Home, I guess

The drive east late in the day yesterday, into North Dakota, was tempestuous. Not because of my driving but due to the large number of large vehicles on the road and the impatience of their drivers. These were not ranchers or travelers, for the most part, but truck drivers, working regionally in construction and on the oil and gas fields. The types of trucks were various, from white pick-ups to tankers to semis pulling “wide load” pre-fab housing units, but the drivers shared an obvious irritation with a VW van going 55 mph. Since there was so much traffic coming the opposite direction, they would sometimes get stuck behind me for a time. They would ride up close up on my rear bumper, the larger trucks filling my rearview mirror—as if proximity could make me go faster…. At the smallest of breaks they would gun their motors and charge around me in clouds of black exhaust and then cut sharply back into our lane; they would disappear ahead, moving at a high speed….

In great relief, I pulled off the road about seven, right after crossing the Little Missouri River, and drove a mile up a red dirt road to a campground. Last summer on my last night I stayed at this same CCC Campground, in the Little Missouri National Grasslands and just across the river from the north unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. No one else was about, but at a parking space beside an outhouse and interpretive sign I found a small plastic bag of marijuana. I opened it up and had a whiff, then I put it back down.

I had a couple hours of daylight left, so I went for a hike. The campground is the northern terminus of the Maah Daah Hey Trail, which runs 96 miles south through badlands, hills, and sagebrush, down to the south unit of the national park. According to the sign, the name of the trail is taken from the Mandan Hidatsa language and means “grandfather, long-lasting” and “deserving of respect.”

The late day was still warm when I set off, and it took some time to adjust from driving to walking…. It’s too easy to give in and privilege speed; going so slow after going so fast, especially on a shorter hike, can seem pointless. But a footpath is as worthy as a two-lane highway, and in this case a greater and more soothing pleasure….

About an hour along, I was surprised to meet a young man pushing a green mountain bike. The hills had seemed deserted. His derailleur was hanging down beside the rear wheel, broken off. He said, “Yes, I have been pushing for the last five hours.” He was in his early twenties, dark-haired, and he spoke with what sounded like an Eastern European accent. “I was getting away from buffalo,” he said, “and then the bike, it broke.”

He was sweaty and dusty but he did not look in the least discouraged. He only carried a small pack, but I asked if he had ridden the entire trail. “Yes,” he said, “two days. I am meeting my girlfriend at the end. I think maybe she is being worried now.” I wanted to ask more but he moved on, pushing his bike, and I continued up the trail though not much farther. By the time I got back to the campground, he was gone. I want to ride the trail too, but the fall might be a better time….

My last night in the van, and I lay looking out the rear window at the stars overhead…. I rose at five and set off in the dark, with far to go. The two longest driving days of the two and a half month trip would prove to be the first and last days…. But while the first was a promise, the last was an end, and I drove along feeling thwarted and a bit vexed…. I wanted to have a look at the small towns, like Killdeer and Dodge and Buelah…. I wanted to take the dirt road to Chase National Wildlife Refuge…. I wanted to spend the day at the Missouri River, visiting the Knife River Indian Villages Historical Site, Ft. Mandan, and Garrison Dam…. I lamented all the public libraries I was passing up….

The morning drive was beautiful. I took two-lane roads through the sunny middle of the state, and I’d come far enough south to get away from the traffic and oil and gas development of the Bakken formation. The rolling land was cultivated with alfalfa and wheat and sunflowers, mostly the last, stretching off in big yellowy fields of giant round flowers. Sloughs large and small occupied the folds between hills, and ducks and grebes and the occasional white pelican floated on the water…. I got gas at a small Sinclair station in Washburn, where for the first time on the trip I had to pay inside (no card reader on the pump). The woman at the register called me “Hon” and I got a free bag of ice with the fill-up….

I listened to a Williston radio station, and the main topic of the morning call-in show, “News and Views,” was guns, specifically how in Arizona one can walk around with a gun in a holster, in plain view, no permit required, and wasn’t that a great idea. Mostly I avoided such programming, which too often involved fierce anger and untoward disdain. It brought me down….

Yesterday morning I listened to a much more enjoyable station out of Forsyth. The disk jockey was an older man (he told us his 103-year old mother was doing poorly, and he was going over to the nursing home in Miles City to see her, so he’d be off the air for a couple days), and he seemed to speak without plan and without particular concern if he had to pause to figure out what came next; to fill the gaps, he would sometimes gabble to himself in a cheerful manner…. He played a few old country music songs, but mostly he gave out local news and information (though again, without any discernible organization). He read the temperatures and wind speeds for several dozen towns. He gave results and descriptions of local little league baseball games. He told us what was on the menu at the senior center. He read off the names of those having birthdays and anniversaries, dividing the list by towns. He did current ag product prices….

He was easy-going and chatty…. Until he got to an item about a litter of cats available for adoption. His voice took on a hard edge as he explained how they had been abandoned along a local road. He referred to the people who had done this as “idiots” and “perverts,” the latter word an odd choice, it seemed to me. But clearly the cat story had hit some sort of sensitive spot…. But he soon regained his equanimity….

I passed a billboard that read “Be an American. Use ethanol.” Later I saw another billboard directive, this one more general: “Be polite.”

After Jamestown, the land changed. And I had taken to the interstate, so the driving changed too (the billboards, for example). The hayfields and sunflowers gave way to corn and soy beans. There was less water, more trees. The land was greener and the views more constricted. There were more cars and trucks on the road. I soon crossed into Minnesota, and I love my home state, but I was already missing the west and the wide open plains….

But I just drove on. There was nothing else to do…. And at seven loss turned to reward, when I reached Naomi’s house in Minneapolis and hugged my eldest daughter and kissed Winston’s forehead and tossed Jacky in the air and gave Rosalie’s smooth cheek a gentle pinch….

We had dinner, and the boys did most of the talking, though I did my share too, and later I drove across the Cities to my own house, and that I was it, I was home.