Day 15: Billings MT -> Pocatello ID

Travellers in USAnia!  Amuse yourselves on long journeys by pronouncing local placenames containing "ll" inna-Welsh-stylee^[1]!  Billings, Pocatello, Dallas, ect and, moreover, etc.

Mr Google suggests two basic ways of getting from Billings to Pocatello, viz.

• I-90 west then I-15 south, or
• I-90 west then US-191 and US-20 south until I-15 becomes unavoidable

Since the US-191 is seventy miles shorter and heads into the mountains I took that option.  There's still a hundred and twenty miles of Interstate to Bozeman - albeit with the lofty and SNO-capped Rockies off to the left - but then the route climbs the valley of the Gallatin River up to Yellowstone National Park, and jolly scenic it is too.

It is, however, not a good road for a semi-truck to try overtaking three vehicles^[2] while going uphill and approaching a blind corner, and only by dint of the oncoming traffic taking to the verge with smoking brakes was a head-on averted.  Anyway, Mr Garrison Transportation Services of Salt Lake City, it was likely one of your lot^[3] and he probably wants drug testing, or to be smeared with lard, tied to a tree and left at the Deer Creek Trailhead:

US-191 does actually cross into Yellowstone NP but you don't have to pay to access this bit.  Turn right onto US-20 in West Yellowstone village and keep going through the tree-ridden mountains until there's a long 6% downhill and there you are on the Snake River Plain, mostly flat and full of potatoes.  At least, Ashton ID claims to be the Seed Potato Capital of The Wurrrld.  Lots of this before hitting I-15 at Idaho Falls and heading south for another 50 miles.  During which the potatoes are occasionally interrupted by lava beds.

The North Blackfoot Rest Area has a handy Structure plonked on top of the building containing the Usual Offices of an Interstate rest area, so you can gawp at the lava beds in all their glory.

Pocatello is completely different to how I remember it the last time I stayed here but then again, that time it was dark when I arrived.  Mr Google thinks a bit over five hours from here to Battle Mountain, plus I gain an extra hour by crossing into the Pacific time zone, which will give me the opportunity to phone Mr National Car Rental to ask 'em what I should do about the POB grumbling about wanting an oil service.

1. But not where anyone else can hear you, obv.
2. Of which the POB being the rearmost.
3. Definitely one of their trailers, anyway.

Day 14: Bismarck ND -> Billings MT

Since arriving in Bismarck last night the wind has both tripled in intensity and switch through 180 degrees, such that it very much appears I will have a screaming headwind all four hundred and something miles to Billings.  This in addition to the 80 mph speed limit on I-94 all the way across North Dakota and into Montana plus it being generally uphill all the way means that the POB's petril™ consumption will take a turn for the worse.

And so it proved.  Yesterday: 330 miles with 310 remaining in the tank.  Today 440 miles with 30 left.  Fortunately there's a petril™ station at the end of the road.

Bismarck lies on the Missouri, which is crossed by this rather fine railway bridge:

and this rather dull concrete slab with I-94 on it:

After which it's onto I-94 to its bitter end - it merges with I-90 just outside Billings.  Lots of prairie, mostly, and passing by Salem Sue:

Photo from 2023...

Though like its southern neighbour North Dakota also has Badlands.  Unlike in SD, where they're a National Park, up here I-94 cuts straight through the middle of them.  Like this:

Eventually North Dakota gives way to Montana and the road does a brief downhill thing into the valley of the Yellowstone River, which it follows all the way to Billings.  And one of the first things the traveller notices is a Lewis & Clark Trail sign; on the way back from the Pacific the party split, with Clark following the Yellowstone down to its confluence with the Missouri somewhere over there ////.

Yellowstone River from Hathaway Rest Area, Montana

Not far from Bozeman lies another piece of Lewis & Clarkery, viz. Pompey's Pillar, which looks like this if you get close enough:

Getting that close involved a fair bit of walking chiz, because the gates were firmly locked.  On the other hand, not having to hand over $7.50 pleased the part of my immortal soul that is forever Yorkshire.  "Pompey", you may recall, was the nickname bestowed by Clark on Jean Baptiste "Son of Sacagawea" Charbonneau.  The Man has helpfully installed a flight of stairs round the back, so that halfway up you can see:

Junior Pocket Microscope (model 3a) will reveal the inscription
W Clark
July 25 1806

and amazingly he spelled all the words right too.  Trekking from the entrance to the rock and back took just long enough to allow bigly yuge black clouds to form over Billings.  Touch down, check in, go foraging and only on getting back to the motel do I realise that I've forgotten to buy milk, which means tonight's tea will taste 'orrible because non-dairy creamer muck.  Unless I forego the tea in favour of Run Wild 0.5% IPA.  Which I did remember to buy.

