the plains are hot and dry. there are no clouds and little shade. by afternoon, in the heat of the day, the road turns to water up ahead. the land is pasture and farm. miles and miles of wheat. scattered in the fields are oasises of trees, few and far between. they surround grain silos and barns. sometimes there's a house, sometimes its abandoned. they're never very big. you see almost no one working in the fields. i don't know who owns this land, but either they don't live around here or its not a very lucrative profession. there are cars on the road, but i don't know where they're going. the only work appears to be at the silos.
us rte 2 follows the railroad, freight and amtrack. every 5-10 miles there's a town. 50 -200 people. they're really freight depots. an island of trees surrounding big silos and barns at the railroad siding. a few houses. ocassionally there's a store, more often a windowless bar/restaurant. the land is flat enough that you can see them a couple of miles ahead, tempting me to push harder.
the big towns, cut bank (3,000), shelby (3,400), and havre (almost 10,000) have more. cut bank and havre even have a mcdonald's with wi-fi service. havre has a walmart. but there are no billboards, no gas station signs sticking up in the air so that you can see them for miles.
i'm making excellent time. there's not much to distract me. i have seen a couple of magpies, hawks, a red winged blackbird, the usual sparrows. at the few water features, i've seen geese, ducks, and another interesting fowl. it was wading when i first saw it, half or a third the size of a heron, brown body, but when it flew it had white wings with a couple of long brown stripes down the width.
i'm in havre, getting ready to do another 20 mi. to chinook. hopefully find a place to sleep there.
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