Shady Grove Campground Sunset /Cut Bank, MT
It's a beautiful day. Don't let it get away. You're on the road. Got no destination.
Three summers ago, I saw the world. Well at least part of it. My family loaded up our new Dodge Grand Caravan and took off with only a rough plan on where to go and about a six week canvas spread out before us.
Some people travel by going from place to place, taking time to drink in the atmosphere of each unique locality. However, I've always traveled differently. I enjoy driving, taking less traveled roads and just watching the world go by. Luckily, my wife sees the world in much the same way as I. We decided that for this trip we'd head north, then head west, then head south, then head east until we got back home.
We launched from Roanoke, VA on June 19, 2003 and headed for my sister's house in Lexington, Kentucky. The van was stuffed full of stuff. We even invested in a shell for the roof. My 15 year old son carved out a post in the third row of seats far back in the bowel of the vehicle. My 12 year old daughter camped in a captain's chair in the second row, surrounded by crates of food and supplies.
After getting a send-off from my sister, we headed north into Ohio and then up into central Michigan where we camped our first night. Being June and being that far north, it stayed light until 10 pm and we all enjoyed learning how to set up our camp. Our trip to the nearby Wal-Mart for foodstuff was exciting, too. Everything was so new. The land was glacial carved and gorgeous. Even the mosquitoes seemed different and more exciting.
The next day we pushed on to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan over the Mackinaw Bridge. Again, everyone was stunned by the beauty of that junction of Lakes Michigan and Huron. The blue water and the blue sky ran together and made you feel like you were on a small island of land in the middle of a huge new world. Camping at the bridge, we watched as it put on a nighttime light show as lonely supply trucks fed over it in the dusk of dawn.
Up until this point, we hadn't really been too concerned with our route, but now we made the grand decision to take the road less traveled. Finding Highway 2, the most northern east/west cross continental highway in the USA, we hopped aboard and began our cruise through small town after small town at a pace somewhat slower than the whirling way of the big highways to the south.
Moving on, always pressing, we cruised through Superior's deep fog and pushed into Porcupine Mountains State Park, somewhere near nowhere on the southern shores of Lake Superior. Again, we marveled at how we, being such miniature creatures on this earth, could possible survive in this vastness. The shores of this ancient lake are formed by shimmering slabs of shale, colossal and infinite. Nearby, a remote lake was once carved by a glacier in full retreat, leaving behind an accidental puddle in its cloven trail.
Miles and miles before us, we drove on the next day after briefly contemplating staying at this gem just to drink in all it offered, but the miles beckoned, the unknown, the wind. We passed through Duluth Minnesota, taking a rather scenic ride over a time-forgotten tourist skyline drive. Pushing into central Minnesota, we found a campsite near the bead-waters of the great Mississippi River nearest the town of Bemidji. Another awesome sunset at 10:30pm and then it was simply a matter of being put to sleep by the drone of mosquitoes butting their heads against our tent as they were seeking warmth.
Route 2 was still our friend as we passed through North Dakota the next day. Little did we expect to actually drive right past the geographic center of North America as marked by a roadside monument in the dusty town of Rugby. The place wasn't much more than a scrum with two competing high-priced service stations selling pop from rusty antique coke machines.
Onward, we pushed through that day in a marathon session to Minot, North Dakota. In Minot, we found a damp, smoke scented hotel room for $60 and did our laundry. I recall eating a really filling Mexican dinner at a national chain restaurant. Right then, in the heat and wind of the mid-west, we were living well.
Still on Highway 2, we sliced across the prairie and the 40 mph south wind on our longest traveling day of the trip. Meaning only to travel about 300 miles, we could never find a suitable place to camp. So, we'd head from town to town as we advanced across Montana. Saco, Malta, Dodson, Harlem, Chinook, Havre, Chester, and Shelby all clicked by, dusty stands in the relentless prairie a hundred miles apart. There seemed to be nothing out here. Just grass waving in the wind. After about 700 miles, we stumbled across a place just west of Cut Bank, the coldest place in the lower 48. That night we huddled in our van as a frigid wind assaulted our campsite. Then, only at the last possible moment, we each leaped into our respective tents (wife and two kids in the big one, snoring dad in the small tent) and froze our way through the night in our ineffective clothes. The next morning, we marveled at our first sight of the snow-covered Rocky Mountains. Glorious yet forbidding; sharp yet tempting. A local AM radio station had a round-up of the local high school rodeo matches from the previous night.
After turning down an offer to buy this beautiful, yet remote house and campground from owners who wanted a warmer way of life, we made passage into the heart of the beast, heading for Glacier National Park, America's most beautiful place.
To be continued one day...
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