Day 13: Bemidji MN -> Bismarck ND

I did warn you that the next Several of days would contain little of interest, so here goes.  Alternately south and west across western Minnesota until the woods turn to fields and the terrain flattens out, for this is the Red River "valley".  Meaning we have crossed a Continental Divide of sorts, since the Red River strolls off northwards into Canada, ultimately ending up in Lake Winnipeg and thence via the Nelson River into Hudson Bay.  This is not as dramatic as crossing the Divide between Atlantic and Pacific drainage in for e.g. the Colorado Rockies since Lake Itasca is only 450 metres above sea level.

The Red at this point also forms the state line between Minnesota and North Dakota, following which a Several of things happen:

• I-94 comes to a juddering halt in Fargo because it's down to one lane at the junction with I-29
• There are hills, though not very big ones
• It starts raining

Scenic North Dakota

Thankfully the rain doesn't last long and currently it's warm and sunny in Bismarck.  Which, Constant Reader, you will recall was visited in 2023, on account of it straddling the Missouri.  Since that up there ^^^^ is the only photo I took today here by no popular demand whatsoever is a piccie from 2023:

Tomorrow's drive is a bit longer than wot I done today but I can still have a leisurely start on account of Montana being in a different time zone.  Hurrah!

Day 12: Bemidji MN

Having time on my hands I decided to backtrack twenty-odd miles along US-2 and check out the bit of the Great River Road between Cass Lake and downtown Bemidji.  Which was singularly devoid of river views, swooping vistas or decent bridges, but did sport some æxcellent joke comedy road names to match the "Squirrel Keepers Road" I spotted yesterday.  These include:

• Fishy Waters Drive, and
• Plum Nuts Road, and
• Nearlya Road

Later I passed the end of Yaubetcha Lane.  So, downtown Bemidji.  It's dominated by the lake, which has the Mississippi at both ends.

Under the bridge lurk trolls, with an interesting way of luring victims:

although it seems that they do in fact supply the socks before eating you.  Natch Paul Bunyan gets a look-in too:

He appears to have shaved off his beard since yesterday

Then another thirty-odd miles south to Itasca State Park, where Lake Itasca is generally held to be the source of the Mississippi even though there appear to be nine or a dozen streams, creeks and beck'oles feeding it.  "Itasca" is not a Native American name^[1], no, it's a cod-Latin neologism coined by one Henry Schoolcraft, from "veritas caput", which doesn't quite mean "true head [of the Mississippi]".  With it being a holiday weekend the place was pretty full when I arrived, mostly families and dogs taking advantage of the suddenly sunny and warm weather to splash about in the river.

Wade in the water,
Wade in the water, children...

George the dogg of retriever breed being a shameless tart

George the dogg of retriever breed doing what doggs
of retriever breed do i.e. titting about in water

I went for a paddle too

Beyond the Visitor Center is a ten-mile one-way road through the woods, which they refer to as "Wilderness Road".

which obviously had to be Defiled with Rock'n'Roll:

and leads to, among other places, the Alton Heights fire lookout tower:

Not entirely my cup of tea, so I didn't go up it but instead came back to Bemidji to catch some rays outside the hotel before the weather in the shape of a GBFO thunderstorm, appeared.

Thus concludes the Odyssey of the Mighty Mississippi, for tomorrow I start heading generally west.  Halts planned from Bismarck ND, Billings MT and Pocatello ID, the latter because the hoteliers of Idaho Falls seem to have turned in robdogs post-COVID and can therefore Get Stuffed.

1. The Ojibwe call it Omashkoozo-zaaga'igan (Elk Lake) while the French referred to it as Lac Labiche (Doe Lake)

Day 11: St Cloud MN -> Bemidji MN

Things I hate about the Pikey Old Beemer:

