I was awoken, in fact, by the front desk calling and asking me when I'd be the heck out of the room. They called around 11:30am, and I ended up leaving around 12:05pm. Liz called around 8am, too, but I didn't have much to say since I was so tired.
After packing up and checking out, I drove down the road a block or two to a gas station. It had a little convenience mart, and, of cousre, a casino. I bought some junk that I needed—pens, some water, and a few post cards. I didn't fill-up, though, since I had three quarters of a tank from yesterday.
As I was about to pay for my sundries, I bumped into the older woman from last night. She was buying cigarettes, and I quipped about getting myself out of bed so late. She told me that's why she didn't drink; she didn't want to deal with hangovers. I don't really get hangovers; I just get really tired and maybe a little sick to my stomach. When I left the store, I used the ATM and saw that she was back at the video poker machines.
The plan was still simple: just follow US-2. I blasted east, toward the Montana-North Dakota state line. There was really no construction today, except for a bridge being redone just outside of town.
I was a little hungover; I was certainly much drunker than I had thought. To help myself, I downed some water and kept driving. The only way out of the woods was to get up and walk!
To keep myself company, I played with the radio a little more. There wasn't much on; a couple of gospel stations and a country station. On the AM band, though, I found a station on "The Farmers Network". It was great; I listened to all the local news and heard the pollen, insect, and weather reports the farmers use to plan their crops and sprays. They also had very detailed market reports. Apparently, the prices that heads of cattle and bushes of grain fetch are very dynamic. I wondered if the ranchers tried to sell high and would sit on a harvested crop or herded cattle for a day or two to get a better price. Was it luck?
The next little town that I came to was Malta. I had heard that there was a bad fire on Main Street the night before; almost a whole block of historic buildings were burned, and lots of little merchants lost their businesses. I imagined that such an event would be completely devestating to a small town like this. A couple of the merchants they mentioned had been in business at those locations for more than fifty years.
US-2 didn't take me through the center of town, but I happened on a Dairy Queen as I wrestled with the idea of going down Main Street to see what happened. My stomach wasn't queasy, so I pulled in and had a big burger for lunch. While I was studying my map, the clerk came by and gave me advice about some historic sites at the state line.
People are so friendly in these towns. There's nearly no crime. They must look at anyone who's from out of town as a threat. They must see the rest of the nation as a hotbed of sin, crime, and inequity. Certainly, those are a valid opininons from their point of view. What's wrong with the rest of they country? Nobody in these small towns gets shot for wearing sneakers that are too expensive or hanging with the wrong gang.
After downing my burger, I continued to pound east. The land was even flatter here, and I put the noisy pedal down hard a few times. I saw my first Montana Tropper on the way into Glasgow. I was only doing an indicated 80 miles an hour at the time, so there was no cause for alarm. Ten miles earlier, I ended a 110-plus run. The road was just great; there were sweeping turns and plenty of visibility.
I pulled off at a rest stop just before reaching Glasgow and talked with a travelling salesman. He represented an insurance company that wrote policies for auto dealerships and farm implement stores. All that equipment laying outside had to be insured so that it didn't get total in a hail storm or other natural disaster. Apparently, he worked a heck of a territory as his travel stories seemed to go on forever. We compared cars— he really liked his Pontiac. I promised to wave when I passed.
To avoid the panic I had yesterday, though, I stopped for gas when I got to Glasgow. I was a little tired, and decided that Minot would certainly be my stop for the day. I pushed through Glasgow and continued my trek towards the border.
At the state line, I got out and snapped a couple of pictures. There was just about nothing around the line; the last town I passed was a good seven miles back. But there was, of course, a casino. The last chance for people leaving, the first chance for people coming. The state is in complete denial about gambling being a problem for its residents.
I got out of the car and looked around. The land was beautiful here. Roly-poly little hills were covered with thick prarie grass or crops just coming up for the growing season. The air smelled because it was so clean and pure. Grass and clean, just a boquet of nothing.
The navigation system in the car uses CD-ROMs to hold map information. The United States is mapped into six or seven CDs, and I had driven off the map I had loaded when I crossed the state line. So, I popped in the next disc and set my destination for Minot. The rig takes a little while to initialize, so I continued to stand outside and stretch a little.
Unfortunately, rihgt at the state line, the road was under construction. The flagger at the first edge of the construction was a little wierd. I saw him a mile away, of course, and wasnt' going so fast to begin with. But he waved his sign and motioned to slow down frantically. Then, after I stopped, he wanted me to pull forward a little ways. So I did, and then he waved to stop again. He came around my side of the car and explained that there's be a pilot truck and that I should follow along. Well, of course.
He wanted to know what kind of car I was driving; he asked a couple of questions, and then said he really liked it.
The pilot truck finally appeared, and I followed it into the dust. My car was again being coated with crap. I hoped that the front spoiler wouldn't fall off. The pilot truck zoomed ahead, its huge ground clearance completely unfazed by the bumpy road and dubious traction.
A few miles outside of Lewiston, the construction ended and I coasted into town. It was about six o'clock on my watch, but then I realized that I must have passed into the central time zone. I didn't see any signs, though, so I had to check my map. Sure enough, it was an hour later than I had figured.
Williston was your typical small town. But it was bigger, more populated, and had more services than the largest town Montana had shown me. What a trip. I stopped for food again. Drinking is hungry work.
On the way out of town, US-2 jogged north and then east again, so I followed it along. It seemed the last eighty miles were the hardest. Just one more hour and I could stop and rest. I was tired.
Playing a hunch, I asked the guidance system about hotels in Minot. There were several, so I picked one and navigated right in here. I didn't feel like eating or drinking anything, so I came straight upstairs and started to relax.
There are a couple of semis and a bus parked in front of the hotel; the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Musical Ride was here, travelling through. They must be quite a troupe. I wondered if they were downstairs watching the hockey game.
As I settled in to watch the 3rd period of the game, I heard the unmistakable note of high compression engines whining under stress. Sure enough, right across the street at the county fairgrounds, was a short-track oval and they had just dropped the green flag! I could see almost the whole track from my window. A couple of yellow flags, but it looked like a clean race.
And Dallas won a game in the playoffs. It was nerve racking, though; it looked like a couple of players (including Mike Modano) were injured and might miss a lot of time in the series. It never fails: I buy a player's jersey and they have a career-threatening injury.
My car was absolutely coated with bugs, so I wanted to stop and get it washed. I looked through the phone book to find a car wash, but the only one I saw was closed.
I drove up and down the airport road and finally found an Amoco with an automatic wash. But it was closed for cleaning. What luck; it closed six minutes before I arrived and would be down for an hour. Worse yet, I gouged my back left wheel against the curb while trying to back out of the chute to the entrance. Crap!
On the other side of town, I found another automatic wash. I got one of the upgraded plans--instead of three bucks, I spent $4.50 to get a "double front wash" and a "hot wax". Whatever that is. But the double front wash helped; the only bugs left were on the absolute lowest edge of my spoiler. My car was clean; I could live with myself again. I also threw out the crap that was accumulating on the inside. Half-finished Mountain Dew bottles were a favorite, it seemed.
Back in the hotel room, I worked on my laptop to write up my trip while watching the Discovery Channel. It's a great show: they had a special on the way that air traffic control is done, and then a detailed show on how firefighteres knock down big forest fires.
I'm tired, but I haven't a care in the world. My room was just fine; the race was over, so now it was nice and quiet. I didn't want to talk to anyone or think about anything, so I sat with my maps and dozed off.
Last modified on 11 June, 1999.