back in Texas would leave me stranded. I could find no reason for the flat, might have been as simple as a loose valve core, but just in case, for the second time in this trip I broke out the spare Gatorskin tire I was carrying and switched out the front tire as well as the tube.

All this process took time. When I got the flat, since a storm cell was closing in I ad walked the bike about a half mile down the road to be in front of a house so I might find shelter somewhere if it started to rain and thunder. There I was with my bike upside down in front of their house, bags tools and pump laying on the ground. Turns out it was a tatooed biker and his tatooed wife, with two kids, no tatoos. Typical Montana friendly, they all came out to see me and brung me out a cold bottle of water, he offered me the use of an air compressor in his garage if I needed it.

Didn't want to take a photo of them or their house right there, but I did get one looking back as I was leaving.



I was only about 15 miles south of Havre at this point, but I had taken a long break in Big Sandy, stopped at the casino and then lost more time changing the tire, it would be almost full dark before I rolled in Havre and I really didn't want to spend money on a motel or even a campground if I could help it, all I needed was somewhere quiet to lay down and sleep. The goal was, as usual in such situations, to find a place along the right of way, reasonably flat but out of the reach of headlights, outside property lines adjacent to the road. the Came to a place with a steep bank up from the roadside, but with a flat space up top outside the fenceline. Not only that but the elevated position might be breezy ergo less mosquitos. Perfect.

Pushed the bike up the steep slope, there was a farmstead about 500 yards away, prob'ly the owner of the adjacent field. I wasn't exactly sneaking, I was wearing an orange shirt, and I was outside of property lines but its better if you're not noticed so I left my bike on its sidestand, pulled out my dark heavy cotton bedsheet and inflatable pillow, lay down in the long grass and waited on the dark. I have noticed that the mosquitoes here are really troublesome at dusk but that by an hour after dark or so they mostly leave you alone, so it was here. At first I just did the Africa thing; hid under the heavy cotton sheet until the mosquitoes let up.



It became a friggin beautiful night, clear skies overhead, distant lightning off to the east over the Bearpaws and to the southwest. When I sat up and looked around there was of course a glow to the north from Havre and lights around the western horizon but all that disappeared when I lay down, surrounded by the tall grass. Then too there was the highway just forty yards away but I zoned that out. I was laying in my own patch of darkness, dark sky above, milky way stretching across the sky (I zoned out all the passing space junk too). Down past my feet the westward movement of Scorpio and Jupiter along the southern horizon were marking the passage of time, Cygnus flew overhead along the milky way, and Polaris up here was strangely high in the northern sky. I lay wide awake for a long time but perfectly content, at peace. One of those times I would have happily passed away right there, slipped out of this life into the next.

The coyotes sounded off at about one in the morning, first a distant one to the east and then a whole family pack no more that 200 yards to the west on the other side of the highway, I drifted off to sleep.....

Holy crap, when that coyote sounded off just yards away at about two in the morning I about jumped out of my skin. At my age I often have issues getting up off of the ground but that time I was on my feet in like an instant. I took the headlight off of my bike and tried to pick up the eyeshine but no luck. I howled back and me and the coyote traded insults for a bit until we both got bored. I guess being called a SOB ain't really an insult to a coyote. Might be the coyote did me a favor, all the stars were gone, that formerly distant lightning to the southwest was now closing in, a strong cool wind that smelt of rain blew in, and a quick check of my iphone showed I was about to get hammered.

So I floundered around putting the tent up in the dark in the wind and flashing lightning, the empty tent blowing around like a kite in my hands until I threw a heavy bag from my bike in as ballast, got inside just as the rain was starting. Earlier that evening I had felt perfectly content and ready to pass away, now that I was on that same hill in a lightning storm inside a tent next to a steel bicycle I felt somewhat more ambivalent about the prospect.

Anyways nothing happened, the worst of it passing just to the south. I was out and on my way early. Left no trace.