HOM: To Havre Or Havre Not

We stuck to U.S. 2, my favorite highway. We eased over Marias Pass with no problems. There'd been an avalanche a few days earlier, but the road was clear. Looking at the swath it sliced through the timber made me glad I wasn't on that particular section of roadway when the snow came down the mountain. The railroads build sturdy roofs over the sections of track that seem to be avalanche-prone, but the drivers on the highway have to play Russian Roulette, I guess the odds are better than the usual six-to-one because it is pretty rare for a rig to get clobbered by a slide, but getting trapped on a section of roadway between two avalanche paths happens every now and then. The only excitement we had was a big-rig jockey who let me know that he did NOT like the Cyclops eye -- I forgot to switch it off. I am surprised my CB antenna or his Mike didn't melt under that outburst. Later on I rewired it to the dimmer switch to compensate for my bad memory. I made an emergency stop in one of the smaller towns to do some shopping. There was one little item I'd overlooked when I'd stocked the stuff in the topper. I hadn't taken the bladder capacity of a four-year girl with access to a lot of Coca-Cola into consideration and was making a LOT more stops than I'd planned on. A shiny new Porta-Potty and a few rolls of TP solved that problem nicely! We got into Havre later than we'd planned on because of roads and stops, so we hit the first motel we found that wasn't closed for the winter. It was pretty mediocre, old and plain and tarnished, but the price was right. I wouldn't have taken the room there if I'd seen the place in daylight. No, the motel was fine, it was the rail yard right behind that I missed. My oversight came to my attention at 3:00 AM when they started building a consist right outside the window. We got an early start that morning. TBC (Me) (Blacktail Books)