5-28-05

There has been a crew that is ripping in a fiber optic line coming from town and headed my way. They have what is called a Spider Plow to rip it in.

The guys that run this thing like to ‘show off’ and when they park it they leave it in weird positions. The plow is pulled through the ground with an outfit that sets a dead man and winches the plow toward it.


They set this big spade in the ground and pull. When working on hillsides they can level the plow.

This is the pull cable, about two inches.

I was visiting with one of my friends who said that the Tongue River Reservoir was full and running over the dam. We have been a serious drought here for several years and the dam hasn’t been full for many years. About three years ago they raised the level of the dam and since that time it has never been full.

The weather forecast was for a windy day and I figured I couldn’t work on the shed putting up tin so I thought I would take my motorcycle down and check it out. The road follows along the Tongue River and it is gravel all the way to the Wyoming Border. It would be about a four hundred mile trip so I gassed up and loaded some gear in my big saddle bags and blasted out of camp.

The road was in great shape and when I got down near Ashland I came across this buggy driven by one of the Amish that live down there. About ten years ago a small settlement came in and bought a big ranch and split it up and started farming. They are busy folks and they build saddles, wood furniture, and sell hay. The women make quilts and other sewing stuff as well as lots of baked goods that they sell at farmers markets and elsewhere. 

I stopped at the Catholic school just outside of Ashland and took a tour through the museum that they have there. They had some really nice things but unfortunately there was very little interpretive resources. Very little was labled and when I asked the director she didn’t know much either as she was new and I don’t thing she was anything other than a hired gal to run the gift shop. They had some exceptional baskets and beaded stuff. One of the baskets was such fine work it was almost as thin as a brown paper grocery bag, incredible!!

I stopped in Ashland and had a little dinner and continued on up the road. At Birney I took a side road up to see some friends that live up there. I happened to meet Terry Punt on the road. He is with the Northern Plains Resource Council and I worked with him when I was on a task force working on the coal bed methane issue. His ranch is an old dude ranch. Back in the 30’s there were several dude ranches in this area and folks from all over the country would come for the summer. The owners were the Bones Brothers and here is the barn.

On up that side road lives Chuck who I worked with last year as Water Commissioner. I had never  been up to see his place so I tooled up the road. Terry said that he was driving the mail that day and wouldn’t be home for an hour or so. When I got to his house I was met by three dogs. I pulled up in the yard and made friends with them.

I really liked these dogs. They are the old style ‘heavy’ border collie and not those thin hyper ones you see at sheep herding trials. I tried to take a nap on the  lawn but they seemed  to take turns coming over and smelling my moustache. They were very polite and didn’t lick. They sure did like pets. The two on the left are females and just sweethearts. Chuck came home and showed my around his gun-smith shop as well as the house. I had to cut the visit short as I wanted to get back out on the road.

I took a side road that said ‘Poker Jim Lookout”. It was a great little road up to the top of the hill.

There was a lady up there after climbing the overbuilt safety railing stairs. OSHA must have made them upgrade the stairs. I will have to say that it was easier climbing them with my old sore knees.

The view was great as you can imagine. She said that before the recient rains there were three fires but nothing since then.

There were lots of flowers blooming up there.

I got back down off the hills and the road follows the river and the ranches/farms were beautiful.
 

An old homestead surrounded with wild mustard.

These are long horn steers. Miles City is where the cattle drives from Texas ended up. Several years ago they recreated the cattle drive and brought a small herd of longhorns up from Texas and when they made it to Miles City they were auctioned off. Quite a few of the ranchers around the area bought some and raise a few for fun and now they are using them on first calf heifers for calving ease (small calves).

This is were they are pumping water out of coal seams and extracting methane gas. The bad thing is that the water is salty and they are polluting the river with it.

I finally came to the dam. The pipe on the right lets out water normally for irrigation as well as normal river flow.

The water coming over the dam is for normal flows when the dam it full. When there is a ‘hundred year event’ the dam will over flow onto these stair steps.

This  is the lake.

There were quite a few campers at campgrounds but some of the favorite campgrounds were under water now.

I kept going south toward Sheridan, Wyoming.  This is a coal shovel working working on a open pit.

This is one of 47 trains loaded with coal that regularly come through Miles City EVERY DAY!

I made it into Sheridan and got some gas, a burger and strawberry Sunday and headed back north. I turned off on the road to Otter. This is a really scenic road that winds through hills as well as nice little valleys.

This is a cowboy fix on this mailbox.

these were his heifers that wondered why I was taking a photo of the mailbox.

If you don’t know the name you might know his brand. Often ranches around here are called by their brand rather than the name of the owner. This ranch would be a mouthful.

Did I happen to mention that it was a windy beautiful day! Oh, it was a great ride…… I saw quite a few antelope and deer but I was really surprised to jump a small herd of elk as I came around a corner.

This fine log building had a sign that said Sayle Hall.

On up the road I came to these signs.

There was a sign on their gate that said that it was for sale. 160 acres out in the middle of nowhere. If I had more time I would like to have stopped and met that S.O.B.

It was just getting dark when I noticed that I was getting a flat on the back tire. I patted myself on the back because just the day before I had outfitted myself with new tubeless tire repair outfit. It was getting so dark that I was just about to set up my tent and spend the night when a rancher and his boys rode up on little motorcycles. With their help with lights we got the tire plugged and I got back on the road in the dark. After almost four hundred miles of gravel roads it was a uneventful ride home. It was good to climb in the rack and sleep with motorcycle dreams all night.

 This morning I got out my tools and finished up the tin on the lean-to shed. 

Now it is clean-up time and get it full of motorcycles and such.