The Divide and the First Storm

Route

Monday, October 26th. A slow, easy last morning at the Airbnb in Bozeman. Repacking the truck is always an ordeal, but the Airbnb has become our hack. We got our laundry done (fresh sheets and blankets!), and I finally cleaned the truck inside and out. Two weeks of Rhea hair, gone. It's night and day. I feel like a new man.

We grabbed a couple of souvenirs, dropped Mom at the airport for her 2:30pm flight, said our goodbyes, and hit the road west on I-90.

The clouds were stacked in layers all afternoon. Low fog sat in the valleys, wispy cirrus hung high, and puffy cumulus filled the middle, with snowy peaks peeking out between them. The speed limit is 80 mph, but we cruised at 65. The truck drinks gas at 80, and Rhea doesn't like it. We're in no rush.

Climbing the pass north of Table Mountain, the 18-wheelers were slowly grinding up the hill in low gear, and I could feel the truck working harder. At Homestake Pass, we crossed the Continental Divide. Again. We're over 2,000 miles from New York, so far west, yet we're only just crossing it now. This really puts into perspective the difference in elevation and topography across our country. Rain that falls on the east side of this pass ends up in the Gulf of Mexico by way of the Missouri and the Mississippi. A few feet west, it heads for the Pacific down the Columbia.

Then down into Butte. Whole mountainsides have been cut away into shelves, streaked in reds and yellows. Butte was once called "the richest hill on earth." In the early 1900s, it mined close to a third of the world's copper. Just past town, along I-90, sit the Warm Springs Ponds. After a 1908 flood washed mine waste down Silver Bow Creek into the Clark Fork River, the Anaconda Copper Company built the first pond in 1911 to catch it. Today they're part of a massive Superfund cleanup. From riches to remediation. Towns like Butte are often left to deal with the aftermath of such industry, long after the money has left. A new generation is forced to clean up the last one's mess.

Steinbeck bought a used rifle in Butte on this same stretch in October 1960. I bought souvenirs in Bozeman.

Around 5pm, heading northwest up the valley, dark storm clouds started to stack up to the west as the sun disappeared behind them. Thirty minutes out of Missoula, the rain started. Sheets of it fell on the mountaintops ahead, with large drops slamming into the windshield as we approached. The first real weather we've had on the road. It was ominous, but beautiful. Rain on the pine-covered slopes, yellow trees glowing in the fog, mountains disappearing and then emerging again. It felt like the Pacific Northwest a day early.

I'd been looking for a roadside motel to do this as close to Steinbeck as possible. I love that setup: truck at the door, walk in, walk out. The problem is, all the motels in Missoula are right along the railroad tracks. I like trains, just not waking up to them every couple of hours. We learned that lesson in Indiana. So instead we booked the Gibson Mansion Bed and Breakfast in a residential neighborhood, four stars and super cheap, because I guess no one's there this time of year.

Missoula's streets are lined with maples in peak fall form, with yellow leaves blanketing the sidewalks in the rain. The town is a lot bigger than I expected. And there are little casinos on so many shopping-center corners, all over Montana. I've never seen anything like it. Turns out, since 1985 Montana has let bars with a liquor license run video poker and keno machines. So bars can call themselves casinos, if they want.

Rhea

Rhea was delighted with the clean truck. After a few good shakes, she had it covered in hair again in no time. Very happy with herself.

On the pass, she was a little anxious, but she had her head out the window and was loving it. She's happiest at 65 mph.

In Missoula, we pulled over on a side street for a quick walk before the mansion, and a deer was just hanging in someone's front yard, of course. Rhea got all worked up. It's what she loves to do. She is a huntress.

She slept like a queen in our king bed. I didn't. It was way too hot in there.