• The pre-flight routine is akin to starting an Airbus.  Select Driving Mode^[1], poke the touchscreen until Android Auto deigns to reënable diplomatic relations with the phone, poke the touchscreen again with crossed thumbs and pressed fingers hoping that VLC will start playing where it left off, start the engine, fiddle with the audio volume^[2] and optionally try to remember the incantation to reset the trip data.
• Every time you poke the button to reëngage the cruise control after for e.g. stopping to photograph a bridge or encountering a "STOP" sign, the display switches to showing you how far ahead the vehicle in front is.  If you want the trip data displayed, you have to press another button and frob the little control wheel wossname.
• The cruise control has normal and "Assisted Driving" modes.  Normal does what you'd expect from adaptive cruise control i.e. holds a steady speed and matches speed with any vehicle ahead even down to a standstill.  "Assisted Driving" looks at the lane markings and attempts to steer the car, though if you take your hands off the wheel for more than about ten seconds all sorts of blinkenlights start flashing in an admonitory manner.  However, it gets confused by:
• filter lanes
• crossroads
• traffic cones
• roads with too many corners
• cyclists in yellow jerseys
• So after the novelty has worn off, frustration sets in and off "Assisted Driving" must fuck.
• There was something else as well which I'll probably remember later.  It helpfully displays the current speed limit.  Or what it thinks is the current speed limit, because the most recent sign was part-hidden hidden in a bush.  Or it thought that the sign informing motor-ists that the next junction is Highway 30 is actually a speed limit sign.  Although it didn't do that when on IL-110 chiz.

Back onto the Great River Road, which in this part of the world mostly follows small county roads and sticks reasonably close to the river.  But woe betide the river-seeker who misses a sign, because then you end up doing an unguided tour of Aitkin MN and only realise you've started following the southbound route when the sun comes out.  But there are Nice Things to see:

Church of Our Lady of Lourdes, Little Falls

MN-371 is sufficiently non-little to have a pukka rest area at Brainerd Lakes though, which contains this:

and this:

Small furry animal neither in a
cave nor grooving with a Pict

and this:

Yah, you betcha!

The very splendid and worthwhile Coen Brothers fillum Fargo was partially set in Brainerd.

More fiddly little roads running parallel to the river, which by now looks more or less like this:

The somewhat-less-than-Mighty Mississippi, Palisade MN

until eventually you work out that if you keep following the Great River Road you will do another hundred miles over and above the sensible route to the night's resting place, pull the pin and tell Emily to make for Bemidji without let or hindrance.

Staying here two nights so I can do a leisurely visit to the official source of the Mississippi tomorrow before hitting the road west.  And following this helpful advice next to the door into the car park:

1. It has "Personal", "Efficient" and "Sport".  So far this trip I have mostly used "Efficient".  Can you set "Efficient" to be the default?  No.  It can remember seat and mirror positions, but not that.
2. Can it be told to remember your preferred volume setting?  No.  No, it cannot remember that either.

Day 10: Winona MN -> St Cloud MN

Checking my e-mail yesterday evening after checking into the Winona Super 8.  Apparently I cancelled my reservation at quarter to five that evening.  It is difficult to see how this could be the case since at that particular time I was still driving up US-14.  Hopefully, since They think I didn't stay there, I won't get charged for it.

Only about 200 miles to cover today so I thought I'd have a shufti at Lock & Dam #5 just up the road.

Dam and blast!

As luck would have it, a barge tow was approaching the lock, so time for a spot of gongoozling:

The locks on the river 600 feet long^[1] and 110 wide while the navigable channel is dredged to a depth of 9 feet.  The thing enters the lock at something less than a walking pace and ICBA to wait for the procedure to complete.

Another side effect of the lock'n'dam business is that the Upper Mississippi is effectively a chain of lakes, including this one:

Lake Pepin

at the imaginatively-named Lake City.  And what do you do if you have a lake like that?  In this case, you invent water skiing, or so the signs claim.

And don't forget to wash down your boat afterwards...

The Man is anxious to stop the spread of invasive species, y'see, particularly zebra mussels and Asian carp.

Next stop Minneapolis.  And no, I didn't know about the mass shooting there the other day.  I headed for St Anthony Falls, which is the head of navigation on the river since The Man closed the neighbouring lock to keep those pesky Asian carp out of the upper reaches of the river.  History, and bridges, abound, and mercifully it was somewhat cooler than it had been while faffing about at the lock.  It even made a half-hearted attempt at raining but lacked the stamina to make anything of it.

The falls, with Central Avenue bridge

I-35W bridge; replaced the one which collapsed into the river in 2007

The area was a centre for flour production

"Unmissable!" - Chris Waddle

While it would have been possible to spend a lot longer prowling the Minneapolis waterfront I decided to push off sharpish, because it's a holiday weekend.  Sadly half the population of Minneapolis also decided that it's POETS^[2] Day and traffic on I-94 was bad.  Traffic getting off I-94 was worse because of terrible synchronisation of traffic lights in Monticello.  Still, it;s not all doom and gloom because my room here not only occupies more real estate than Larrington Towers, it also overlooks the Somewhat-Less-Than-Mighty Mississippi:

1. A couple of them downstream have a double-length main lock in addition to the 600' one.
2. Piss Off Early Tomorrow's Saturday.  Obv.

