Bozeman, Montana

102805 its 928am

Its a soggy morning in Bozeman, the American flag with copper eagle soaring above it sits motionless in the wind against the flagpole. The sun is starting to pry open the clouds, and the mountains that surround the town are beginning to show their new coats of snow.

We've been crossing through the crucial landmarks of the American west, and specifically getting a feeling for the ultimate in truths that this country and its identity deny, which is that not very long ago, Native American culture was brutally wiped out, and the wisdom and profundity of so many people, whose home was this soil, was trampled and tossed aside like a tabloid magazine.

I felt something very strongly along these lines in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming. We had driven up into them on a beautiful way, camped the night out above a pretty lake, awoke to frozen boots and frozen truck and frozen coffee cups and frozen us, and then we set off again, way high up into the mountains, whose peak is somewhere around 14,000 (feet that is) though the pass we went through was around 8000'. The craggly rocks leveled out and smoothed slowly, the white firs and thin aspens more thinned out over the yellow meadows whose ceiling was the sky, drapes over with soft linen clouds like handkerchiefs blowing away from earth. We approached Medicine Wheel, a spot I must admit I previously knew nothing about. Prompted by a sign that said that Medicine Wheel was indeed off to the right up a treacherous dirt road with boulder strewn cliffs on either side and snow packed up the walls of course I took it. The truck protested and bumped and rattled and cautiously pulled itself up the couple of miles to a vastly deserted place (save for the SUV full of loud tourists from Montana who apparently never leave the house save for to pick up some fast food). What Medicine Wheel really is, I don't know. From what I understand it has been a place of worship for many different tribes of Native Americans for over 7,000 years. That people would walk the endless miles of the west, up into these brutal mountains, and come to the most exposed spot in them to pray. And that all people should and could come there. The trails that ran to and through Medicine Wheel are apparently some of the oldest in North America.

The site itself was quiet and subtle, lines of stones lined up like the spokes of a large (35 feet or so diameter) though not giant, wheel. At the four points of direction there were larger pits built from rocks, presumably for fire. The area was wisely roped off, and a sign asked people to walk to their left around it. Along the ropes were thousands and thousands of prayer flags, bundles of sage, necklaces and other offerings tied to it. Inside the circle/wheel were the same, along with jawbones of animals, feathers, dreamcatchers, all, presumably, sacred to someone.

The place was wildly exposed and I felt the chill of desolation as I looked off to the west, where the mounds of dirt were pressed some 10,000 feet below. I felt the power of someone there, in prayer, while the lightning storms and blizzards rushed across the face of this place as if creation were taking place from that mountain top every day and night.

And coming back down the thin road I realized in a profound way the sadness that is inherent in the destruction of Native American culture. Its so simple, and yet, its as if people don't take the treasures of knowledge and wisdom that cultures practicing rites and reason for more than 7,000 years in this land, the most beautiful place in the world, the American West.

Two nights before we spent the night below the towering and endlessly imposing/impressive Devil's Tower, in Northeast Wyoming. It is known to most tribes from the area as Bear Lodge, or Home of the Bear, or something along those lines. You may know it from Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind", its the mountain that everyone goes crazy to make out of paper mache and mud and where the alien spaceship lands and makes music with the CIA or whatever. Anyways, you might not have seen that movie. But this formation is truly, and I'm not just trying to impress you here too, but its one of the most grand and awe inspiring things I've ever seen in my life. Its literally just thousands of rock columns, from afar looking like small and compact but up close being massive hexagons of about 20' in diameter, pure rock, all pressed together and skyward. It looks as though the biggest tree in the world ever by far, as in a Redwood Tree that reached out of the upper atmosphere was cut, and all that was left was the stump. This too was a revered sacred space, where all kinds of people came to hunt, live, and be reverent. Its nearly impossible not to feel reverence for this thing. Its so much bigger than words or even pictures can convey.

And today we head into Yellowstone.

And so, nothing to complain about, off to get some coffee, off to see some wolves.

A little behind, now in Montana...

10)22(05 its 1121pm

I-90 relentlessly pulls West, mile after mile of flatlands, billboard after billboard, big sky overhead, the clouds pushed by North wind down with taste of ice finally in the air.

We spent five days days in Minnesota, kind of by accident, but a good accident, the accident that Minnesota is gorgeous, the weather was gorgeous, and the sights were amazing.

