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

Says the man with tiddie calendars in the tractor?

Geno

Clearly a staged photo which proves nothing. Clint Eastwood, Mel Gibson, that guy could be anybody.

Well, they are actors of sorts. So they "might" agree to don your wardrobe for a picture.

Geno

I dunno if I still got enough quarters.

Two hunna days of winter? Pfft.
Stop in Delta Junction in February. 😉🤣

Slot machines don’t except pocket change anymore. At least not the ones in the Comanche And Kiowa Casinos. 🤠

BW looks good in that picture.........

Here's the photo again....




In front down the far end is a buffalo hide press, IIRC the cottonwood trunk attached was about 15 feet long, the whole structure has gotta be more'n 100 feet wide.

The turns out the fort wasn't built until 1846, after the classic fur trade period had ended, the blockhouse part dates from 1852.

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.

2 very critical things you needed to leave out to maintain a positive image on the Campfire:

That statement and the pictures of you and a big brimmed straw hat. Until then, many would have considered you still a menacing force of knowledge, much like Bricktop before he posted a picture of himself and that bear...

Chit happens.

I’m Irish. Thirty years outside in the sticks in South Texas has learned me not to screw around when it comes to hats. You ever cross 500 miles of West Texas on a bicycle right after the solstice?



That hat did get me a lot of recognition; pretty much everywhere I went people told me they had seen me on the road several miles and a day or two earlier, including a lady at the diner in Havre that morning who had seen me leaving Great Falls. Some bikers in Yellowstone were waving too, same reason.

I had heard of the movie, never seen it. somewhere there’s a connection to that classic Paul Rogers anthem from the ‘70’s; “Bad Company”, a favorite tune from my youth

Anyways, with respect to those two Indian girls, inviting me to take their photo like they did was a bit over the top, even for me. I’m thinking they had maybe passed me a bit earlier taking a photo of them and the rest of their team on that billboard, picked up little brother at work, and then seen me again out front of the casino.

Still more interesting observations from your trip, Birdie.......... Two thumbs up.

Truly a personal adventure that most here wouldn't even consider. Good job and thanks for sharing it with us.

Thanks for sharing! awesome!

I gotta admit tho, I liked this hat better, Having a canted-up or rolled-up brim on a hat like they do on Stetsons makes no sense at all other than style, and style ain't gonna block the sun. This 2014 hat came from REI, seen here towards the end of its useful life, I bought it specifically for that trip but the previous 33 days had been rough on it. They no longer carry it.

So here's that 5,000 calories per day stud from five years back, Right at 2,000 miles



Surprisingly hard sometimes to find a good hat tho. I got my present one I used on this trip from the Army/Navy Store in Aransas Pass TX, on the corner down the street from HEB, run by that Korean lady. Far and away the best place I have found for serious hats. She caters to fishermen on the Coast. I always stop in whenever I'm down there.

I grew up in the sticks of Montana and this guy learned me that no man worth his salt wears a straw hat. You never get any work out of them because they are always rolling a cigarette or chasing their hat...

Maybe these guys feel the same way



I don't screw around with salt either: Lite Salt is half and half KCl and NaCl, cut it with sea salt and you're about 2:1 NaCl to KCl, same as commercial rehydration salts.

IME heat and sun ain't near as bad up here tho as it is down in Texas.

Always like that pic of your pop.

Comparing the 2 calorie burners here, the guy in the cowboy hat probably burned up more calories before breakfast than the biker guy. The reference to salt has to do with the understanding of the net worth of any laborer that might sit at the table and how much salt he would use. It didn't matter what element followed the sodium on a periodical chart, it was all about what you got for the salt he might use...

No worries, in the movie he gets to be Clint Walker and me the comic relief.

I will edit in the fact that your body doesn't give a rip about the Periodic Table either, but without potassium to replace what you lost when sweating profusely all day in the heat you're sooner or later gonna end up a cramping fool. I hate it when I can't hardly walk at the end of the day without spasms.

Wonder why factories, construction companies, etc., that involve high heat working conditions quit putting out salt tablet dispensers for workers years ago and went to 'Gatorade' and like liquid drinks instead?