30 Sep: In Hasting, Minnesota, we enjoyed a windowside visit with my former college roommate Greg for an hour before we lunched with Donna at a Perkins then rode up Minnesota 55 to Minnesota 3 (which IS Robert Trail) towards Sunfish Lake through incredibly strong winds and light rain to Robert Trail to visit Y-DNA cousin Lance and effervescent wife, Shelley. Even though Ron has tons of experience riding motorcycles, those winds were unnerving, especially with the rain included. Shelley cooked a marvelous meal of Minnesota wild rice, chicken in parchment, and baked sweet potatoes caramelized to perfection. We like our new cousins. Lance entertained us with pictures and books and spreadsheets from his basement catacombs.
29 Sep: Eagan, Minnesota is our goal today, a 45-minute ride on Interstate 494 bypassing Minneapolis. At the Hilton Garden Inn there, we should meet cousin Lance for the first time. He promises to be a whole lot of fun. (But maybe not quite as much fun as a healthy, energetic 2-year-old boy.) In Butte, Montana, where sunshine is the norm, when we looked at weather forecasts a mere week ago, it was supposed to be in the high 60s and low 70s here and now. Instead it has been perpetually cloudy with highs in the low 60s and high 50s. Hey, at least the rain has been well timed in the late afternoon, and there has not been any snow YET.
28 Sep: Medina, Minnesota for one more day. Roxanne flew home, but we are awaiting Cynthia's newest found first cousin Kathy from Benson, MN. (And we passed through Benson twice on our route from Butte, once intentionally and the second time because of a wrong turn on Minnesota Highway 9.) Kathy is a delight, and we thoroughly enjoyed our time together. If anyone finds a photo of Charlie Rinker, aka Harry Bernard King, Kathy would love a copy. After she left, Cynthia and Ron walked the circle that Bluebell Trail makes and arrived home just as sprinkles were falling. Cynthia took several pictures of the rainbow that expanded across the sky and grew pronouncedly more vivid as we watched. Again this evening, Hudson displayed amazing energy as only a 2-year-old can.
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| 2-year-old Hudson pushing his stroller uphill |
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| What a wonderful rainbow for a cloudy day |
27 Sep: And we did indeed awaken early enough to get to the church on time. Hudson behaved as well as can be expected for a 2-year-old boy, so everyone was pleased, especially Cynthia, a very, very proud great grandmother. If you'd like to see the video, click here for the church service including Hudson's baptism on U-Tube. (The baptism begins 31 minutes into the service.) After the service Cynthia had arranged with Annie to provide a meal for 15 at home, although only the immediate family of six showed up. Hudson was able to move from lap to lap eating all visible fruit from every plate. It was fascinating to watch him cram more and more food into his mouth without ever apparently swallowing. We merely assume that the drainage into his stomach was similar to the drainage down his front. Afterwards, Cynthia and Ron walked (waddled) around the neighborhood, enjoying the fall colors and nicely kept lawns.
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| The Smooches are often told that they are so cute |
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| Brett, Hudson & Jenn dressed for church baptism |
26 Sep: Medina, Minnesota at grandson Brett's house, entertained by 2-year-old Hudson, tantrums and all. Air quality in Butte has been "Great" all day today. Ron took this opportunity to visit with his sister-in-law Carolyn, who lives near Bossen Park in Minneapolis (click here because nobody knows where Bossen Park is located). While on Crosstown Highway (Minnesota route 62), Ron was delighted to still see vivid fall colors and to see a couple of airplanes fly close overhead to land at the airport. They are BIG at that distance. We visited outside for a couple of hours, catching up on Carolyn's father's condition, her siblings, her previous job, her current activities curtailed because of covid, etc. As he prepared to leave, raindrops at Carolyn's house prompted Ron to wear a rain coat, and occasionally more raindrops reminded him that the raincoat was good idea until he arrived on Blue Bell Trail.
25 Sep: Waubay, Minnesota is where our ride began without much color other than ripening grains and grasses, but then suddenly we were back into more varied scenery and our fall colors returned to please our palettes. After entering Minnesota on US Highway 12, we then navigated through a variety of state and county roads to Minnesota Highway 55 that kept us in countryside all the way to our turn onto Arrowhead Drive. And we ended our riding day early at grandson Brett's house in the outskirts of Medina. The commotion of greeting was enhanced by the fierce barking of Bret's two dogs. Fortunately no one was eaten. Roxanne was in a dither, trying to keep tabs on 2-year-old Hudson while rearranging furniture in her head. Cynthia pitched in with the decorating/ arrangements, the handyman was instructed to move the bed from the basement to the second floor and the one on the second floor to the basement. The delicate girlie types instructed the manly masculine types to more this furniture here, there etc. until the basement bedroom was declared to be "good." Then we all piled into the cars and drove to the adjoining village of Excelsior for a delicious dinner, followed by a quart of sorbet from the Wisconsin Farms (advertising "if you want nutrition, eat carrots"- click here).
