All Together

Yesterday was a drive across the Northern Plains continuing on highway 2 across North Dakota. Along the way we pulled over so we could be the center of North America.  Literally.  Rugby, North Dakota is the geographic center of North America and has the monument to prove it.

Rugby, ND Geographic Center of North Dakota

  As you can see from the sky our day was mostly overcast, which was exciting for the residents of North Dakota who were eagerly awaiting the rain the storm behind these clouds.

About one o'clock local we had lunch in East Grand Forks having crossed the Red River into Minnesota.  We still had about 150 miles to go and were anxious to end the first part of our journey, arrive at Camp Birchwood and of course see Blaire and Jenna.

Just before the camp dinner bell rang at 5:30 we drove down the road and into camp

Road to Camp Birchwood

As we did last year Leslie and I have lodging in a trailer which is a short walk through the woods, past the tennis courts and rifle range and into camp proper.  Upon exiting the woods we saw two girls sitting in a hammock.  I said, "Is that Jenna?" Who saw her mom, jumped out of the hammock and sprinted into Leslie's arms.  Big, strong hug and tears of complete joy at seeing her mom for the first time in four weeks.  I too received a giant hug.

Jenna let us know she has done the required tasks to receive awards in riflery, tennis and sailing.  She was proud to tell me she had skippered a boat that day, I was proud to hear it.

As we entered the dining hall where a couple of hundred girls and their counselors and other staff were assembling for dinner Leslie went in search of Blaire.  After everyone sang the opening prayer song I went over to Blaire who still had tears in her eyes from seeing her mom, gave her a slight hug and kiss and got the message she was a bit embarrassed to go through this routine in front of her friends.  After dinner she did manage to come up to me with a big hug.  Phew, I thought she had turned into a teenager on me in the past two weeks!

After dinner we went to see the art show displaying the arts and crafts the girls had been working on then headed down to the lakeside deck to sit and enjoy the view while waiting for a show based on the Queen musical playing in London.

Here is the view of the Steamboat Lake, as you can see it is rather dark and windy.

Storm approaching Steamboat Lake

Camp owner/director Terry Bredemus, who was my counselor when I was a camper and whose dad was my dad's counselor when he was a camper, showed me the weather app on his iPhone.  Big storm headed to camp and the timing between the end of the camp show and the start of the storm would be close.  If the storm hit before the girls could get back to their cabins everyone would have to stay in the dining hall where the show was being performed.  He didn't want the girls running back to their cabins in a thunderstorm and high winds which could be dropping branches and trees.

As the girls all beat it back to their cabins minutes ahead of the storm Leslie and I joined Terry and his wife Rachel in their cabin to catch up and wait out the storm.  It was quite a blow, rain pelting the windows as the wind blew, lighting flashing, thunder booming.  I love a good thunderstorm and this was a good one.

Waking up this morning we see branches down around the area and sun peaking through the last of the clouds.

We have completed the first leg of our journey.  We are all together and tomorrow two more occupants will be in the Odyssey as we start the journey home and head to Des Moines.

Off to the traditional last Saturday breakfast of donuts on the lakeside deck.

Help Wanted

We are in Minot, North Dakota and looking at the activity there is no doubt it has an unemployment rate of 2.2%.  High employment and commercial activity was evident as soon as we entered the outskirts of Williston, North Dakota which is about twenty miles from the Montana border.

Oil and gas have fueled tremendous job growth in this state and workers are flocking here from all over the country.  Workers that is who want to work, and are willing to separate themselves for a steady paycheck.  I met a man in the elevator of our hotel who is from Mississippi.  He appeared to be in his late 50's and told me he had been here for a few weeks and is working on seismic drilling north of town.  Most importantly to him, "I have a guaranteed job for the next six months and then will most likely be able to hook up with something else."

Like workers in other eras during economic downturns, those coming to North Dakota are leaving families behind so they can earn a good income to send back to those families.  Rather than waiting for their 99 weeks to run out, these men, and women, aren't worried about the North Dakota winter cold or summer heat.  What they are worried about is feeding and housing their families.

The hotels here are filled with pick up trucks from out of state--we have seen license plates from Oklahoma, Minnesota, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, Idaho and many other states.  The car dealer lots are filled with pick up trucks--the local Lincoln dealer's lot is filled with Ford pick ups overflowing from the Ford dealer down the street.  There are no "Sale--50% Off!" signs in the furniture store windows, instead the marquee out front is advertising for help, as it just about every other business in town.

