With an afternoon off I spent an enjoyable (ha ha) hour at WalMart getting prescriptions filled and then patched my tire. Randy and I were looking for someplace for dinner when I discovered my patch job wasn’t working. Randy helped me pump up the tire, we had dinner, pumped up the tire, went home and I re-patched the tube. Had a great rest at the Central Motel, found out my second patch wasn’t working, had breakfast at Lippis, very good, Randy helped me pump up the tire, rode to Knicker Biker and they finally fixed my tire.
So we’re leaving town and I stop at the US Bank to use the cash machine. I’m not used to cash machines. It takes my card, gives me cash, then swallows the card. In the bank they tell me I wasn’t quick enough and it swallowed my card for my own good. ‘Can I get my card back?’ ‘Well, no’ the teller says, ‘it will be destroyed, for your own good’. ‘Thanks’, I say. So I call the credit union to get a new card. ‘Can you send it to me, say in Fargo?’ I ask. ‘Sorry, we have to send it to your home address. It’s for your own good’. Oh well, it is June 13, not everyday can be idyllic, things got better though.
We left Great Falls and turned north towards Fort Benton. The road was fairly desolate with only a handful of cars passing us an hour. After 50 miles we arrived at a very special place from a Walla Walla point of view. Fort benton is a beautiful town, a little touristy, sitting along the Missouri river. The connection with Walla Walla is the Mullan road. Fort Benton is one end and Walla Walla is the other end. The road went from paddle wheelers here, over the continental divide, near the present day Interstate 90. No Lolo Pass in those days. The town is full of historic buildings including an old Carnegie library building which is still in use as a library. Being here in Fort Benton puts some puzzle pieces in perspective for me about the history of Walla Walla.
Greg