Highpoints roadtrip - Day six

It was 43 degrees and light rain when I left Belle Fourche for White Butte (North Dakota highpoint). I stopped and had a breakfast muffin at a WiFi coffee house in downtown Bowman, Nortrh Dakota where I got caught up with my e:mail as I waited for the waeather to improve.  It improved slightly and I was off to the highpoint (approximately 25 miles away).  When I reached the private access road to the highpoint, it was approximately 47 degrees and the drizzle had stopped.  However, the earlier rain had made a mess of the access road  so I parked at the public road and walked in. Hiking distance being approximately 1.7 miles one way. Because of the threatening weather, I decided to push the hike as fast as I could go. I was at the summit in about an hour and took a few quick photos.. I hadn't seen anyone else on the trail..and looking off in all directions, I saw storm clouds...I started feeling eerily alone and I wanted off the mountain.  I don't really like to be alone when I am so far from any help.... lightning was a real possibility and there is always the chance of a fall (especially in these slippery conditions) or getting snake bit. I was hurrying down the trail as fast as I could go without losing my footing when there he was just two feet off the trail... a big prairie rattlesnake(3-4 feet)... I saw him in plenty of time so I didn't come close to getting bit.  Then all the  "what ifs" started running thru my mind... the snake was so cold that it had probably been in that same spot (just two feet off the trail) when I went up. Why hadn't I seen it? Because I was in a hurry, I was probably looking up to find the route to the summit while I was walking instead of keeping my eyes on the ground.  The snake was big and contrasted so well with the green grass... there is no way I would have missed him if I had been looking at the trail.  So if I had gotten bit, where would my help come from... the hard cold truth is that there would not have been any help and my cell phone had no connection so that wasn't going to do me any good.  The realization that I came so close to being bit made me decide that there would be no more  hiking alone in rattlesnake country.  White Butte was my 38th highpoint...

Private access road was too wet... I walked in from here...

White Butte highpoint

Near the top

Me, the highpoint and Lawrence?

From the highpoint toward my car

Sitting right next to the trail

A bit shaken but back at the car and I was soon on my way toward Glendive, Montana. Glendive was the northern base of operations for our family beekeeping operation back in the mid 60s. I wanted to go back and see how things had changed.  I found all our old haunts... the swimming pool is still there, our honey extracting house was there, the Hathaway house by the pool (the mom of our childhood friends, Patti and Mark, still lives in the house), and the N&P railroad cafe(which is closed down but is still standing...it has been turned into office building).  Glendive has seen some hard times.. 1960s population was about 10,000 but today it is only 5,000. I went into a local coffee shop and questioned a table of elderly ladies and they filled me in on the changes..they didn't remember the beekeeping outfit from Texas but a couple of them had eaten at the N&P which closed down in the 1970s. As I drove around to try to locate the downtown boarding house where we stayed, things took an unexpected turn as I met a lady working in her front yard that had bricks sitting around... she gave me an old brick with Hebron, N.D. stamped into it.... what a prize for my collection.  It was nice to see Glendive again but it was time to hit the road again... I traveled east into North Dakota and spent the night at designated camping area for the town of Bowman. I was the only tent camper in the tent camping area.   The overnight forecast was for light rain and 30s.

Lucy, Grace, Haley, Jake and Cora....this is where the deer and the antelopes play

Our old extracting house

Old N&P rail station and cafe

Hathaway house

Glendive public pool...we hung-out there every chance that Dad gave us. For some reason I remember the most popular song coming out of the speakers was "Cherry, Cherry" by Neil Diamond.

No agate hunting today..the Yellowstone river was flooding