We got up at 5:30 , before sunrise. The sun coming up on the hills wasn't nearly as pretty as the sunset, with the morning light laying flat against the terrain. But, the moon was still up for quite a while.
This is going to be a long day of driving.
We crossed the Yellowstone River close by. It was big!
Lots more old farms that have been abandoned, leaving these empty, see-through buildings on the verge of collapse. The prairie seems to be reclaiming the land.
We spotted two antelope. They really blended into the countryside. I did not get a picture of them, so will hope for more opportunity, and in the meantime will use this picture from Google Images as a reminder that we saw them! There are an estimated 300,000 pronghorn antelope in Montana. In 2011, there was a huge die-off due to extremely cold weather and 108 inches of snow (previous record was 70 inches!) that covered up any grass they might have foraged. They migrate 400 miles roundtrip, down from Canada looking for grasslands.
The ranches dwellings are few and far between out here.
When you see dry gulches filled in alkali, it doesn't look like good grazing area. They must water the cattle differently.
Without warning, we came upon a prairie dog town! Prairie dogs used to virtually cover the western plains. They live in underground burrows with tunnels and chambers, with mounds of dirt at the entrances.
We were astounded to see a bald eagle sitting right in the middle of this prairie dog town! There were little heads sticking up above the mounds, so how they didn't know he was there, I can't imagine.
The largest prairie dog town ever recorded was in Texas (where else) that covered 25,000 square miles, with an estimated 400,000,000 prairie dogs! During the 20th century, about 98 percent of the prairie dogs were exterminated. They ate the same vegetation the cattle needed, and many a cow broke her leg in a prairie dog hole. Today, prairie dog towns cover about five percent of their historic spread.
We are now in an area called the Judith Basin. Mountains surround this basin . which covers 1,871 square miles with a county population of only 2,072! The Little Belt and Snowy Mountains are to the south, the Highwood Mountains to the west and the Judith Mountains to the east. (Ever heard of any of them? Me neither!)
William Clark named the Judith River for his fiancé, "Julia" when the Lewis and Clark expedition passed through here. The river drains north into the Missouri.
John got in trouble at this road construction site. We had waited a long time for a pilot car, and then when we were in the caravan, he pulled off to a gas station. When we finally got to the end of the road, they had been waiting for us before they let the other traffic through. He got a lecture about staying with the caravan. He promised never to do it again!
What are we reading? (You can talk about all kinds of things while you are driving out here....) I just finished "Gone to War", a fiction book about a man who deserted in the Confederate South. John just finished "Stairway to Heaven" about climbing all the peaks in Colorado above 14,000 feet. I have started a new book a series of articles written by well known Indian authors about what the Lewis and Clark expedition meant to the Indians. John has started a book written by Teddy Roosevelt during the time he was ranching in the Badlands.
We are criss-crossing the Little Dry Creek, the Big Dry Creek, and have passed the road to the Big Dry School.
We see a few lone oak trees out in the prairie and wonder how they got there. An employee of John's once gave us a painting she had made with the caption, "The mighty oak was once a little nut that stood its ground."
A few random rock outcroppings keep the landscape interesting.
What is the 4th largest state in the United States? It's Montana. The others top ten ..., in order ...Alaska, Texas, California, then Montana, followed by New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Oregon, and Wyoming.
Charles Russell spent some time out here, He was a night herdsman and recorded some of the last days of the open range in this area. The expansive vistas , buffalo hunts, deer and antelope, stage coaches passing by, sheepherders watching their bands, cattle drives, outcroppings like the one above, square buttes like the one below --- all were here when Charles "Kit" Russell arrived in 1880.
What he saw versus what I saw. We were headed down this road when off to the left I spotted a very strange looking, extremely twisted tree trunk with gnarled bare branches above it. There was a sign that said "historical point." There was a vehicle in front of it, so I couldn't get a picture, but as I looked back, I saw another strange sight. It looked like statue of a windsurfer, whose skin was painted black, with flowered, Hawaiian style clothing on it. Something like you would see in Ocean Beach. "Did you see that?" I asked John in frustration that I didn't get a picture. "Sure did," he replied. "First Lance Camper I've seen in a long time." So that's what was blocking my view!
I've tried in vane to find something about this "historical point" on line.
We've come to rest stop along this desolate strip of highway. Did I tell you its 630 driving miles across Montana?
I'll let these signs speak for themselves, except it was hard to get these pictures, because these heavy wooden signs were swinging in the wind.
I love the sign below. It seems like it was written by an entirely different person than the other two. His sense of humor was what I needed as we got back in the car. We could imagine the deterrence he described here!
One of the hazards on these narrow roads is farm equipment. This monster came down the road and we were looking for a way to pull off the shoulder. John calls these snake roads after his favorite reptile, "Jake No Shoulders."
Right after the farm equipment came this house. A little more leeway but not much!
Everywhere we have gone, there are bee hives. Bees make thousands of foraging trips from their hives each day. Most stay within a half mile of their home, but some venture up to two miles. There has been a huge die off of bees in the past few years. While many blame interbreeding and the lack of diversity on where the hives go, many others blame new pesticides that have a tendency to linger instead of dissipating within a few days. It costs about $200 to rent a hive for the season, so this represents a big cost to the farmer.
This truly is Big Sky Country. With mountains in the far distance, you have a 360 degree unobstructed view of the sky. Ted Turner owns a lot of property in Montana. His Flying D Ranch has 113,613 acres. He also owns a 590,823 acre ranch that straddles New Mexico and Colorado, the largest privately owned contiguous tract of land in the US and about 3/4 the size of Rhode Island. All in all, Turner owns about 200,000,000 acres.
It seems like Montana will never end!
But if we think that, imagine what this guy is thinking!
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