We headed out at 8 am on what was to be a mainly sunny day. A few miles down the road we crossed into Montana, which we would be traveling across most of the day. In Montana the Dept. of Highways places crosses adjacent to the highway where a traffic fatality occurs; definitely it serves as a reminder to the fragility of life when running the roads. What was really impactful was the significant number of crosses that we saw when crossing aboriginal lands - too many in too many places, and too many at any incident point. We just looked at a MacLean's article regarding aboriginal challenges (deaths, school dropouts, assaults on women, etc.) - so many years have gone by and these societal issues (including alcoholism and drug addiction) remain and waste too many 'could have been' lives.
Montana is definitely 'big sky country', but as highway 2 crosses the land, the sights do vary, especially as the rolling hills appear and the trees in the watershed areas. Nicer scenery than in North Dakota where the view seems to be a never ending series of gas wells.
Beautiful and enjoyable trip from Browning to the Border, running along hwy 89 most of the way with the twists and turns, hills and valleys. A little late too see fall colours as most of the trees have shed their leaves. All the tourist areas were boarded up for winter, with little to no gas available between Browning and Cardston. Chief Mountain Border crossing was closed, so we took the route through Cardston, then worked our way west to Pincher Creek for the night.
Arrived at 5:30 Mountain Time (picked up an hour with the time change, so 6:30 Central Time) and completed our longest travel day of 940 km
No comments:
Post a Comment