Day 10 Sept. 5

 

Today was improvement over yesterday, I would say it was chilly but maybe that was because our clothes were still damp and the temperature was only 60+ when starting out.  If you understand wet bulb temperature you understand that what we were feeling was therefore a little cooler than the 60.  But it was ok because when we finished our ride I was comfortable again.  The ride was 80 miles and we traveled it all on Route 200.  

Discovered a planning error today and that means tomorrow we travel 140 or reroute slightly Dianne has oped for the 140 mile day.  I am sure we be tired by the time we finish.  But it is not too bad as we are averaging 25-30 mph so it it will less than 6 hours.  

We passed though Judith mountains yesterday and the county we were in was call Petroleum.  Turns out there was big oil strike there on Cat Creek.  The area we are in called the Black Bearpaw shale formations and that means a long time it was big Inland sea that divided the continent into two subcontinents.  This means some large water reptile fossils have been found in the area.  Also as the area dried Dinosaur fossils were also found.  While in Jordan we toured the local museum and saw some of them it was very cool. 

We passed through the site of Kerchival  City an attempt to move trading center from Fort Benton to the mouth of Musselshell River about  35 miles south of the site.  The plan was to supply the miners with goods and food.  The first attempt failed because the Lakota tribe did not like the idea at all.  A man by the name of Johnson earned the name “Liver Eater” for some reason.  The second attempt to set up a trading post also failed due to the Lakota as well.  

Jordan the town we are in was founded by a man named Jordan (this seems to common in these parts). It is a country seat meaning it is twice a big as Winnet with a booming population of 368 or there about.  What kept the town in existence was the Northern Railroad that passed though here.  That Northern Railroad also give the name to the hotel we stayed in last night in Winnet. 

Other interesting notes:

• less history signs in this regions means I stop less.
• Hard to take pictures of just grassland that is flat in all directions
• Traffic was light today we passed (or they passed us):
• 20 car
• 21 pickup trucks
• 27 transport trucks or large working trucks
• 5 RV (three towing boats)
• 1 lonely motorcycle
• Saw a bob cat or line today
• Also saw bald eagle
• One dead skunk on the side (very fresh)
• Very smoky here 3 day in row with air quality warnings
• Taking to stopping in grocery stores to buy a morning snack as most small town hotels lack breakfast food