9May2010 @ Culbertson, MT - Maybe God wants me to leave Montana slowly. Today He put a 19MPH head wind on me that limited my distance to 13 miles. They were 13 awesomely beautiful miles with yellowish badland bluffs sprinkled with cedar trees. After 9 miles I got out and walked up on one of these bluffs. The drainages that cut through these bluffs plus the bluffs are known as the Missouri Breaks and I attest to having seen some of the most heartwarmingly beautiful sights in the breaks that I have ever seen anywhere. Nestled in a drainage nook I saw a perfectly shaped full size cedar amid a perfectly flat bed of perfect grass, the whole 50 foot diameter area framed by budding currant bushes ... and it was totally calm, this on a day with stiff wind. Have I told you it looked perfect? Gently inclined grass meadows fill the slopes up from the drainages ... and I do mean grass, mid-leg high with only an occasional sage or prickley pear ... absolutely zero spotted knapweed, toadflax or leafy spurge anywhere! Awesome.
To assist getting downriver today I tied one painter to a passing log and let the log pull me. I saw Whitetail Deer, Mule Deer, Ducks, Geese and Pelicans today.
I stopped a bit early because rain began and I did not wish to push my luck with a rainy night. I am bedded down in a culvert six feet wide and four feet high. It has lots of tumbleweed that has crunched down into a nice cushion. As I hear the rain pepper down I feel luxurious.
Keenan Engelkey brought me from Culbertson to the river this morning. He is a nice fellow who seems to know everybody.