Aberdeen was a major rail hub in the 19th century, and birthplace in the late 20th century of the Super 8 motel chain. We stayed at the smallest of the three Super 8 motels now in the relatively small city, and went to the “original” to use the guest laundry services, so got to tour the city on the back streets on the way. In the morning, we backtracked to the east side of town for our morning coffee fix, then off toward Montana, crossing the Missouri at Mobridge, one of the few bridges across the river, and into the Mountain Time Zone.

We had early lunch/late breakfast, depending on which time zone you came from, in northwestern South Dakota, where a poster on the wall proclaimed this “Reagan Country,” a reminder that the Conservatives are determined to turn the clock back at least 40 years, and have succeeded in some parts of the country. For us, that would mean a world without Starbucks or the Internet, among the other more political issues, so we quickly moved on west in search of the 21st century again.

A brief passage through the corner of North Dakota and badlands reminiscent of the Badlands of South Dakota and the Teddy Roosevelt Park further north, and we were at last back in Montana. The first town we came to, Baker, had a coffee shop serving espresso and WiFi: we had successfully navigated the time warp and returned to our own time. However, we still have nostalgia for the “good old days,” i.e., the 50s and 60s, before the Interstate highway system isolated small towns and homogenized America, so we had been avoiding highways starting with “I-.” However, we did find ourselves on I-94 between Miles City and Forsyth, where US 12 has been absorbed by the newer road.

Leaving Forsyth, we realized we had 150km ahead with no guaranteed fuel stops, so turned back to fill up before moving on to Roundup, our destination for the evening. Our motel, booked through one of the newer Internet services, turned out to be another chain franchise enterprise that had succumbed to the recession and was now being slowly rehabilitated as a mom-and-pop operation. This one only had a few rooms ready for occupancy, but they were clean, with new carpet but nearly worn-out linens and towels stacked on the closet for lack of towel bars. The owner said they had started in April, with a huge mess, but were proceeding with a focus on quality before quantity. Now, this part of a “return to the past” we don’t mind–the Internet has equalized the marketplace so that we no longer have to depend on name recognition as a mark of quality and consistency: the very thing that gave rise to the Super 8 motel chain 40 years ago and that late-comers to the chain/franchise market had forgotten was the reason for their success. On-line reservation systems are now a free market, not the purview of large corporate mainframes, and online guest reviews provide a measure of quality. The upside for travellers is a variety of accommodation, rather than travelling hundreds of miles to stay in a room identical to the last one.

Having passed through the timezone the day before, we awoke early and set off in search of breakfast and good coffee, which we found 100 km down the road, at Harlowton, a bit bigger town. We had been following the trace of an old rail line along US12 since Forsyth, the tracks long gone. At Harlowton, we learned that this had been a main switchyard for the Milwaukee railroad 100 years ago, where the coal-fired steam engines turned over their west-bound loads to electric engines, which provide pollution-free passage through the tunnels under the Rocky Mountains,to Idaho and later, the Cascade Range into Seattle. The electric engines were also powered by hydro-electric generators, so the savings in fuel cost offset the cost of electrifying the mountain crossings. Unfortunately, the smaller Milwaukee line was in competition with the older Great Northern railway, whose tracks ran parallel and which served more towns along the way, and the Milwaukee/Soo line eventually went broke, depending entirely on long-distance loads, and lower operating costs that never quite offset the capital investment in technology.

We stopped for fuel again in White Sulphur Springs, birthplace of the late novelist Ivan Doig, as the next town, Townsend, was again too far. Through Montana’s capital, Helena, we climbed over the continental divide and turned north at Avon, leaving US 12 to pick up MT 200, to avoid the merger ahead between US 12 and I-90 into Missoula. At Missoula, we stopped for late lunch at the Good Food Store, one of our favorite deli stops on trips to/through the “big city” when we had lived up the Bitterroot Valley in the early 2000s. One of the reasons we stop so often at Starbucks in our travels, despite our penchant to sample local lodging and eateries, is that we know what they serve and we like it. One of the pitfalls of frequent travel and frequent moves is that you become attached to certain places to eat and simply have to wait until you pass that way again, or try to duplicate your favorite items at home. However, the appeal of these places is that they come up with new items that must be sampled: now we have new dishes to try to replicate from memory when we get home.

