Cross Country (Part Fourteen)
We left our little cabin on Elk Creek to embark on another escapade. A trip to Montana was not complete without a visit to Uncle Buster’s place in the rolling hills of Eastern Montana. He was a prankster and loved to tease the little kids, but he was also full of tales and loved adventures.
We got to his ranch as the oat harvest was underway. I loved seeing the farm equipment at work. Golden fields of oats swayed in the warm breeze that blew off the prairie. A big combine made its way through the field cutting the oats and separating the grain from the stalks. When the tank that collected the oats was full, a trailer attached to a tractor pulled up beside the combine. A pipe shot mountains of gold grain into the trailer. Chaff blew everywhere. We climbed up, grabbed a hand full of oats and let the golden grain fall through our fingers. We scooped up some more and ate fresh raw oats. Before the harvest was over, Uncle Buster even let us drive the combine leaving clouds of chaff and bits of straw in our wake. We helped Aunt Viola prepare the noonday meal for the harvesters. Aunt Viola, Uncle Buster’s second wife, was a Southern girl through and through. She was also a good cook. Her desserts were just as sweet as her slow syrupy Southern drawl. She was so thoughtful and kind to the harvesters and went overboard to make sure they had everything they wanted to eat and drink.
With Uncle Buster, there was always some surprise within reach. One such surprise was going on the sheep drive. Now I had been on a cattle drive and was known as a famous rodeo rider of a bucking malcontent she-horse, so figured I had some experience. The first surprise was when we went out to saddle up the horses and he said, “We’re going in the car.” You can read the previously posted story about our Sheep Drive. Let me tell you, you just don’t know what you’ve missed in life without Great Uncles!
Another adventure Uncle Buster had planned was a trip to Glacier National Park. I was super excited about that! I had never been to Glacier before. They had a small camper hooked up to the back of the old beat up green truck. We crammed into the seat of the truck and headed out. We drove through the town where my mother was born and kept heading north. Oil wells dotted the countryside. Sage brush and prickly pear were scattered through the dry hills with occasional tumble weeds rolling across the road or caught in a barb wire fence.
Uncle Buster & Aunt Viola
We drove through part of the Missouri River Breaks country. That is one place on my list to go back and visit. My Granddad told us many stories of that part of the country. His tales included Sun Prairie Flats, Zortman, Landusky, Malta, the Long X Ranch and the breaks. His voice would break as he spoke with great admiration as he gave descriptions that painted a picture of the beauty and harshness of that land. Uncle Buster was no stranger to that part of the country. He traveled that country by horseback and worked at the Circle C Ranch in Zortman for a time.
As we neared Malta, we were reminded that the Knapp family homesteaded there after the long wagon trek from Oklahoma to Montana. At Malta, we hung a left and stopped in Havre to visit another great uncle and some cousins. I always loved going through Indian Reservations and there were a couple along our way to Glacier along the Montana Hi-Line. That region symbolizes what Montana is all about. It is a land of wide open prairies like my mother liked, fields of wheat and other grains waving in the prairie breeze, cattle grazing in the pastures, towering mountains in the distance, Indian Reservations, big skies, and summer storms rolling across the vast open landscape. Some people look at that and see a lot of nothing. I look at that and see a land ripe with history and beauty.
We camped at one of the campgrounds near Glacier National Park. The mountains are majestic and beautiful. We stopped and walked through some patches of snow and saw a couple of grizzly bears. They were close enough to see they were bears but far enough away to feel safe. We traveled on the Going to the Sun Road. The mountains, streams and lakes were absolutely breathtaking. Riding with Uncle Buster on a flat straight road was bad enough but riding with him on curvy mountain roads with no side rails was at times maddening. By the time we descended to the valley, I think we were all sweating – except for Uncle Buster of course.
We drove past the deep blue waters of Hungry Horse Reservoir, stopped in Kalispell to visit another cousin and were soon headed back to Uncle Buster’s house. The road back had completely different scenery. At Uncle Buster’s again, we stayed another night then headed back to Big Timber.
Our time was coming to a close and we still had a few more places to go.