A Day on the Blackfeet Reservation

2019-09-12 Thursday

We woke up early this morning, and by 10:00 or so, we had packed up, hooked up the Jeep, dumped the waste tank, filled the water tank, and were on the road south to Browning, MT. I wrote on Tuesday when we drove through town that Browning is the seat of the Blackfeet Indian Authority, and although no one would consider it large by New Jersey standards, it is sizeable enough to have a NAPA store for auto parts, and at least one car mechanic.

The drive down here (the alternative to US 89 we should have taken on Tuesday, and would have taken had we known about it) was really beautiful. The mountains around here are gorgeous, especially with the foreground of golden fields of wheat and grazing land. The combination is simply wonderful and I never get enough of it.

When we arrived in Browning, we decided that we’d go to the NAPA store first, on the theory that they would know who in town we should ask about looking at the Jeep brakes. They sent us back up the same road we’d just come down, and we were fortunate to find the garage--it was off the main road, on an unpaved road, in what looked basically like a beaten-up garage, and the signs all said “towing.” (Quite honestly, all too many of the buildings in this town look about the same, and at least half of the streets are unpaved.) Anyway, we were greeted by a young guy named Donny, who is the mechanic. We unhooked the Jeep so he could look at the brakes, after he told us that the parts would probably not be availabe in town and would have to be ordered from the NAPA.

A few minutes later, the owner Allan came out to chat with us. He said that Donny was the mechanic--that he (Allan) just drove the tow truck! We discussed what our problem was, and Donny was available to fix it, but again, probably not be finished until tomorrow. This was, frankly, what we’d sort of expected would happen. Allan eyed the RV and asked us if we had a place to stay for the night. We said “we’ll find someplace,” and I could see him thinking. Then he said that if we wanted, we could stay next to the garage, and they could “hook us up” for the night. We thought this was exceptionally nice, although there were two signs saying “beware of dog.” Also, quite honestly, the place looked like a pile of automobile discards and it would basically be like staying in a junk yard. I really was grateful for the offer (which Allan repeated later), but I just felt uncomfortable about the whole thing.

Meanwhile, the decision was that the Jeep needed a total brake job, basically--the rotors (whatever they are) were damaged, etc. I don’t know... I wasn’t up for a lesson on brakes. But what happened was, we drove in the RV back to the NAPA store, where we bought what we needed which they had in stock, they ordered the rest (“it will be here by 9:00 a.m. tomorrow”, they promised) and then we drove back to the mechanic with the boxes of stuff they already had. I could see the Jeep was already on a lift, with the tires off. Allan came outside again and said he would “get Donny working on the job,” and reiterated the offer to stay if we wanted. We told him we had laundry and whatever, so we would be keeping busy for the day. He nodded and we said goodbye.

By then it was about 1:30 pm-- amazing how time goes by while dealing with this kind of thing! We decided to go to the laundromat (Allan recommended the place I’d found on google) and eat, then do laundry. So that is what we did. Although unprepossessing from the outside (i.e. it looked like a shed, again), it was a new laundromat with new machines and a nice lady in charge. I dragged our stuff in, and got to work. Meanwhile, Joey had projects too. He had already replaced a back-up tail light on the RV after the first NAPA stop. While I did laundry, he climbed on the roof of the RV and installed a new vent cap, which we’d picked up a number of days ago (we’ve been missing one for a while, and we needed it to prevent back-flow odors from the waste tank when we drove.) That took about the same amount of time as my laundry.

We’ve also been having electrical issues with our “house” battery, which has not been holding a charge. Joe figured that since it was only 4pm, he wanted to see if the NAPA store had a battery of the right size--if it did, he wanted to put in a new battery. He’s tired of not having the charge we should have (the old battery was a year old.) So we drove back to the NAPA store for I think the 3rd or 4th time. I waited outside while he went in, looked at batteries; came out and did some more research; went back in, came out again and removed our old battery, and then came back with a new one (at least this time, the young guy in the store carried it for him.) He put in the new battery, and came inside, really exhausted from all the exertion.

I could see he was pretty much done for the day, so we drove from there to the grocery (the distance between the laundry, grocery, and NAPA was about a half mile on the same main drag through town--we just kept driving up and down!) We went over our list, then I went inside and did the shopping while he rested. When I came out, it was 6:00 and we had to decide about where to spend the night. Neither of us felt that comfortable taking Allan up on his offer, but there seem to be no campgrounds in this town. One is closed already for the season, and one other (allegedly 2.5 miles away) did not exist when we went to see it.

I had the idea of checking out the large casino I had noticed two days ago when we drove into town. It is right next to the Museum of the American Plains Indian. So we drove there. The place was really hopping! I figured we could ask if we could stay, and at least eat something while we were there, because I could see Joey did NOT want to be cooking. So we ate dinner in their “restaurant” (a glorified snack bar with slot machines.) Then we asked at the desk if we could park in their lot in the RV overnight. The security guard came to talk to us, and said that we might be better off next door at the museum. I asked him specifically if it was posted with “no overnight parking,” and he said it was not. So that is where we are. It’s dark here, and pretty quiet, and we should be fine.

We are about a half-mile from the NAPA, and Joey seems determined to get there at 9am to pick up the last brake parts, so Donny can finish up his work and we can be on our way. Although today went about as expected, and fairly smoothly, I am not so sure it will be that fast tomorrow. However, our route from East Glacier to West Glacier/Kallispell planned for tomorrow would have run through Browning in any case, so we are at least not out of the way. It just may take a bit longer to get out of town. We’ll see what happens when the time comes.

Meanwhile, although we were “stuck” getting the brakes dealt with, we used our time very productively, getting the laundry and other repairs done, and grocery shopping. We have limited wifi, so I can upload these blogs, although it doesn't seem to be supporting my photo uploads, which will have to come later. I was able to pick up some phone messages, and So I can’t say that today was a waste in any way, and it was kind of interesting spending a day on the Blackfeet reservation. I am sad that it does not look more prosperous, but we did our best to pump dollars into the economy!