45 miles

We were making a huge weird breakfast with mashed potatoes, bacon, and frozen peas on Mark’s front lawn next to his American flag when he asked us if we would like a ride to Great Falls. Danielle’s bike is still broken, and the nearest bike shop is in Great Falls, which is 110 miles Southeast, with nowhere to stay in between. We gratefully accepted his offer.

His granddaughter rode her bike up and down the street while we ate our weird breakfast. She had a reading tutor come to the house, and after her lesson, the four of us set off in Mark’s truck for Great Falls. Mark told us a little bit about the area. He shared some views he holds about the “indians” on the reservation. I guess his son works as an officer there, and sees a lot of the local problems up close. I found myself recoiling at his attitude towards them, but also reflecting on how my distant view of things might be incomplete. I don’t know much if anything about the relationship between these specific groups of people, just the vague history of colonial expansion and general mistreatment of indigenous people. 

Firsthand, all I really know is that every time I have passed through a reservation, it feels sad and rundown to me compared to everything that surrounds it. It usually offers some of the least beautiful scenery, and there are lots of trailers in poor condition and many stray dogs. It feels like a place where there is little hope, and little obvious effort made toward material achievements. 

On the other hand, I am just as depressed by the gaudy materialism and excesses I see in white suburban American neighborhoods, all clean and sparkly and…wasteful. The “American dream” that involves killing or tricking people, stealing their good land, and throwing as much money at it as possible to make yourself look or feel successful by some arbitrary and ever increasing standard, without regard for the impact your “nice stuff” has on the global community, isn’t one that I’ve ever had. 

As I was listening to him, I guess, I could hear the obvious prejudice in his words, but I couldn’t figure out how to challenge him directly, and it certainly didn’t seem like the right thing to do in the moment, given how he was driving 220 miles out of his way to help us. And what insight could I possibly have about his local community that he doesn’t have? It was humbling and thought provoking and uncomfortable to be in that position. I listened and said very little, and thought about how kind he had been to us, and what it all meant. 

I bought a spare derailleur cable at the bike shop while Danielle got her bike sorted out. Mine has stretched some, and I probably won’t need to replace it, but it seems like a good thing to have, given all the gear shifting trouble we’ve had so far. It was only $2. 

We sat at a Burger King for a little while and made a plan to stay at a church in Geyser about 45 miles away. The sun was blazing hot, so we rode for a while, then hid in the shade at a rest stop for a couple of the hottest hours, just hydrating and eating lunch. I finished reading my book. It was a decent read, a good fit for this trip I guess, but a lot of the ideas were familiar to me already. I did enjoy learning about the founder of Patagonia and his business philosophy, which I didn’t know much about before. 

We made it to Geyser. There were some great hills on the way. At one point, a bumble bee somehow flew into my ear while I was bombing a hill at 30 mph. What a THRILL. Luckily I was able to stop and swat it out safely—it had gotten sucked into my helmet. I was glad we both managed to survive our chance meeting unscathed. 

The town of Geyser is, in total, about 50 houses and a bar. The church seemed a little sketchy after all, mostly because there were lots of close houses and it felt odd to openly camp in the middle of a neighborhood this small without knowing any of the people. We went to the bar, and the bartender offered to let us camp out back, so we did that instead.