We found that the camping of Minnesota was some of the best so far. Our first state park found us rolling along dirt roads underneath the sparkling golden fall trees. The colors all around the Mississippi River Bluffs State Park were blasting into the sky and the warm weather pushed a gentle breeze around it all. The park sits on a perch above the Mississippi river where it twists between Wisconsin and Minnesota and the views down to the river are fantastic as you walk gentle paths through the gentle aspen and ash forest. We stayed there two nights and had enough time to settle into putting our scrapbook in order, making mobiles out of aspen bark and apples, and taking long walks among the falling leaves. Our neighbors were kind and interesting, and interested, and it was a great couple of nights.

We crossed the whole state in a day and made our way to the Southwest corner of Minnesota. And then...

South Dakota, oh, South Dakota, what do I make of you, so desperate for attention and granted, deserving it, and yet longing with its kitsch and hardiness to be taken seriously. Taken seriously thank you and pass on through and have a cup of 5 cent coffee but don't drink it or you may be seriously regretting it. The speed limit is 75, the towns are not closer than 30 miles apart, and the 'towns' themselves, well, a Flinstones backdrop of motels and diners and tourist traps. You find yourself reading billboards for entertainment, even though they say the same thing again and again, attractions 400 miles away begin to advertise from the Minnesota border and pound at you, every 5 miles or so: Wall Drug, Reptile Museum, Mt. Rushmore, 1880's Town over and over again until you get there and you find yourself thinking "wow, I've got to go see that". And then you do, and you know, its a heck of a lot more entertaining than the freeway rolling by at 73 miles per hour. 73 because it turns out the truck and its little four cylinders and a back packed full of firewood and blankets and all the other stuff we need just can't quite zip along in the face of steady South Dakota wind. Amazing that the pedal can be to the metal and big rigs hauling 15 new cars zoom by you. And you go up a hill for a while. And down. Yippee.

It is really actually beautiful though, the vastness of the place, the endless places that you'll never set foot on and no one else will either for a long time, and if they do they'll probably wonder what they're doing out there, in the middle of nowhere, which is pretty much everywhere in the plains outside the farms wrapped in bony trees. The clouds give you lessons on perspective and light, and you get plenty of time in for non thought.

And so it is that we're finally close to the border of South Dakota, even though its only our second night here mind you, and ready to head West further still.

Last night we crashed in the ultra budget but clean and weird Sioux Motel, where across the street we had a few Rolling Rocks in the Rusty Spur Saloon while the locals filtered in in cowboy hats and filled the place up chatting over greasy cheeseburgers.

Today we drove into the wonderfully desolate and eerie Badlands National Forest, now completely vacant in the late October post tourist season. We stopped into the Circle Ten cafe where we were easily the only customers of the day and enjoyed home cooked biscuits and freshly grated hash browns. We drove and drove twisting through the landscape that feels like the dusty corner of the earth with hills and spires of dirt and clay like pre giant gothic cathedrals washed under a couple of ice ages. The wind blew constant 25 miles per hour and the air tasted icy, piles of buffalo dung littered the straggly sagebrush gardens and it felt like if anyone had been to the place we hiked out to today it was a cowboy taking sleeping on his hat after a long cattle drive.

Ottawa, Canada

10)8(05 its 1142pm

Its late in Ottawa, and the degrees celsius is dropping. We're holed up in a cheap motel for the night, resting and preparing for the next leg of the trip.

This last week and a few since leaving Sandwich have been amazing.

We headed up to Dover, New Hampshire for a couple of days, where I enlisted my dad to help me track down some details on our family's ancestry there. It turns out there is a direct line from my bloodline to the Knox family, some of the first settlers in America. Thomas Knox landed in 1633, and the Knox family stayed right around the area for 5 generations. I've never done genealogy before, and believe me this was amateur stuff, but it was like I was in an action movie with no crucial tragedy awaiting me sifting through the piles of information, trying to find the keys to some secret. I found enough information to be able to visit the graveyard where the first settlers were buried, the first church site, some of the buildings in town that Knox relatives owned, and the patch of land that used to be the Knox', Knox Marsh Rd.

Dover was charming and very pretty. The weather held up nicely, and all too soon we were heading out on the road, due west for the first time in a long time, on our way to Kate's aunt and uncle Cacki and Pete's place.

Pete and Cacki built the home that they live in on gorgeous land that they bought back in the 60's. There life there is ideal in many ways, close to the pretty town of Woodsbury, which is quiet but full of community minded folks. Their garden was in full swing and we ate delicious meals every night from home grown vegetables. We watched PBS in the evening and I started to read "All The Pretty Horses", which is a new good thing in my life.