24 Sep: Tonight we are near Waubay, South Dakota, surrounded by lakes. No mountains today, but the scenery on Highway 12 continues to be spectacular with golden yellows and occasional reds, oranges, and purples mixed in. We ended our ride at 200+ miles at the Circle Pines Motel, highly rated by undiscriminating fishermen (click here). Still, it was clean, cheap and quiet. We walked around the motel to Dog Lake and along the lake shore and dirt road for a mile or more. Consequently, we slept well, despite crowding together on a full sized bed.
23 Sep: This morning in Miles City, our hostess greeted us warmly and served a suitable breakfast for our diet that filled us quite well. Only when Cynthia asked about paying for our lodging did she bother with those details. All of the reviews that lauded her hospitality and generous breakfasts were accurate. She is the real deal. Today on US Highway 12 we engaged in another scenic ride with mountains and varied terrain eastward across the southwestern corner of North Dakota into South Dakota to the Dakota Countryside Inn (click here) in the middle of nowhere, SD. (Nearest town is Watauga.) Again the sporadic fall colors were predominately yellows with a few oranges and roses thrown in as accents. It is remarkable how the usual green vegetation highlights the sporadic fall colors. We enjoyed a walk for about a mile along the gravel road next to the Inn but stopped short of the terminal driveway. This is a very peaceful part of South Dakota. Our host is a very thin, pleasant farmer whose wife told him that she was going to open a B & B-type hotel, so he decided to join her and moved five miles to do so. Sadly, she has had a stroke and can no longer use her left hand that drew the architectural drawings for the hotel.
22 Sep: Tonight in Miles City, Montana after a marvelously scenic ride on I-94 from Billings, Montana. As we passed by Livingstone and Big Timber, we thought of Seth and wife who grew up on Montana ranches north of those towns. And the ranches we saw were really vast! It is harvest time, the golden, newly-mown hay fields stretched to the horizons. It was equally fascinating crossing the Yellowstone River many times, and riding past the junction of the Big Horn and Yellowstone, thirteen miles west of the famous battlefield known as Custer’s Last Stand. How timely, after recently reading the incredible NY Times #2 Bestseller, Killing Crazy Horse (click here). Cynthia captured a photo of the Rosebud memorial. The ride was cool until we neared Miles City, our destination for the evening, and then it got hot. And how fun to have lunch sitting at the soda fountain in an antique shop that formerly was the old Woolworth’s Store in town. Their restaurant is called, Remember When Cafe (click here)! Our lodging for the evening is in the Horton House, a historical B&B (click here). Strangely, our hosts never appeared to ask us to check in. We arrived early and their hired helper gave us a key and combination.
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| And this is what we saw as we rode eastward |
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| All decked out and ready to ride !! |
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| Our friends at the Copper King |
21 Sep: After one last breakfast at the Copper King and photographs with our delightful servers (right), we expected to leave "early," or at least prior to official check out time of 11 AM (Cynthia chuckled at the foolish notion that we might leave by 11:00), but Ron did it, got all packed and in motion before 11AM !! The ride started south on Montana Highway 2, and after several miles, we were worried by a sign that said "Road Construction - Motorcycles advised to seek alternate route." We continued for 20 miles, being wary for any sudden change to gravel, through Thompson Park (click here) and past an "End of Construction" sign without ever seeing any evidence of road construction in the last several years. Then there was a Detour sign pointing left. Again we continued cautiously until we arrived in the town of Whitehall where we turned right onto I-90 east. (What peculiar signage. It must be a Montana insider joke.) We arrived in Billings about five PM, in time to enjoy a lovely dinner at the Windmill Restaurant (click here), one that we enjoyed so much when we stayed in Billings in 2018.
20 Sept: We leave tomorrow. Still a tiny bit smoky, but air quality is almost "Good." Everything looks good for a hike up the Maud S. trail today. Thank goodness we did get one final good hike up Maud S. before leaving Butte, and we were both surprised by our speed and stamina. Cynthia exclaimed that her knees, feet, back and legs felt wonderful.
Sunday Offering
To live we need air to breathe, food to nourish our bodies, and safety to survive. Beyond the basics, every human longs to satisfy the sex urge, and CRAVES being appreciated. To recognize this is key to relationships, and it speaks personally to how we live out our lives in Christ. Listen with your heart to these words.
Galatians 2:20-21Revised Standard Version
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification[a] were through the law, then Christ died to no purpose.
