10/19/09 LESSONS FROM THE ROAD TRIP

THE INDIAN CAMP WAS NOT REALLY SEEN BY CUSTER
THEY WERE CAMPED IN THE LITTLE BIG HORN RIVER VALLEY
CUSTER'S LAST STAND
THE BLACK ENGRAVED STONE MARKS WHERE CUSTER FELL

Monday, 8:30 AM. 49 degrees, wind WSW, moderate with stronger gusts.
The channel s crawling, the sky is mostly clear and the barometer predicts rain. The colors are still good but not as intense as last year. Our hybrid maples, ‘Autumn Blaze,’ are beautiful as always. Lucky sulked for a while, either because we left him with the neighbors or because we came back, I don’t know which, but he and everything else is returning quickly to normal.
We had a fine trip and got home about dark yesterday. Basically we wanted to see northern plains country we hadn’t seen before, while staying off the I roads. We traveled west on US 2 through Minnesota and North Dakota, then took Montana Rt. 200 into the west (a spectacular Big Sky Country drive) and then dropped down to Billings and the Custer Battlefield and then east mainly on US 14 and 212 through South Dakota and then US 212 through Minnesota and back to Rt. 2 via I35. The Dakotas and Montana are vast landscapes, basically farming country (wheat, corn, beans) in the eastern half of the Dakotas and then wheat and ranch land into the west. Minnesota is black soil farming in the south, and mostly lake, river and marsh land in the north. We caught glimpses of the big new pipeline nearing completion, bringing oil from the Alberta oil sands to Duluth. We tried to see as much of the Missouri River and Lewis and Clark’s route as we could but most roads run east and west or north and south, and the river runs on the diagonal, and is hard to get to except where crossed by better roads. It is safe to say I think that one can still see much of what they saw, even after two centuries. Even the Indians are still there, living now on huge reservations. We had a hard time finding accommodations once west, Billings being completely filled because of a college rodeo, and even small town motels filled because of hunting season, construction projects and oil and gas work. Several nights we drove fifty and more miles to find a room. KEEP YOUR GAS TANK TOPPED OFF IN THIS COUNTRY, IT CAN BE HUNDREDS OF MILES BETWEEN GAS PUMPS. There is apparently no recession in the west, and everything bustles with work and play.
One of my goals was to spend time at the Custer Battlefield, where the arrogant and politically ambitious Custer met his end, unfortunately taking hundreds of good men with him. Basically he never realized that he was outnumbered ten to one by one of the best cavalry forces ever mounted. Believing the Indians were trying to escape, he threw caution to the winds and fell into the midst of his enemies. I hope that all of our war colleges teach a Custer lesson to officers going to Afghanistan. Except for some views of ranch country the battlefield must look essentially like it did on June 26, 1876, the shallow rifle pits of the surrounded soldiers and Indian Scouts still there, with white stones marking where each fell.
We saw lots of wildlife on the trip, white tail deer in the east, mule deer and antelope herds in the west. Free range buffalo are in the Black Hills, where we have been before so did not go this time. We even saw a pack of five gray wolves near the battlefield, evidently dispersed from the population in Yellowstone.
One of the salient facts one comes away with from a trip like this is the amazing and boundless productivity of American agriculture, from cattle to corn, wheat and beans, and now sugar beets for ethanol. It is an industry of great complexity, virtually integrated both vertically and horizontally; production, harvest, storage, transportation and marketing all working seamlessly and without fanfare to feed the country and much of the world. One sees single fields of corn and wheat larger than many small countries. There are undoubtedly more people working in agribusiness now, and making good livings, than there have ever been. It is the most basic and productive of all American industries, and we force it to change only at our own great peril (consider Custer’s arrogance once more). Now that ethanol production and oil and gas extraction are part of the equation it approaches true independence, or ”sustainability,” to use the current buzz word. I took no photos of agriculture and landscapes, none do justice to the whole of it.