Lewis & Clark country

Date: 5/15/2013                                    Time Zone: MDT

Location: Great Falls MT

Travel Leg of journey: 7                        Day of journey: 9

Miles traveled today: 348

Miles traveled since departure: 2579

Percentage of travel completed: 23.4%

U.S. states visited today: MT

Critters observed today: cowgirl in chaps

We originally planned on 2 nights in Great Falls, but decided to add another day to see some sights and rest more. Dick’s RV Park was well situated near the Missouri River, was quiet, had cable TV and good wifi. What more could you want? We toured the city and visited the Lewis & Clark interpretive museum near the great falls. There are actually 5 falls at Great Falls, and they proved to be a major obstacle for the Corps of Discovery on their epic trip to the Pacific Ocean. Adjacent to the museum is Giant Springs, the largest fresh water spring in the world, pumping 1.5 million gallons of crystal clear water each day into the Missouri [see photo]. We also did some minor maintenance on the rig and added some “armor” to our car to better stand up to the bad roads ahead in Canada and Alaska.

On this trip we experienced an interesting concept, rent-a-bee. It seems that individual farmers, or groups of farmers, contract with beekeepers to lease bee hives and use these movable bees to help pollinate their crops. The boxes of bee colonies are mounted on pallets, 8 hives per pallet, and usually about 100 hives at each site. For ease of handling, the pallets are placed just off the shoulder of the secondary roads. It took several encounters with these strange groups of boxes for us to realize what they were and what was happening as we passed. Since the hives are located close to the roadways, there are many, actually thousands, of bees flying about nearby, and over the roadway. And we, in our traveling breadbox doing 62 MPH, naturally crossed paths with these busy flying workers. The sound of this encounter is what provided the clue as to what we were experiencing. It wasn’t a “splat”, but more subtle. Kind of like the sound of a grape when it hits a hardwood floor when dropped from a height of, say, 40 feet. Plump. Plump, plump. Staccato plump. Machine gun plump. Bee carnage. Sad. We have become unknowing bee assassins. A win-win situation for the farmer and beekeeper, but not so much for a lot of bees.

It’s interesting how our values change over our lifetime. I hunted for about 40 years starting when I was in high school. I’ve hunted all kinds of game from doves to elk. When I was younger I hunted every weekend of hunting season, to a fault, and I loved it. But as I have aged, that attraction has wained, and now I have no interest at all in killing another creature. Even an insect. Especially an insect beneficial to our food chain. From my viewpoint, wild creatures have been here long before my ancestors came over in small boats from Europe. We should let them live their natural lives too. Even insects.

End of post

Giant Spring pouring into the Missouri River