19 Sep: It seemed obvious to me and my sister in April. Why did it take the media so long to tell the public that obesity is the greatest risk factor for coronavirus death (click here)? Air quality is "Good" in the rain this morning, but we are not about to walk until the drizzle stops. Cynthia tried to fix the font size in this blog, but Ron had to do it to avoid spousal frustrations! Now at 3 PM the rain has stopped, so we will (and did) walk to the Montana Club for food and stop at Walmart on the return trip for blueberries and raspberries and anything else we can eat with only one evening, one day and a breakfast left before departure. Rain again forestalled our attempt to walk this evening.
18 Sep: More smoke; air quality is "Unhealthy" again but has improved to a smig above "Unhealthy for sensitive groups." We walked the cemetery and picked up shreds of plastic flowers everywhere, our new preoccupation while walking. Again we walked to The Montana Club for dinner and walked the cemetery a second time just before dark. Ron is "perfecting" concordances in preparation for indexing Volume 7 of the Colonial Records of the Swedish Churches of Pennsylvania. Lots of tedious work for those of us who love tedium as a change of pace from normal over-activity.
17 Sep: Smoky again today - this is getting tedious; air quality slightly less "Unhealthy." Looking for the positive, we probably don't need sun screen today. We walked the cemetery and enjoyed another fine, fun conversation with the superintendent and a short one with one of the Forest Service fire fighting helicopter support crew. Sad news today that Ron's former boss Kurt has passed away. One final cemetery walk today, and we picked up shreds of plastic flowers which we left in a bag on the superintendent's steps.
16 Sep: Smoky again today with no relief in sight until Saturday. Air quality is "Unhealthy," but we walked the cemetery, took an hour break, then walked to The Montana Club for salads. We've already walked 5.7 miles today by 3:34. We went out for another smoke inhalation therapy this evening, total miles for the day 8.5.
15 Sep: Smoke today in Butte started with "unhealthy for sensitive groups" and about noon moved into just plain "unhealthy." Thank goodness Ron is an insensitive. Our morning walk provided us our minimum daily requirement of smoke. Then Ron rode the motorcycle to the Post Office to mail additional letters and cards (12 mailed to date). We again walked to The Montana Club for salad, salmon and a baked potato. Now it is 8:17 in the evening, and we forgot our after dinner cemetery stroll. Ron still went for a quick stroll about the cemetery after dark and hopes that his conversation on the cell phone did not disturb the residents.
14 Sep: The smoke is still bad although we've improve through "unhealthy" and "unhealthy for sensitive groups" to "moderate"after noon. We can again see the mountain with the "M" for Montana Tech (just barely). We walked the cemetery and rode the motorcycle to Walgreen's for a prescription then to The Montana Club for lunch. We walked a second time in the evening once the temperatures dropped a bit.
13 Sep: Gosh, has it ever gotten smokey here in Butte. Apparently there is a fire just beyond the mountains, and the winds must have wafted some smoke westward to us. So we opted to hike the cemetery instead of Maud S. Amusing to see a horizontal line across the mountains; above is more smoke, below is less smoke. Air quality here is supposed to be good, but we can smell the smoke in the air. We walked to the Montana Club for lunch, and the smoke is heavier. Ron looked for the source on the web but didn't find anything helpful. It is time for our evening walk in smoke that has caused air quality to become just plain "unhealthy." Let's hope that cooler air overnight causes particulates to drop out of the air. Nine miles walking today.
12 Sep: Every new day comes so quickly now: obviously time is accelerating. It is now 4 PM, and we've been waiting since breakfast for housekeeping to clean the room. Ron has been reviewing cell phone calls to label many "nuisance" and to discover (via Google) a couple of useful phone numbers.
11 Sep: How did the rest of the 10th disappear? We hiked Maud S. early and enjoyed lunch at the Montana Club. Ron continued going through his address book and has sent another 43 emails addressed with blind CCs. If I have your email address, you should have gotten a copy of the annual letter. Now I need to send a few more snail mail letters, and I will be caught up with correspondence. Oops, the snail mail count is 39 letters.
10 Sep: And another cool start to our day, but we will walk the cemetery early (i.e. before noon). And then we walked to dinner and again walked the cemetery just before dark. Ron spent the entire day going through his address book and emailed the annual letter to 48 correspondents.
9 Sep: 32 degrees in Butte, Montana after breakfast - - - but it is supposed to reach 70 degrees today. Our efforts to finding cooler weather for hiking certainly succeeded beyond our wildest imaginings. Cynthia promises to be ready to hike up Maud S. by noon. Life is good. It is noon, time to visit Maud S. We hiked 2.5miles to the Vista and enjoyed seeing Our Lady of the Rockies closer again. Why does the uphill seem harder each time we go? In the evening we again walked the cemetery for 8.4 miles total today.