Driving across the state on highway 2 we saw impromptu towns of mobile homes and trailers that have been put on huge lots for housing workers---one such "town" had about a hundred such trailers that looked like barracks lined up and a huge central hall that looked like a World War II airplane hanger with a large "Lodge" sign on it signifying it is the central gathering place.

I imagine this is what the boom towns in Oklahoma in the early 20th century, or California or Alaska in the 19th century looked like when oil and gold were discovered.  North Dakota is filled with boom towns, with plenty of jobs attracting men and women wanting to work.  Be it in the oil or gas fields or in industries supporting those jobs, or in building the infrastructure we have seen going up in towns across the state--hotels, restaurants, manufactured homes, roads.  Jobs, jobs, jobs are in this state unlike any other.

The boom in jobs in the gas and oil fields has more than trickled across the economy: restaurants, gas stations, grocery stores, furniture stores, car dealers, apartment landlords, department stores, shoe stores, hotels all are benefiting from the flow of paychecks. Next time you hear a politician say that public spending is needed to spur on economic development know they know little of how our economy works.  Minot, Williston and hundreds of other towns are seeing great economic activity not because of government programs, welfare checks, unemployment checks or social security disability checks.  They are growing because of private enterprise providing jobs that are paying into the government not taking out of it.

Why?  Because the state has aggressively pursued the extraction of oil and gas from it lands for the past several years, fighting the federal government on many occasions and finally being able to open up rich fields for extraction.  Seeing the robust activity and economic activity throughout the site I can only wonder, what if the elected officials and bureaucrats of California had been as active in pursuing the extraction of hydrocarbons from its land instead of actively blocking the drilling and extraction of oil and natural gas?

Final leg of the first half of our trip tomorrow, we should arrive at Camp Birchwood sometime just before or after the dinner bell rings.  Can't wait to see the girls!

Sign on the door of our hotel in Minot that is filled with out of state workers

The Hi-Line

CORRECTION! Before I begin today's update I must make a correction pointed out to me by Reno Mike Caltagirone.  We did not cross the Continental Divide yesterday in the Bitterroot Range, we crossed it this morning on highway 12 outside of Missoula.


Originally named after the BNSF railway line that cut across the northern states from Minnesota to Washington, now named after highway 2 which traverses the same states, the Hi-Line is where we find ourselves tonight in Havre, Montana.  (Not pronounced like the quarterback Favre [Far-ve] or the French port Le Havre [Le Hahhv] but as Leslie told me, pronounce it like, "you can have 'er). The Hi-Line is used to describe the region between the Canadian Border and about one hundred miles south.  Havre is evidently Hi-Line central.  We are approximately 35 miles from the Canadian border and if we climb to the top of the silo a few properties down we could see our northern neighbor.

During some of our route today the landscape was so vast we could easily see more than 35 miles from the top of one of the hundreds of hills we climbed across the great plains.  Great plains of rolling hills covered in golden wheat or golden prairie grass broken by sudden outcroppings of rock jutting up from the ground to several hundred feet or by vast cuts in the prairie made by the Missouri or other rivers and creeks.  This is the Great Plains and we have several hundred more miles to cross before we enter the forests of Minnesota on Friday.

Our current location is vastly different than where we started the day in Missoula.  After a breakfast at a locals spot recommended to us in the hotel bar in Pendleton we were on our way.  The local spot? What is it? My sister is screaming at her screen.  Paul's Pancake Parlor.  Not a house, a parlor.  We got to Paul's about 9:30 local and it was packed.  Many of the tables were filled with older locals who seemed to meet there every morning for coffee, some eggs and definitely pancakes.  If you are in Missoula there is no reason to go anywhere for breakfast but Paul's Pancake Parlor--none.  (Sharon I know this is now on your travel list--tip, the standard pancake order is 4 but they will do a half order if you ask).

Pushed away from the table we jumped onto highway 200 to Great Falls and drove through what I picture as Montana from Jimmy Stewart, Van Heflin, Clint Eastwood and of course John Wayne.  This was the west of the cowboys, huge open fields surrounded by heavily forested hills and sliced by fast running creeks and rivers. Ranches dotted the landscape and cattle grazed the ranges.  After following the Blackfoot River ("A River Runs Through It) for many miles we climbed and crossed the Continental Divide, for real this time, and  quickly dropped from over 5500 feet through the forest and to the Plains.

The change from forest and mountains to grassland was almost instant.  Looking at our route using Google Maps on the satellite mode you can see the sudden change in topography and geography.  It reminds me of visiting Colorado Springs with my Dad several summers ago and being on the eastern slope of the Rockies and seeing to the east the mountains suddenly stop and the plains of eastern Colorado and Nebraska beginning.

