Ride the Talk: (s)Miles City
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2.5 Weeks + 1000 Miles + 4 States + Countless Encounters. Follow Cindy Gilbert, program director for the Sustainable Design program at Minneapolis College of Art and Design, as she bikes from Montana to Minneapolis to raise awareness about sustainability challenges and opportunities in the region while raising need-based scholarship money for students.
After a chaotic boarding at Missoula’s Grey Hound Station, I was finally on my way to Miles City (~480 miles East of Missoula), the place where I would begin to Ride the Talk. My seat buddy, an exhausted mom, had already been on several buses for the past 24 hours when she made her transfer in Missoula with her two young children. I was feeling for her when her child began to kick the back of my seat (incessantly) and she began the battle of the threats, “stop it or no treat when we get there.” It could’ve been a world record for the length of time a two-year old needed to behave oneself. I was hardly an hour into my trip and I wanted to kick the back of my seat.
I arrived in Miles City 10 hours later and quickly reconstructed my bike under the fluorescent glow of a gas station canopy. After inflating the tires, getting the lights on and plying my bike with my over-stuffed panniers, I was more than ready to call it a night. I cycled a short distance to the local KOA Kampground (“It’s not camping, it’s Kamping!” shout their promo posters.) and slept better than I have in weeks.
The next morning I decided to check out Miles City proper before I hit the road. Within a few minutes of sitting at the counter of the 600 Cafe with my coffee, I met Dr. Williams, the new OB/GYN for Miles City, who had many creative ideas and opinions on how the town could provide more work opportunities to sustain the needs of its residents. Like many other smaller agriculture towns of Montana (pop. Miles City ~8,000), the ranchers are retiring and the youth are headed to larger urban centers in search of higher wages and education. Dr. Williams thinks that Miles City will become a hub one day for nearby rural communities and, by fostering the development of certain amenities, that the town will be more appealing for residents and attract new talent to the area. Whether or not he’s aware of it, I don’t know, but I can clearly see he’s contributing to a more sustainable community for Miles City.
Dr. Williams at the 600 Cafe
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