To the Breaks

We have spent a week going home, to a wedding, and back again.  

We have a new mascot, thanks to Anna, who found it while on vacation. This for-now clean, delicate, and shiny creature will take her turn on my handlebar until she decides to jump off.

Our time back East was lovely. Caroline and Greg put Oakhurst milk in the fridge so I could immediately have my favorite tea in my favorite cup in my favorite porch armchair. Kim took me paddling on Casco Bay. We saw all our kids and the clan at Amanda and Leo’s wedding. And these additional guests hung around 200 feet into the woods behind the wedding arbor.

After the celebrations we hurried back to Great Falls, Montana, and resumed our journey. 

Great Falls is a grid of pleasant little houses bordered by the Missouri River on one side and a highway of chain stores and gas stations with casinos on the other. The quilt ends suddenly in a Walmart, and then immediately the prairie begins.

We turned onto a state road that was just two small lanes but empty enough for an impressive speed limit.

The plains stretched miles and miles to mountains far away.

Maybe this landscape doesn’t agree with everyone.

Mark got his first flat of the trip. His fancy bike came with tubeless tires, sealed with goo. The goo sloshes out when you take the tire off, and then you are supposed to take the wheel back to the bike shop for resealing. What kind of sense does that make? Mark had to put a tube in his tire and thus joined the mere mortals.

We swooped down off the prairie back to the Missouri River at Fort Benton. This is a surprising town loaded with museums, at least one funky restaurant, and a grand old hotel, a legacy of its years as Montana’s first city. The location is the uppermost navigable point on the Missouri and was the departure point for overland routes for the fur and buffalo trades, the gold rush, and the settlement of the American and Canadian Northwest. The coming of railroads ended the boom. We are staying in the Grand Union Hotel, built in 1882. 

Of course the hotel fell into decline for 100 years or so. We met the woman who restored it, an enormous and expensive project. She worked in architecture firms in Seattle and Hong King, and now her husband lives in Hong Kong and earns the money that keeps this place afloat. Though not entirely afloat: see how the window sinks down on one end, and the sash is built to fit. It works just fine.

Our room looks right out onto the Missouri River. This afternoon we made arrangements with an outfitter, bought maps and a week’s provisions, and had a last shower. Tomorrow we take off for 149 miles of paddling on the Missouri from Fort Benton to Kipp’s Landing. I’ve never done a canoe trip with less preparation, but the route looks gorgeous. We saw a couple of kayaks go by, and the current had them flying. At the outfitter’s place they were laying out the gear from a canoe they had had to retrieve when someone turned over and didn’t stay with his boat. Amid the sodden sleeping bag and clothes was a water-thickened paperback book titled “Survival Guide.” I snickered, but then I hope our gear doesn’t end up on the outfitter’s lawn too. At least we know to stay with the boat. We’ve been told not to drink the river water because of chemical runoff from agriculture. It takes a lot to ruin a river this big. “Sad.” 

I’ll write again when we’re back on the road and back to cell service.