Day 33 – July 15, 2015

Day 33 – July 15, 2015
Custer MT to Forsythe MT – 52 miles

Audrey:

There is something about these small town whistle stop town bars that’s comfy and cozy. It is our family away from home. They tell us their stories, about the coal mines, the farms and ranches they attend to, and they are kind and friendly. A welcome spot on these lonely roads.

Sitting in the Lariat Bar in Forsythe MT having the last of their Gallo Burgundy after a shot of Big Horn Whiskey from Ennis MT, it feels like home away from home. The bartender is friendly, a transplant from Barstow CA. She followed a man out here who worked at the Colstrip coal mine. Most of these people seem to work in the mines or with the BNSF railroad. Wow! I am so far away from Santa Monica right now! The just played Kenny Chesney’s “Back where I come from” song that brought tears to my eyes. Yep everyone in this bar can relate, the dart playing cowboys behind us, the coal miner next to Gregg, and everyone else in this town and now, so can I.

I know it sounds like a cliche, but this is the heart of this country. If you don’t come here and spend these moments you really can’t understand this place. They welcome you with open arms, ask how you are and where you are from. Good people. And without going as slow as we are going, hitting all these very small towns where the bar is probably the only establishment, you would just zoom on by with your car. We left the fast lane for this experience. We must stop, to fill our stomachs, our water bottles, and our souls with a little bit of humanity.

Today I played a new game. Along these “old highways” that leave the Instate to take us into the heartland, the ranches, the cattle, and the beautiful Montana horses, we pass many a homestead. My new game is to pass and to guess whether these houses are occupied or derelict. Abandoned is a word that keeps coming to mind. Many of these places have been abandoned. The towns have been vacated by…everyone, by business, by the future. The old men are left and tend to the last of their farming and ranching legacy. But it is sad. What once was, is long forgotten. The homesteads of 150 years ago are falling to pieces, beautiful old homes. Sometimes people have rebuild next to them, left the old one there to remind them of their great grandparents and what they did to bring life to this desolate place.

There are a lot of things that come here to die, old pick up trucks, old RVs, and many many tractors and other farm equipment, laying their in their cemeteries rusting away. And there are the old folks. Everywhere we have breakfast we sit with the “four finger” folk. These are the old ranchers that have lost a finger to a farming accident a long long time ago. They sit and they “talk story”. They talk about the weather, they talk about machines and fixing them, and they talk about who has recently died. I think to myself who is there to replace these men? Where are the young people? They have abandoned these towns, just like the travelers who used to stop as they traveled the lonely “old highways” where you had to travel slowly, like we travel, very very slowly. But we can soak it all in and that is fantastic.

We stopped to see the prairie dogs in their town. We stopped and danced on bridge crossing the Yellowstone river, and we had a drink in the Lariat Bar in Forsythe. This is what this journey should be about, these experiences.