Havre to Minot
Before leaving Havre, we went on the "Havre Beneath the Streets" tour, which turned out to be mostly a museum of recreations of turn of the century Western businessplaces, only some of which would originally have been underground. What would have been underground were the opium den and the bordello (and some dull old legitimate businesses). There was a time when opium was both legal and popular in the Old West, and they had a pipe on display along with a pair of scales on which a genuine piece of opium took pride of place. Is that allowed?
Since I only took two pcitures all day, I should present them here: the bordello and the blacksmith's workroom, complete with 6 foot bellows.
On seeing a wooden stand displaying several horse saddles, a little girl on the tour exclaimed "Wow, grandma's sure gonna get a kick out of this -- those are real saddles, but that's some kinda fake horse". [Debbie interjects: the girl's name was Tiffany -- no doubt named after Tiffany from Eastenders]
At the same display, the guide told us about a local celebrity horse handler and rodeo star of the time, and said that his only problem was that "he loved horses a little too much". I thought, careful, there's children present. Debbie though the same; we compared notes afterwards. It turned out there was a perfectly reasonable explanation, which I needn't go into. Let's just put it down as a delightful misunderstanding.
By the end of the tour it was time for an early lunch, and we found a '50s themed diner where we ate like kings.
After that we got in the car and drove a little over 400 miles. Eastern Montana is monotonous. Pretty, but monotonous. Mostly, it looks like a golf course. Western North Dakota, into which we passed, is pretty much the same. Debbie observed that North Dakota is the northernmost of all the Dakotas.
The following things punctuated the journey:
- Several fluid-exchange stops at gas stations. Debbie has developed a taste for Vanilla Coke.
- Seeing some nodding donkeys
- Getting stopped at a "sobriety checkpoint" by North Dakota Police Dept.: "Have you consumed any intoxicating substances today?" "No" "OK, you're free to go ma'am". We received an explanatory leaflet which ended "Booze it and lose it" on one side, but also added "Click it or ticket" on the other side.
- Putting on In The Highways from the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, and singing along to it loudly: "I'll be somewhere a working for my, somewhere working for my, somewhere a-working for my Lo-o-ord!"
In Minot, the first motel we saw had "no vacancy" lit up. The first one we asked at was full as well. We ended up at a Super 8, our first chain motel of the holiday. Too frazzled for a proper dinner, we ate at Taco John's, our first franchise-chain fast food joint of the holiday (aside from some drinks from McDonalds). While we ate, our clothes were washing in the motel's laundrette. As I write, Debbie is watching the tumble drier. I call this "division of labour".
When we changed a note for some quarters for the drier, the guy behind the desk was eager to tell us about Minot's attractions. He was excited about a Norwegian church, down the road for some reason. We may well investigate tomorrow.