Wednesday, July 1, 2009

July 1, Wednesday, Culbertson Mountain, City Park

The fireworks pop already, and the flags are on display for the coming Independence Day here in Culbertson where we camp in the city park, the town green and neat. The Missouri River flows nearby, and there is a broad valley of well-irrigated crops. It all seems a world apart from Wolf Point and its bleak economics and reservation problems.

The ride today was brutal with a disabling headwind that reduced our best speeds to four mph at times. Seven hours, 60 miles. It was pretty, though, along the Missouri - the route traveled by Lewis and Clark who wrote of flourishing here with the plentiful game. We rode, at times, in the lee of the escarpment on the north side of the river where the land was tortured by erosion and had many bizarre shapes - some capped by stones - that would be called Hoodoos in Utah. These had many swallow nests, as mentioned in the Lewis and Clark journals. We felt we were riding with history, knowing these things - took some of the sting from the effort required.


Pat Sewell

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