Day Sixty-Six, Cattlemen

It has been a long and not wholly remarkable day. I put in some walking, I reckon. Twenty-four miles or possibly more, or maybe a little bit less. I had plenty of daylight to go for twenty-five, but my toes thought I'd gone far enough.

If I were a millionaire, I don't believe I'd walk much more than fifteen miles a day. The way it stands I should be walking thirty. But while that may be stretching it, there's no real reason why I shouldn't be putting in twenty-five every day.

I know how to do it. The secret, of course, is to log ten miles before noon. Then it's a couple of seven mile jogs and Bob, as they say, is your oyster. The problem is that on most days I don't much feel like walking ten miles before noon. Usually I'll walk two or three and follow that up with a four hour break. Then I'll walk six or seven more and rest for a couple more hours. Then I'll start feeling guilty and start walking in earnest but soon enough it starts to get dark. That, my friends, is the anatomy of my typical twenty mile day.

But today I was hungry and the nearest food was eight or nine miles away. I would have broken that into two more manageable chunks, but it was threatening to rain. I don't like being rained on; it hurts my feelings. It makes me sweat like a monkey. Breathable waterproof fabric is a myth. I don't care what anyone says.

Even without rain it was humid enough. On this trip that is a new one. I guess I had better get used to it. I don't doubt that worse is coming. But this morning it felt like I was wading through soup, and not some sissy consumé, either. Something with cream and bits of potato. It may well have been a chowder.

I was almost happy when two miles outside of Reed Point it started to rain. It gave me some excuse to be sopping. My backpack can resist a moderate rain for some time so I left the cover off. I didn't bother with the raincoat, either.

Reed Point, Montana was not quite the metropolis I imagined it to be. It is home to some 160 people. I met five percent of them at the local saloon where I enjoyed a rather pinkish hamburger. And some fine onion rings and forty-two Cokes, which may be a personal record.

The Waterhole, I think it is called, by which they mean watering hole. If the graffiti in the men's room is to be believed, it is known locally as a different sort of hole altogether. I rather liked the place. It is hammered together out of mismatched boards, like a relic from the 1870s. It is in fact less than fifty years old. So am I, as of this writing.

I was happy to linger, out of the rain. There was plenty to do and see. I walked around and read what was scratched on the walls and admired their naked lady pictures. And I played two games of pool with a fourteen year old boy. A big kid, I think he's their bouncer.

Seemingly in the state of Montana it is OK for children to hang out in bars, so long as it doesn't interfere with their schoolwork. This kid, Cody, I beat him both games, is looking forward to starting high school in the fall. He is hoping to earn a place on the football team. They play a six man version. It is, I am told, great fun to watch and may be a good way for the NFL to save a little money.

I left some hours later, my computer all but charged. It had by then all but stopped raining. It was for me to figure out a way to follow I-90 without setting foot on that highway. I did a pretty good job on goat paths and such. I had to use a couple of their bridges. I tell you it is fun with traffic moving at eighty-five miles per and the railing on a level with my knees.

But cutting through cow pastures and scaling a few cliffs, I managed to stay back country. I climbed under bridges and walked down the tracks. I am learning the laugh at barbed wire. It was something of a challenge and I welcomed it. It took my mind off the walking. And being hit by a train would be a quaint way to die in these modern United States.

It ain't just flat here; there are high cliffs and hills. The road winds as it follows the river. It makes your walk more interesting than a long straight stretch of nothing. Which is about all I've got to look forward to for the next eight-hundred miles.

Eventually I stumbled out of the bush and onto a decent frontage road where two cowboys were having a confab. I was pleased to see I had startled them a bit. My yellow hat makes me look like an alien. But folks in Montana take life as it comes. Lookee there, a backpacking hippie.

A few miles more and I threw up my tent next to the railroad tracks. It is loud but I am happy to have some cover and the ground is perfectly flat. A storm passed over and shook things a bit. It is even now raining. I hope it gets it out of its system before I am back on the road.

There is a weather report feature on my little computer. Every day it says it will rain. Not mere rain but thunderstorms. It shows a little lightning icon. But so far I've been lucky and lucky indeed. I don't want to get caught out in that. I would be exposed to the worst of it without so much as a bush for cover. I've lived in some mighty rainy places, but I've never been homeless before. Not technically.

I think, too, a solid nine hours of sleep did me some good today. Let's see if I can do it again. Goodnight.


A BEAST of some considerable size is ploughing through the high grass outside my tent. I don't think I'm in bear country. I refuse to be intimidated. I spent the night in a small room with an agitated bat, you'll recall. Bears? I laugh at bears.

HAVE YOU EVER wondered just how many ants there are in the world? Dozens, I should imagine.

THERE'S NO WAY around it. Cows adore me. I am something of a hero to cows. Today I found myself sharing a field with them and did my damnedest to pass by unseen. I was afraid that if they noticed they would be all over me like so many half-ton puppies. Moo.

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