To: OnTheRoad

From: Richard Dean <richdean@clark.net>

Subject: part deux

hello all.... i meant to write earlier, but ended up seeing lots of friends and not having time to do the email geek thing...

I'm in Glendive, Montana tonight... a place where the speed limit signs say "reasonable and prudent" instead of a number (like North Dakota and Minnsota where it says 70mph). I love that! Montana -- at least the part I have seen at dusk so far -- is a beautiful state. Hills that would be called mountains in the east and valleys appearing out of nowhere. I can imagine that many people early on simply walked or ran off cliffs by accident. I was in the Badlands today and was once again struck by how quickly they appear. One minute its grassland, the next its something out of a bad science fiction movie.

Fun events today: I stopped in Mandan, North Dakota, which is just across the Missouri from Bismark. The main reason was because Steinbeck wrote, "Here is where the map should fold. Here is the boundary between east and west..." and its true, one side is grasslands and this city, the other is water, hilly outcrops and water. The other reason was a soda fountain in a drug store that i had read about. When I came out high on a rootbeer float, some guy had hit my car and bent the bumper up :-( He was real nice about it, gave me his info, and we drove off less than a minute later. Not like the east where you have to call the cops and sue each other. His insurance company offered to give me a check within the hour!

So bent bumper in tow, I headed for the N.D. Badlands (Teddy Roosevelt Park...). I really wanted to see a buffalo and had missed the 50 foot tall one in eastern ND (how I don't know...). So i took a scenic drive... rounded a corner and was instantly surrounded by a herd of about 20 HUGE buffalo... maybe 5 or 6 feet tall. Luckily the top was up because these guys were f*cking scary. They had no intention of moving so me and this other guy in the truck behind me sat there for 30 minutes waiting for them to move. Neither of us had the guts to beep the horn. After the soda shop incident, I wasn't gonna push my luck. Lots of good pictures though!

So after stops in Batavia (NY), Columbus (OH), Chicago, and Jamestown, ND, I am in Montana to do some camping before going to Boise and then Seattle. [San Fran is the ultimate destination -- a two day drive down "The 101"] Driving in tonight at dusk was everything I love about the west... in front were these rolling hills sillohetted (sp?) against a purple and pink sunset and behind me in the rearview mirror it was a dark dark blue. I swear if you got out and could look at the whole 180 degree view it was like a watching an east coast sunset in a time lapse. Ahead sunlight, above dusk, behind nighttime. Only here can nature and the earth's rotations overwhelm your emotions...

Hope everyone is well.... write back!!

Rich