Finally, seven weeks into our grand tour, we arrived at our little cabin on the side of the mountain and spent a restful night in a familiar bed, though we hadn’t slept there in nearly a year and a half, since before my surgery last year. Since we hadn’t cleaned up from fumigating the cabin before we set off for new Mexico six weeks ago, we went into town in the morning for coffee and breakfast, as well as Internet access. Our standard stop in Polson is the Safeway store, which has an in-store Starbucks and fast WiFi, but no electrical outlets in the customer cafe seating area, so we don’t stay too long. Of course, later in the day, we visit with Rick and Ben next door. where there is running water and electricity as well. Today we wait for more family to arrive from the East Coast for a week of celebration, before we head back to Washington.

Park Rapids is the western terminus (for now) of the Heartland Trail, a rail trail that extends east to Walker and north to Cass Lake.  We rode the first 20km, to Dorset and Nevis and back, for a total of 38km.

Nevis had a nice coffee shop, and Dorset, a tiny village on the trail, seems to depend entirely on trail traffic for its existence.  We were once again treated to sighting of a huge snapping turtle emerging from his/her burrow along the trail near Lake Belle Taine.  On our return, we went to the Bella Caffe in Park Rapids for an excellent lunch and more espresso.  We then celebrated our “long” ride with trail-logo T-shirts from the Zula T-shirt shop, a bit unusual for us, but we got long-sleeve shirts to augment our wardrobe for cool mornings and many biting bugs.

With rain predicted for afternoon on Tuesday, we headed early to Itasca State Park, where we rode the 9km bike trail from the visitor center to the Mississippi headwaters, at the north end of the lake.  The trail was not a rail trail, so twisted and turned up and down hills above the lake, making for an unhappy trip in anticipation of walking mosquito-infested slopes or crashing on curvy downhill runs.  But, we made it to the headwaters unscathed and relatively unbugged.

On the way back, we discovered that the hills weren’t as steep going up as we had thought coming down.  However, heavy braking was needed to keep not too far over the 25km/hr speed limit.  A tense moment ensued when a group of cyclists coming uphill fast and in a cluster instead of single file rounded a curve ahead, which resulted in some fancy steering and cross-trail maneuvering to avoid an oncoming bike in our lane.   After a stop to retrieve a water bottle that was ejected from its holder, we continued on, a bit more cautiously, but the trail ahead was only shared with squirrels.

The clouds began to roll in as we headed back to town for lunch at the 3rd Street Market, next to Bella Caffe, then to the public library so Judy could get connected to the Internet with her iPad, which has not been working in most motels and a few coffee shops the entire trip.  This is a common complaint among iOS users, but Apple seems content with promoting magical incantations as a fix rather than seriously investigating wifi driver issues.  Few of the Hogwarts solutions have worked, and those that have have been temporary.  My iPad Air fell victim to one of the spells that affect Apple products, as it suddenly refused to wake up.  Press all of the buttons at once with crossed fingers, as directed in one counter-spell, woke it up, but who knows for how long.

And so it goes.  The rains came as we hunted for dinner with non-meat choices.  After checking the menus as several restaurants, none of which served all-day breakfast, the default choice for ovo-lacto vegetarians, but we were directed to the local Mexican choice, a relatively new venue in the old armory building, which had a fairly complete vegetarian combo menu.

The rains ended overnight, in time for us to pack up and head westward toward our next appointment in Montana, a transition that will take several days.  We decided to follow US12 this time, a route we haven’t travelled through the Dakotas, which means heading back south before heading west into South Dakota.  The rain came and went on the way south, and the terrain became less wooded and more farmland.

South Dakota was dotted with shallow ponds and lakes, much like the parts of North Dakota we have travelled through.  We stopped fairly early, in Aberdeen, the third largest city in South Dakota, as the road ahead is largely empty except for the more expensive recreation area around Mobridge, on the Missouri River.