Right above the 287 market you can see the sudden stop of the mountains and start of the Great Plains

It was an easy day today, short at about 280 miles and about five hours.  Two more legs of about seven and then six hours and we will be at Camp Birchwood and seeing Blaire and Jenna and our dear friends the Bredemuses.

On The Trail

In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson changed world history and guaranteed the greatness of the United States of America.  The Louisiana Purchase from France was, in my mind, the single most important action of any President.  Acquiring what would become the American Midwest from France, Jefferson provided America its bread basket, its minerals for industrialization, a position by which to settle and acquire the lands west of the purchase and established the boundaries the nation would take.

Also in 1803 Jefferson sent two guys off to find a way to get from the then United States concentrated on the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean via water.  So Meriweather Lewis and William Clark set out across the newly acquired lands and into and across the northern lands of what is now Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.

So to did Leslie and Dennis Smith set out a mere 209 years later across Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana, though instead of horses and on foot our journey was in a Honda Odyssey with satellite radio and air conditioning.  What took Lewis and Clark several months in 1805 when they reached the Bitterroot Mountains to traverse from the east and then travel by canoe to the convergence of the Clearwater and Snake Rivers took us several hours, much of which we spent pondering how Lewis and Clark made their crossing, albeit north or ours, of the mountain range.

But back to the beginning of the trail.  We left Pendleton, Oregon yesterday morning with a plan of travelling northeast to Walla Walla, Washington, then continuing northeast to Clarkston (WA)/Lewiston (ID), then further eastward and northward to Missoula, Montana.  We followed the plan, what was unplanned was the beauty of the American west that we would be experiencing.  What we also followed was a route marked as The Lewis and Clark Trail for most of our drive.

As mentioned in the previous post, coming into Pendleton from the south we drove through huge hills of grass lands.  Leaving Pendleton from the north we were immersed in thousands and thousands of acres of rolling wheat fields.  From Pendleton to Walla Walla we wound through and around golden fields undergoing harvest with giant pieces of farm equipment cutting the wheat, collecting and pouring into trailers.  Driving through towns meant driving past huge grain silos.  Wheat, wheat, wheat.

Partially harvested wheat field and silo

Exiting Walla Walla we saw more wheat but also other agriculture added, lots of orchards, some vineyards, and slowly more twists and turns, more copse of trees and the terrain became a bit less round and a bit more sharp.  As we approached the Washington-Idaho border we started running a long a very wide river, it was the Snake River.  Every man who was a boy when I was knows the Snake River for one reason: Evel Knievel and his attempt to jump the Snake River and one of its widest canyons on a rocket-motorcycle.

Our experience of the Snake River was short lived.  What we did see what major commerce on the river, huge piles of grain and logs on the far banks with ports to load the materials onto barges to be taken down the Snake to the Columbia River and eventually to the Pacific near Astoria, Oregon.  Where Washington and Idaho meet so to do the Clearwater and Snake Rivers meet.

After lunch in Lewiston, Idaho we set out on highway 12 and for the next several hundred miles followed the Clearwater River as it wound its way through valleys and canyons.  It was a most incredible drive with sharp mountain walls filled with towering pines falling right to the water's edge.  We were constantly being passed by trucks loaded with felled trees heading south.  On the river families were floating on intertubes anchored to the river bottom, guys were standing in the rushing water enticing trout with their flies.  Looking up into the hills so densely forested Leslie and kept wondering how it must have been to travel the area two hundred years ago.

Clearwater River along Hwy 12

Finally after several hours of winding road we began to climb and leave the river behind.  We climbed to 5200 feet and the Lolo Pass which breached through the Bitterroot range.  As we cleared the pass we also cleared the border from Idaho into Montana, cleared from Pacific to Mountain time and cleared the Continental Divide.  Until we cross New Mexico sometime next Wednesday or Thursday all rivers and creeks we see will no longer eventually drain into the Pacific.

Driving into Missoula we left the steep mountains behind us and wound through forests and open meadows, much as I pictured Montana to be.

While yesterday's journey was only 350 miles it took us eight hours, most of it on winding roads that required complete driver alertness, all of it on roads that once again had us in wonder of the beauty of our country.  We were very happy to pull into the motor court of the C'mon Inn to have an in room cocktail and reflect on our day's sights.

Traveling our route yesterday somewhat following the trail of Meriweather Lewis and William Clark we could only marvel at the courage and the incredible spirit their party must have had.  While we were exhausted after eight hours in a comfortable vehicle traveling on a well maintained roads we were also in awe of their journey and what they must have experienced as each day Nature unfolded before them.

