Devils Lake ND to Malta MT today. 477 miles. Most of it in crazy winds again. Eric went back home today and Chris and Tony started their own trek through SD and then back home. Brian John Dave and I are on our way!
Hwy 2 in ND is long and straight. If you thought you were going straight for a long time just wait until you get over the next rise. MT is much more scenic.
Arrived in Malta tired and hungry. We set up camp and went to Stockmans Pub and Grub. I have to say the burger was outstanding.
Now back to camp where John is making a necessary repair to one of his side cases and we, are of course, lending all of our opinions. Tomorrow is into Glacier National Park. Posted by HCAllen. 
Handsome Chaps Motorcycle 
Good to see some narrative!
How was the fracking country around Williston?
You were crossing N.D. Of course it was windy!
You know you’re on the “High Line”? If you’re on a motorcycle the High Line is U.S. 2, not some fancy promenade in Manhattan. Malta is the halfway mark across Montana. The High Line has a close connection to St. Paul, since it travels hand-in-hand with the old Great Northern Railway, built by James J. Hill. He combined romance with dreams of riches in getting it built. Here’s a good bit from National Geographic:
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That rail line, in turn, had traced an old wagon trail across Indian lands. Congress updated the original Homestead Act in 1909, 1912, and 1916, shortening the residence requirement to three years and raising the allotted acreage to 320, or 640 for a cattle operation. Those changes, plus advertising hype from the railroad and misleading encouragement from the crackpot mavens of something called dry farming, brought plenty of aspirants into the region, though time would show that the acreages were still far too small. Between 1909 and 1923, settlers filed 114,620 homestead claims in Montana, many of those within a day’s wagon ride of the Great Northern line, which crossed the state at about 48 degrees north latitude. Population and service businesses, if not rain, followed the plow.
And so towns grew along that line, some named for faraway places and things: Glasgow, Malta, Harlem, Havre, Inverness, Dunkirk, Kremlin. Some were named for people, such as Culbertson (a fur trader) and Shelby (a minion of Jim Hill). A few were more locally evocative: Cut Bank, Chinook, Poplar, Wolf Point. Eventually pavement as well as rails linked those communities, forming a portion of U.S. Highway 2, America’s northernmost cross-country ribbon of blacktop. Within Montana, this stretch of road and railway and towns and surrounding landscape became known as the Hi-Line.
It’s a part of the state that never appears in the Marlboro ads or the ski brochures. Its beauties are severe and subtle and horizontal, rather than soaring and picturesque. It’s not for everybody.
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On to Glacier. Have a good ride.
Bill
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