June 9, 2010 – The Bottle of Gettysburg, Lunch in Bismarck, Your Dogs Can’t Sleep Here, Wolf Point Hearts Beagles

Leaving early from Platte, we headed north to Gettysburg, just as General Lee had done 147 years before, but we did not come to invade. No, our mission was the peaceful replacement of the key for my bike security chain because I had lost the furshluginer thing, probably somewhere back in Iowa while visiting Sgt. Floyd. To be safe, I had two keys made while drinking deeply of a beer we’d fortuitously brought along in our stores. The fact that each key cost 74 cents factored heavily into my decision to establish such a redundancy.

We looped around Bismarck and lunched on extremely flat hamburgers. Funny thing happened on the way to the burger. Lewis & Clark met their first train…and retreated. The engineer was slamming cars back and forth, to either uncouple or couple them…apparently the same technique is applied no matter which thing the engineer wishes to accomplish. This is like aiming a cannon at yourself in order to hit the other guy. Anyway, the noise was deafening and had both beagles straining like sled-dogs on their leashes to get away. If we had a sled and snow, we could have entered the Iditarod Race. Ever seen a beagle with snow build-up on its ears? It’s enough to break your heart.

We then struck out for Culbertson, MT with the usual, “Aw, how far can it be?” and found out just how far…real far. On the way, we went through New Town, ND and saw a sign on a building for “Dancing Butts”. Not knowing whether this was a reference to human anatomy or the remnants of some tobacco product somehow engaged in the Lively Arts, we opted not to investigate further. Seeing as how our goal was to reach Culbertson, we did, because we never fail. However, the local hotel was not welcoming to travelers with dogs unless said travelers are willing to sleep on the floor of the local veterinarian’s office. So, sunburned and fatigued, we once more surpassed our daily goal and marched bravely westward into Montana, arriving in Wolf Point in a little hotel with a sign that said they hearted dogs...just as dark clouds formed and rain began to fall.

Here’s the day’s route:

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