I can't begin to talk about how beautiful our time there was. The leaves were starting to change radiant colors and slowly falling from the trees. The air was crisp and clean, the weather beautiful and it felt like we were living life as it was meant to be lived.

I'm most proud and thankful for the work that we were able to do there. Peter had just recently built this amazing house on the property and sold it, and there was a bit of painting left to do. The design and feel of the house is fantastic, I was jealous of the new owners. It has this really neat feeling of being thoroughly modern, with vast high slanting ceilings and full views across to the gorgeous hills, with skylights lining the uppermost walls, very open and spacious. It also blends somehow perfectly into the landscape, with its wood tones and its layout feeling just right for the space it was in, like it was meant to be out there in the woods, in other words, it will be a timeless house, as impressive 30 years from now as it is now, brand new. Kate and I spent our days on the interior, painting and painting the primer and final coat, listening to music, talking a little, and having plenty of time to think. It felt so rewarding to be able to work that way and actually get something done. Meanwhile Peter and Cacki worked all day every day in this natural pace of life that was inspiring. They do what they need to do to be happy and survive and they put everything into it and they are content. It was very inspiring.

It was hard to leave, the country was so beautiful and our hosts so welcoming. The last night we were there we all feasted and drank Vermont brewed beer from Alex and with Cacki's brother, in from Seattle. It was the kind of scene you want to have a lot in your life.

But the truck was calling and the road was waiting and believe me we are aware of the potential of the weather to turn the trip short on us. We cleaned it out and backed out of the driveway and headed north to Burlington.

We only got a glance at Burlington before the sun beginning to wane led us north of town about a half hour. We found a nice little spot on the shores of Lake Champlain, and sat with a big fire and a few beers that night while the waves calmly repeated themselves over and over.

So we headed out the next day bound for the glorious unknown that was Canada. We approached the border crossing unprepared for what was to come.

We rolled up to the window and the Canadian customs guard asked us

"where are you headed?"

"oh, we don't know, up to Montreal and then around for a little while"

"where do you live?"

"oh, we don't really have a home right now, we're just out and about"

"what's in the back of the truck?"

"just all our stuff, camping gear, guitars, everything we own"

"where do you work"

"we don't have a job, we're just on the road"

"I'm afraid you can't cross this border."

It came as a shock. Here we were just being honest and the pride of Canada thought, and reasonably in retrospect, that we intended to move to Montreal and take advantage of all that Canadia has to offer.

It was a major frustration as well, the idea of heading south back through New York, past Baldwinsville where we had already been was not only depressing but impractical. Going around the Great Lakes from the South was a big detour, and would take us days off course.

We were shagrinned. We camped for the night outside of Plattsburgh, NY, had some pizza in a dingy joint and played scrabble into the night. We were still on the shores of Lake Champlain, on the other side but nowhere near where we thought we'd be.

The next day we resigned ourselves to our long journey south, but decided to try one more time at the border. This time we told them we had a regular job and loved America and had to be back at work on Monday. They passed us right through without another word.

I felt light. It was great. The signs were in french, the speed limit in Kilometers per Hour, and Montreal was on the horizon.

We rolled into the city in the afternoon, and found that most of the reasonably priced motels and hostels were booked due to Canadian Thanksgiving. So we did what every reasonable person would do and parked the truck and had a few beers in the lively nightlife that is Montreal. The streets of Montreal open up late, even with the freezing rain that we had, the bars were empty until 11:30 and then they just packed full. Montrealians stay out on the weekends until 3 or 4 am like their french speaking counterparts. We didn't last that long. We walked back the pretty old tree lined streets to the truck and slid in the back, warm and comfy in our sleeping bags.

In the morning we woke up to the sounds of Canadians shuffling by the truck, and stumbled out into the day. We chose breakfast from a picture menu in a cheap cafe and headed into Old Montreal, a quaint and neat touristy area of town. The architecture is old and the streets are cobbled and the Notre Dame was closed for the day. We had a good time.

And then we drove to Ottawa. The landscape up here is flat and agricultural, the farms huge, and the sky vast.

We haven't seen much of the town, just dinner in an Indian restaurant while Kate fends off a cold.

The months have rolled by on the trip and it feels better than ever. We will be back in the states in a few days, heading headlong to Colorado and Yellowstone, just to see what happens there.

From Ottawa, signing off.