Day 40, out onto the Great Plains with a vengeance, Cut Bank to Chester

72 miles, 5:28, 13.1 mph

I woke up today at 5:30, thinking I should get an early start to beat the heat, and I immediately checked the current conditions and forecast.  It was a cool 56 degrees, with a high forecast of 82, and brisk WNW winds of 10-15 mph----a perfect tailwind.  Since I was still really tired from yesterday and the day before, and the early starts, I went back to sleep until 730. 

I had breakfast, packed and headed out by 840, into a cool, lovely tailwind.  The first 4 miles or so were gentle climbing, before a long gentle downhill for a few miles.  The way was quite desolate, with a scattered farm here and there.  In these parts, many farmers farm 15-20,000 acres (but only half of that each year, as they rest the land every other year in order to preserve moisture and keep the soil from blowing away), a far cry from their grandparents’ 320 acres of homestead.

Shortly before arriving in Shelby, I started to be attacked by huge swarms of mosquitos.  It was warm already, and windy, and I was traveling often at 15-16 mph, and yet I was getting bitten, often through my cycling shorts.  When I stopped, I was immediately covered by mosquitos, and received many bites while slathering DEET all over my body and clothes.  It was really annoying, and I hadn’t anticipated having to use DEET in the middle of the day.  According to the locals though, June was especially wet, and the mosquitos were really bad this year.  Great for the crops, but lousy for the people.  The Albertson’s in Shelby was completely sold out of mosquito repellant!

I was in Shelby just after 10, got some supplies at the supermarket, checked out the really nice little downtown.  Even though Shelby is on I 15, for some reason, there was very little development out by the freeway, and the center of town still held most of the local businesses much like Cut Bank.  I’m really starting to warm up to the folks of the Great Plains, they seem to have a better handle so far on sustaining their communities.   Perhaps it’s because they lost so much of their population in the 20s and 30s, and haven’t grown much since.

I headed out to the fairgrounds, where it was the last day of the Marias area fair.   Sadly, it was being packed up, although the 4-H exhibits were still up, and there was a nice 4-H horse handling competition going on.  The big rodeo had been last night, and I thought that if I’d known, I might have braved the heat and 24 more miles to get to Shelby last night.  Ah well….maybe one more chance next weekend to find a rodeo.

At 11:20, I headed out of the fairgrounds towards Chester, which was the next food, water and lodging possibility, 44 miles away.  I cycled through a lot of emptiness, with fields of wheat, barley, canola and alfalfa lining the road.  Most of the farmsteads were at least a mile from the road, and the Great Northern Railroad line (now the Burlington Northern Santa Fe) ran along the road for most the trip.

I passed a half dozen former towns along the way, most of them marked only by a grain elevator and a couple of buildings.  During the homestead period from 1910-1920, most of these towns had hundreds of residents, and many businesses.  But it turned out that the plains were not good farmland for small family farms, and by 1930, this part of the plains had already had been depopulated.  Looking at the census data, most of the towns peaked in population in 1920, and had declined precipitously thereafter.  Now they are ghost towns, without even the buildings that once gave them shape and substance.

I kept hoping to find a tree to stop under for a break of water and food, but there are no trees anywhere near the road, and finally I just stopped at a junction to eat some lunch and drink.  Unfortunately, I must have sweated off a bit too much DEET, and I was immediately swarmed again by mosquitos.   I think I have at least 30 bites from today’s travel.

I continued on as fast as I could, and started feeling a bit dehydrated, as the temperature had really warmed up by now.  I was regretting sleeping in at this point, and the last 15 miles or so into Chester were really a slog.  At about mile 63, the town, and its grain elevators came into view, and sight of the trees really perked me up.  The last 5 miles passed a bit too slowly, but I was glad when I pulled into the MX Motel and got a room.  $64 and it smells like wet dog, alas.  But it has great air conditioning, and it otherwise quite clean and tidy.