Come Hail and High Water

Still on the road - lots of great posts starting tomorrow!

Western Vacations Week Two – The White Bison

By Bennett Owen

Credit: Bryan McMorrow

Last week’s roadside adventure took us from Salt Lake City to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, with a gravity-defying grab bag of attractions that included a shoe tree, a beaver pelt top hat and the legendary Jackelope. Now, after the brief distractions offered by the Tetons and Yellowstone Park, we pick up the trail at West Yellowstone, Montana right on the 45^th parallel.

Flathead Indian Reservation, Montana, Buffalo grazing. Credit: NARA 

Our first stop is the state capital, Helena, home of the White Bison.  Clorox had nothing to do with this freak of nature, born on the Flathead Indian reservation in 1933 and revered by the Blackfeet as “Big Medicine,” which became his nickname.  And Big Medicine fit the bill, measuring six feet from hoof to hump and weighing in at 19-hundred pounds. That’s a lot of Pemmican!

Credit: jimbowen0306

Not content with one freak of nature, we drive northeast towards Great Falls, and stop for a pick-me up at the American Bar in Stockett…home of a taxidermy trophy, the two-headed calf.

Credit: American Bar Stockett Montana

Credit: American Bar Stockett Montana

Credit: American Bar Stockett Montana

No, you’re not seeing double, at least not yet.

While you’re here you might also take a look at the world’s shortest river, the “Roe.” You can walk the whole 201 feet of it in about a minute.

Credit: OmanForum

But the true highlight of this tour is in Polson, at the Miracle of America Museum. Nicknamed the “Smithsonian of the West,”  it features a treasure trove of idiosyncratic junk including a Viking ship with hubcap shields!

Credit: Joyce Remy

They even have one of those winged monkeys from the Wizard of Oz that scared the crap outta me when I was a kid. And if you skipped Stockett, they have a two-headed calf here too.

Provided you can drag the kids away from here, you’ll soon be at East Glacier Park for a look at the world’s largest purple spoon…affectionately known as “Big Martha.”  After this, you’ve only got Glacier…

Credit: The Spiral Spoon

Next week we’ll be seeking curios in the desert southwest…stay tuned.  

The Mantle Ranch – Spring Roundup

By Bennett Owen

400 hundred head of horses that haven’t seen a human being in six months.

Credit: JeremyOK

Credit: jdwheaton

Credit: jdwheaton

Credit: JeremyOK

Headed up and herded down to the Mantle ranch near Three Forks, Montana.

Springtime on the high plains of Montana brings its own rituals…and the renewal of unique and valuable traditions.

Credit: Ed Yourdon

These animals will work through the summer for cattle ranches and outfitters. Kail Mantle says he looks for, “a good big-boned stout horse with a quiet disposition and the right attitude for this business.”  He adds, “Every horse has a name and we know it and love every horse on our place.”

Credit: bravofourthree

Sounds like horse sense to me.

For more information, visit www.montanahorses.com

Three Forks, by the way, is where the Madison, Jefferson and Gallatin rivers merge to form the mighty Missouri.  Top that, Texas!

Credit: MichaelOnTheTrail

Credit: ScottSchrantz

WEST TEXAS – DRIVE LIKE HELL, YOU’LL GET THERE

By Bennett Owen

But don’t blink or you’ll miss a little Loving.

The Houston Chronicle reports Texas legislators are considering upping the speed limit to 85 MPH (136 KMH) in remote parts of the state. Read that, West Texas. 

The Lone Star State already boasts the fastest speed limits in the country and yet traffic fatalities are trending downward. Still, the article quotes a Sheriff who fears West Texans just can’t drive 85… “You put it up to 85, and they drive 5-10 mph faster they’ll be going close to 100.”  The piece also quotes a trucker who quips that, “out in West Texas or the Panhandle, they’re probably driving that speed anyway.” Read the article here.

Of course we all remember Montana’s short-lived experiment with “Reasonable and Prudent…” a speed limit that gave rise to The Montanabahn.  Am I reading in to this interview or is the Governor a bit wistful about its demise? 

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As for testosterone pumping, I once drove from Berlin, Germany to Innsbruck, Austria in 5 ½ hours. That’s the equivalent of doing the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs.

Of course, what Montana and West Texas have in common besides the need for speed, are massive reserves of crude oil, very long distances to cover and very few people.  West Texas boasts an average eight persons per square mile and towns like the aptly named Notree …

In Montana about 212 highway patrolmen cover more than 50-thousand miles of highways and interstates … and one of the worst driving hazards is road kill frozen to the pavement. Having done away with reasonable and prudent, one Montana legislator is trying out UNREASONABLE and IMPRUDENT as he tries to outlaw DUIs laws …

He is a tavern owner by the way. And the New York Times reports that cell phones play a part in one third of traffic accidents … ”inattention blindness” is the new term.

Stories like that make me want to “Boogie Back to Texas …” Speaking of speed is it the rosin or is this fiddler’s bow on fire? 

GLACIER PARK – There’s Snow Business...

By Bennett Owen

Photo courtesy of Glaciernps

“They say Montana has only two seasons: winter and the 4th of July.” 

Photo courtesy of Glaciernps

Considering the weather forecast, the road clearing crews in Glacier may be engaged in an exercise in futility. Here’s their cryptic progress report, as of April Fools Day: 

“Crews are currently working in Two Medicine and are one half mile beyond Running Eagle Falls. The weather today was around 32 degrees and it snowed the entire day. Crews are encountering 4-8 foot snowdrifts. The snow at the bridge by the Running Eagle Falls parking lot is 5 feet deep.

Photo courtesy of Glaciernps

Plowing operations on the west side of the Going-to-the-Sun Road begin April 1, 2011.”

Photo courtesy of Glaciernps

Reminds me of this classic VW Bug commercial from the 1970s: 

And the road crews have to get to work somehow:

Punch line translation…although the pictures tell the story, don’t they? “Ever wonder how the man who drives the snow plow, drives TO the snowplow?”

Photo courtesy of Glaciernps