Day 9: Clinton IA -> Winona MN

A more leisurely day in store today.  And it was only 25^o at 9 this morning.  Where's me jumper?  Last night's caravanserai had a lovely view of a truck stop and contained this:

which is approximately 115.846% more tacky than anything on show at Graceland.  In contrast, downtown Clinton has a cool linear park thing along the riverside levee:

I couldn't get far enough away to fit the whole
boat in the shot without falling in the river

Play "Free Bird"!

I stuck to the Iowa side of the river for the first few miles before heading through Sabula and back into Illinois.  Sabula had pelicans on its lake but there were too far from the shore to be decently visible chiz.

IL-84 veers away from the river through rolling countryside

and the town of Galena wich hav a v. interesting history ect etc.  Ulysses S. Grant lived here and it's got loadsa historic buildings:

Galena Post Office; I suspect the aircon unit is not a period feature...

and generally has "tourist trap" written all over it in large, friendly letters.  Nice bridge though:

I then got spat back across the river and into an impromptu tour of the armpit of Dubuque IA, due to the confusing signposting on the Illinois side.  Back on the east side and the Great River Road veers off onto smaller county roads, passing through small towns without so much as a traffic light.  And so into Wisconsin, where I ent been since 2009. Cassville has a cool ferry:

but at twenty of your Earth dollars I think not.  Eventually the route joins forces with WI-35, mostly sticking close to the river again.

Old Settler's Overlook, near Genoa WI

At La Crosse is was kthxbai Wisconsin and o hai Minnesota for the last 25 miles to Winona.  Today I are mostly learning that Winona Ryder was named after the town, having been born near here.  And I wish I'd kept a copy of Samfast's "Ode To Winona" dating from her 2002 conviction for shoplifting, but one verse went:

Winona, Winona

The judge had a bona

But couldn't condona

Your thieving persona

No wonder he emigrated to Captain Cook's Mistake. 

 

Day 8: Jackson MO -> Clinton IA

So today turned out to be a bit of a nothing day.  Mr Google done told me that up past St Louis they're building an Even Newer Chain Of Rocks Bridge to replace the New Chain Of Rocks Bridge, which in turn supplanted the Chain Of Rocks Bridge in 1970.  "Aha!" said Mr Larrington.  "By visiting the original and genuine Chain Of Rocks Bridge, which I last clapped eyes on in 2016, I can also see what's going on upriver with new! IMPROVED!!1! Bridgey Goodness".

Except that when I got there, rufty-tufty hairy-arsed artisans were also at work on the bridge over the canal wot bypasses the Chain Of Rocks itself, rendering the Chain Of Rocks Bridge inaccessible.

"Damn and blast!" exclaimed Mr Larrington.  "Still, the Confluence Tower is not far away and who knows?  Perhaps today there will be someone there to take my ten zlotys and permit access to the tower:

that I might view the, er, confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers."

There wasn't. OK.  The National Great Rivers Museum is only a few miles further, next door to the Melvin Price Locks and Dam.  Downstream of the Chain Of Rocks the Mississippi is free-flowing all the way to the Gulf of America Mexico but there's twenty-seven locks between there and Minneapolis, y'see.  Park the car, trudge halfway to the museum entrance before spotting a board reading "No bags allowed".  And another one reading "ID Required".  It's a museum, FFS, not a SEEKRIT Nuclear Bunker; the Nike Missile Site SL-90 is 25 miles up the road.  So bolshie great yarblockoes to the National Great Rivers Museum and all who sail in her.

I decided thereafter to follow the Great River Road signs northwards.  This was a Good Thing, at least at first, because IL-100 follows the river in exactly the same way that all previous parts of this year's anabasis didn't.  Very scenic.  Unfortunately it then wanders off parallel to the Illinois River.  Which I'm sure is a very nice river in its own right

See?

but forms part of the navigable link between the Mississippi and the Great Lakes and thus goes off in the wrong direction.  This in turn required negotiating two-hundred odd miles of the agricultural heart of western Illinois, which rivals western Cambridgeshire for dullness.  The last bit from the Quad Cities^[1] up to Clinton, after crossing the river into Iowa, were more like IL-100 and actually went in the right direction.

After juggling the map and calendar it seems I have more time to cover less distance that I had antic...

...

...pated so can take it a bit easier from here to the actual source of the river, and have an extra day to get halfway across the country to Battle Mountain to boot.  Hurrah!