8 Sep: dawned even colder, and after breakfast Ron walked around the hotel and found ice on the seat of the motorcycle. After sending a couple copies of the annual letter (below), Ron decided that it was too cold to inflict a motorcycle on da poor little weefee to get to the Maud S. Trail, so we limited our walk to 2.5 flat, flat, flat miles around the cemetery. (And it was cold.) We walked to the Montana Club for typical afternoon meal of huckleberry salad and steamed veggies for Cynthia and two baked potatoes with lotsa pepper for Ron. Then in the evening we walked the cemetery again for a total of 10 (flat) miles today.
7 Sep: dawned a bit chilly in Butte, Montana, and a brisk wind blew in colder air and snow by noon. We walked around our convenient cemetery very early, but cut our walk short when raindrops hit us in the face. After fussing with Google sites for an hour, Ron decided to walk to Walmart for frozen mango and blueberries. Sister-in-law Carolyn reports that the rioters in Minneapolis are nowhere near her. Sister Carol reports that new DNA matches are providing much food for thought. Ron is now shivering as he eats his frozen mango. It is time to mail his annual letter, dated September this year. The walk this evening through the cemetery was again wonderful because of the dusting of snow on the mountains and the mama with two baby deer watching me walk by. It was amusing to see that all three heads tracked me identically.
6 Sep, Sunday: Another day with a smoky haze from wildfires. At least this time it is local fires. After our morning walk, it is finally time for Ron to get productively busy, so he wrote his 2020 annual letter in order to send a few snail mail letters this month. Next project is to print one. Then I need to lambast Google for the travesty they are inflicting upon their web site users when they "convert" to "new sites" November 2021. We walked to The Montana Club for lunch of salmon and asparagus; Ron had baked potatoes. After fussing with Google sites, Ron walked around the cemetery for half an hour. Now time for bed.
5 Sep: Today is forecast HOT, so we hustled through exercises and breakfast in order to hike the Maud S. Trail early - but it was already hot. We persevered and hiked to the viewpoint despite feeling that the hike was more strenuous than ever. We stopped at the Montana Club for lunch and walked around the cemetery in the evening.
4 Sep: And here it is already the 4th of September. How did that happen? We walked our favorite cemetery twice today and bought lots of groceries at Walmart. Ron was successful at avoiding work of any nature.
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| Ron did NOT realize that the bike is so clean. Angenieta must have a magic camera. |
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| Isn't Cynthia a beauty ? SmoochSmooch, I love you. |
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| Angenieta photographed our heels |
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| Lost Trail Pass ? |
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| Informational rest stop |
3 Sep: Today we rode from Missoula back to Butte after Big Sky Motorsports installed the diaphragm in the front brake fluid reservoir and after we met the nicest couple at the Montana Club near the HGI. Angenieta is quite the vivacious motorcyclist. She just had to ask about us, and believe it or not, Ron was able to respond to this young cutie at length. Our route was south for 80 miles on US 93 through way too much traffic and population and heat, although the surrounding Bitterroot Valley appeared quite agricultural and scenic. Then we started climbing up to the Lost Trail Pass and stopped at the informational rest stop explaining that Lewis and Clark might has crossed about here when they were lost on their way to the Pacific. In contrast, we were not lost and turned east on Montana Highway 43 towards Wisdom - and we recognized Wisdom when we arrived. We had stayed at the one little motel at the edge of town and ate at the one bar in town some previous trip. (2 Sep 2010 according to the blog) We both remember an awesome sunset (not mentioned in the blog).
2 Sep: We checked out of the hotel for the day, but the manager told us to leave our luggage in the room since we are returning tomorrow. WINDY. WOW was it ever windy !! as we rode from Butte to Missoula, 118 miles of being blown mostly sideways or sometimes noticing the abrupt loss of speed when the gust hit us directly from the front. At times it was a struggle to remain confident that the bike would stay on the road. All's well that ends well, and Cynthia checked into the hotel, Ron rode to the motorcycle shop despite the GPS misleading him, and the shop was able to change both tires easily. The lounge was occupied by another motorcyclist working remotely for his job with Verizon, and our conversation made the time vanish quickly.
1 Sep: Let's see if Ron can figure out the font that he likes without copying from yesterday. OOOh, I like this, Times - Large. We are up, exercised, fed and digesting, preparatory to filling the motorcycle tires with air and hiking. Walmart Auto Center cooperated by providing air and we hiked the Maud S. Trail again today. It seemed more strenuous uphill than on other days, but the downhill was a breeze. Lunch at The Montana Club and too many things to do before bed time. Goodnight.
