Van Gogh and the Dinosaurs

The picture I attached to yesterday’s blog post made eastern Montana look rather bleak and desolate. Today, let me paint a different picture. I couldn’t capture it with a camera, but I’ll let your imagination paint it. A big sky. Of course. It’s Montana. And around us, fields of wheat and barley beginning to ripen. On the verge of the road, mustard, clover, thistle blossoms, and a plant I used to call “stink weed” as a kid, with small purple flowers. Scattered cumulus clouds create a quiltwork of sunshadows and wind ripples across the green and yellow fields. And in front of us, that “ribbon of highway” rolling toward the horizon in never-ending waves, up and down. It was gorgeous. It makes you understand what Vincent Van Gogh was seeing as he painted his beautiful country landscapes.

Pat took this beautiful picture, which amply demonstrates that the area is not desolate. We really do have neighbors as we cycle across the plains. It’s just that – sometimes – you really can’t get there from here. She missed the bottom of the sign, which pointed to Van Gogh’s wheat field, described in the first paragraph. 

And that sign reminds me. Pat has been telling us for the past week that she keeps meeting or passing a couple of Israeli cyclists. I was starting to think she was seeing ghosts, because they were apparently always off the road and taking a break when we passed. And the story kept changing. First it was an older man and his son, who runs a bike touring business in Israel. Then it was a grandson. Well, today we finally overtook them on the road, and invited them to have a bite of lunch with us! Meet Chaim and his grandson Tom. Chaim is cycling across the United States to celebrate his upcoming 70th birthday, which is August 13 ... one day after mine! So here are the three of us, ready to tackle a few more miles of highway.

Tom is a couple of months younger than Jonathan, the youngest of our three riders, and will be in the eleventh grade when he returns to Israel, as soon as he's accompanied his grandfather for 1000 miles. Then they will meet up with the rest of Chaim's family in St. Louis, and they will all ride together to York, Virginia. Everybody you pass on the road has a fascinating story. Glad we were able to share a bit of time with these fellow travelers.

And before you get the wrong impression, the "dinosaurs" in the title of today's blog post are not the two young gentlemen shown on the right in the picture above. Where we are standing just happens to be ground zero for dinosaur hunters. According to a sign nearby, nearly half of the total of 30 T-Rex skeletons have been found around here. The town of Circle has taken better advantage of that fact than has Jordan, where we were last night. Circle has concrete dinosaurs everywhere ... the dinosaur capital of America, if you happen to find your way through the Van Gogh wheat fields of eastern Montana. I may be a bit stiff, and I may be in Circle, Montana, but I'm not THAT old. I'm just a donosaur. Vincent Van Don.