The route was simple. Spend all day heading east on Hwy 2 to Williston, ND. Bearing 90 degrees (give or take) all day. US route 2 is 4138 km in length, starting in Everett Washington and ending in St. Ignace Michigan. It is a pleasant route, serving us on several occasions when we travelled from Calgary to visit family in Ontario,
Weather was great – mid to high 20’s all day – and the smoke started to clear. (it remained hazy but the air was no longer stuffy).
Along the way we saw a variety of signs of economic activity (it the road itself was fairly spartan). Cattle, ranches, wheat farms, oil and gas derricks and plants and mile long freight trains. (and one Amtrak passenger train heading west) .
Two features of the route stood out . One was the recurrence of ‘cellphone pullouts’, which would show up every 50 km or so. Not sure if these were remnants of an earlier time when folks were encouraged to pull over to take a call – for safety reasons – or if these were the few areas in this stretch of Montana where you could actually get a cell signal.
The other were frequent ‘historical sites’ that would show up. Normally a small pullover with a large plaque with embossed brass lettering to hilight some obscure part of Montana history. Recognize that there are some folks around today who seem determined to save western civilization by obliterating all references to its history. I wonder if any of these small monuments were also objectionable, and when the SJ warriors would get around to insisting on their removal. Likely those honoring people of European ancestry would be targets; however the one on the devastating impact of small pox on indigenous populations (see below) might survive a purge. We shall see ….
On our last leg into Williston we were cat and mouse with a long unit train running south of us on it’s journey east. We got ahead of it at one point, only to be delayed by road construction with chaotic traffic control, at which point we ended up arriving in Williston at the same time as the train.