Radio Daze

Just extended my stay at this internet cafe - that's right the metropolis of
Havre (5,000 people!) has an internet cafe.

I was very excited yesterday to find a station on the FM band, and it
actually played non-country music. For the past week, i could only get AM
stations, mostly country. However, i did enjoy the Northern Ag(riculture)
Network. It was pleasant to listen to the market report and instead of
listing the big movers in the Dow and NASDAQ, they listed the prices on live
cattle futures and soybean prices. I also really liked the news announcers
who delivered the news in a very grandfatherly way - plus I got to hear many
tales from Paul "and that's the REST of the story" Harvey. For two evenings
I was able to pick up an oldies station that was quite good called Dave's
Diner. Dave's music selections were fantastic, but he cracked me up every
time the commercials ended - the lead off song would already be half in
progress. It's not even that he missed the timing, no it was as if he
didn't know how to stop the music, he just kept it playing and put any news
or commericials on top of it. I also got to hear lots of local news like
highschool football season has started! Heard the interview with Mike King,
coach of the returning state class B state football champs - Malta High.

So the other day we stopped for lunch at Frazer, Montana which has it's
corner store in a trailer on the edge of town. We've gone through many
Indian reservations along the way and although have been told horror stories
by just about everyone, we have had no problems yet. In Frazer we were
talking to a guy who was Native American and he informed us that the
previous town we stopped in was knicknamed "Stab City" for having more
stabbings per capita than any other town in the country. Don't know if it's
true or not, but there's a fun fact for you. He was a travelling nurse and
said that his most common task was of taking care of diabetics - turns out
on most reservations 80-100% of residents have diabetes. He also told us
that he was to be ordained the next day by the Native American ministries or
something and asked if he could say a prayer over us. Well, looks like my
New York skepticism is starting to dissolve b/c without blinking an eye I
said, "sure."

I finally had my first flat tube two days ago. That's right, 3,000 miles on
the same tubes and tires. I thought I looked pretty cool changing the tube
Chip Coutts style on the side of the road. Luckily, there was a cattle
drive taking place across the street so Alex could fulfill the 60 minutes by
taking pictures of that. By the way, current day cowboys actually ride 4
wheel ATV's to drive the cattle instead of horses. I'm guessing that we
won't be seeing the Marlboro Man riding an ATV any time soon, even if that's
the way it's done now.

We keep running into more bikers. A guy two days ago was 77 years old and
he's finishing up his Michigan to Virginia, VA to Oregon, Oregon to Michigan
trip. Yeah, 77. I guessed early 60's this guy acted so young. We finally
met another couple who are heading from Chicago to Washington. It's nice
because we get to see them once a day usually. One night in a large town we
went to a chinese restaurant (mmmmmm not hamburgerssssss arggllhh) and they
were there too. Turns out we all have the same cravings. We swapped
stories of people we met and their top tale was of a couple who walked 5
horses and a pack mule from texas to Alaska. Took them 2 years. Oh, and
they had met 1 week prior to leaving on the excursion. Good times.
Hope you are doing well.
cheers,
leigh