Here is a link to National Geographic website on Lewis and Clark, you can click on the different legs of their journey.

In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson changed world history and guaranteed the greatness of the United States of America.  The Louisiana Purchase from France was, in my mind, the single most important action of any President.  Acquiring what would become the American Midwest from France, Jefferson provided America its bread basket, its minerals for industrialization, a position by which to settle and acquire the lands west of the purchase and established the boundaries the nation would take.

Also in 1803 Jefferson sent two guys off to find a way to get from the then United States concentrated on the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean via water.  So Meriweather Lewis and William Clark set out across the newly acquired lands and into and across the northern lands of what is now Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.

So to did Leslie and Dennis Smith set out a mere 209 years later across Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana, though instead of horses and on foot our journey was in a Honda Odyssey with satellite radio and air conditioning.  What took Lewis and Clark several months in 1805 when they reached the Bitterroot Mountains to traverse from the east and then travel by canoe to the convergence of the Clearwater and Snake Rivers took us several hours, much of which we spent pondering how Lewis and Clark made their crossing, albeit north or ours, of the mountain range.

But back to the beginning of the trail.  We left Pendleton, Oregon yesterday morning with a plan of travelling northeast to Walla Walla, Washington, then continuing northeast to Clarkston (WA)/Lewiston (ID), then further eastward and northward to Missoula, Montana.  We followed the plan, what was unplanned was the beauty of the American west that we would be experiencing.  What we also followed was a route marked as The Lewis and Clark Trail for most of our drive.

As mentioned in the previous post, coming into Pendleton from the south we drove through huge hills of grass lands.  Leaving Pendleton from the north we were immersed in thousands and thousands of acres of rolling wheat fields.  From Pendleton to Walla Walla we wound through and around golden fields undergoing harvest with giant pieces of farm equipment cutting the wheat, collecting and pouring into trailers.  Driving through towns meant driving past huge grain silos.  Wheat, wheat, wheat.

Partially harvested wheat field and silo

Exiting Walla Walla we saw more wheat but also other agriculture added, lots of orchards, some vineyards, and slowly more twists and turns, more copse of trees and the terrain became a bit less round and a bit more sharp.  As we approached the Washington-Idaho border we started running a long a very wide river, it was the Snake River.  Every man who was a boy when I was knows the Snake River for one reason: Evel Knievel and his attempt to jump the Snake River and one of its widest canyons on a rocket-motorcycle.

Our experience of the Snake River was short lived.  What we did see what major commerce on the river, huge piles of grain and logs on the far banks with ports to load the materials onto barges to be taken down the Snake to the Columbia River and eventually to the Pacific near Astoria, Oregon.  Where Washington and Idaho meet so to do the Clearwater and Snake Rivers meet.

After lunch in Lewiston, Idaho we set out on highway 12 and for the next several hundred miles followed the Clearwater River as it wound its way through valleys and canyons.  It was a most incredible drive with sharp mountain walls filled with towering pines falling right to the water's edge.  We were constantly being passed by trucks loaded with felled trees heading south.  On the river families were floating on inner-tubes anchored to the river bottom, guys were standing in the rushing water enticing trout with their flies.  Looking up into the hills so densely forested Leslie and kept wondering how it must have been to travel the area two hundred years ago.

Clearwater River along Hwy 12

Finally after several hours of winding road we began to climb and leave the river behind.  We climbed to 5200 feet and the Lolo Pass which breached through the Bitterroot range.  As we cleared the pass we also cleared the border from Idaho into Montana, cleared from Pacific to Mountain time and cleared the Continental Divide.  Until we cross New Mexico sometime next Wednesday or Thursday all rivers and creeks we see will no longer eventually drain into the Pacific.

Driving into Missoula we left the steep mountains behind us and wound through forests and open meadows, much as I pictured Montana to be.

While yesterday's journey was only 350 miles it took us eight hours, most of it on winding roads that required complete driver alertness, all of it on roads that once again had us in wonder of the beauty of our country.  We were very happy to pull into the motor court of the C'mon Inn to have an in room cocktail and reflect on our day's sights.

Traveling our route yesterday somewhat following the trail of Meriweather Lewis and William Clark we could only marvel at the courage and the incredible spirit their party must have had.  While we were exhausted after eight hours in a comfortable vehicle traveling on a well maintained roads we were also in awe of their journey and what they must have experienced as each day Nature unfolded before them.

Here is a link to National Geographic website on Lewis and Clark, you can click on the different legs of their journey.

The C'mon Inn, Missoula, MT