One Lap

Date: 10/09/2013

Day: 13

Location: Malta, Mo

Miles Today: 361

Total Miles:  2546

The High Line, Glacier Park, Rudyard MO, On the High Line, Seen on the Road, Church of the Sacred Heart, Great Plains Dinosaur Museum, Malta, MO.

 

The High Line

Highway 2 is referred to by the folks who live along it (not just in tourist books,) as The High Line.  It is the main east west connection across the Northern tier of states, running some hundreds of miles north of I-90 and on a more direct path. 

One of many references to the road, this one on a defunct movie house in Rudyard, Montana.

Glacier Park

Leaving Kalispell this morning, the High Line squeezed between Glacier National Park to the north and the Lewis and Clark National Forrest to the south.  Both were closed today, of course, but the guv'mnt let us use their road.  These were the last serious mountains for who knows how far on the One Lap.  This road would be somewhat problematic if it were snowing, but clear and dry it is only beautiful.  The Colonel had not thought of fall colors in Montana, his error.

Rudyard Montana

A time driven stop, Rudyard is a very small town serving local wheat farmers.

Do you think the extra bit of space between the "t" and the "h" in Panthers is inadvertent?  The Colonel thinks not.

This is a disker, used to turn wheat stubble back into the earth every Fall, but it makes the Colonel want to confess to something, anything.  They are common on the High Line this time of the year.

On the High Line

Looking back (westward) at the mountains of Glacier National Park and the continental divide.

This image and those that follow may be more of the wide open spaces than absolutely necessary; but there is Gods Own Plenty of wide open spaces out here and will be for days to come.  The Colonel likes it.  Good clean road and a 70 MPH speed limit.  Zoom, zoom.  Stop-to-see-what's-going-on stops are mandatory.

 

That tiny little thing in the middle of the image is our first oil well.  Many more are to come as we pass through North Dakota.

At this point, the Colonel thought he heard the crop duster from North by Northwest, but that is South Dakota.

This is a wheat train and was on the order of two miles long, going 50 MPH plus on the open plain.  Consider the kinetic energy.  Isn't the perspective wonderful!

If you look very closely at the back end of that tank car you will see a vertical orange bar.  It is an EOT.  Railroad talk for End Of Train, pronounced E - OUGHT.  It is an electronic doohickey, transponder and whatnot.  Because there is an EOT, there is no caboose.  Alas.

 

An abandoned wheat elevator.

The Colonel, crusty as ever, suggests that if you don't think this is beautiful, you need your aesthetic sensibilities recalibrated.

A monument to good clean fun outside the Blackfoot cultural center which, unfortunately, was closed today.

 

Church of the Sacred Heart

This Catholic (Jesuit) church was founded in 1924 and is now very much abandoned.  The cemetery, however still serves the local population.  The back door was ajar.  the Colonel did not enter.

Malta, MO.

Malta is where the Colonel ran out of both energy and daylight at pretty much the same time today.  A stop had been planed to visit the excellent Great Plains Dinosaur Museum.

This nice old sign is all the charm Malta has produced to this point.  Investigation will continue tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

77 Million years ago a shallow sea covered the central American states.  What is now Montana is about under the "A" on this map.  As the sea came and went the dinosaurs roamed the resulting grassland.

This is real Brachylophosaur (Duck Billed dinosaur,) not a cast.  The specimens here are few but really outstanding.  They found the imprint of skin on this dinosaur.

This is actually a museum grade cast.  The original is out on loan, keeping the museum bills paid.  (Smart board of directors.)  You can see both skin and the internal organs of this dinosaur.  They can calculate its last meal.  It had a crop like a chicken.

This guy, about 2.5 feet tall, would have had the Colonel for lunch.  The turkey from hell.  Below he has his meat back on.

 

 

 Tomorrow, ever eastward.

Wellington Boot, Col