Dave rides his bike to school

Above: Unfortunately, this house is somewhat typical on the Indian Reservation.  There’s a lot of poverty here.

Sunday, 7/9 5pm
Location: Wolf Point, MT

Coordinates:

Today’s mileage: about 55
Tomorrow’s destination: Culbertson

The difference between yesterday and today was dramatic.  I went about the same distance (a little over 50 miles), but today I could have gone another 30 miles easily.  Yesterday I was crying for mercy by the end, for some reason.  I could have gone farther today, but I wasn’t in the mood to get stabbed.  I’ll explain what I mean in a bit.

Soon after leaving Fort Peck, I entered the Fort Peck Indian Reservation.  I’ve ridden through Indian Reservations on this trip already, but this is the first time that I’ve actually noticed a difference.  I pulled into a dot on the map called Oswego and entered the only establishment there, a small bar called the Horseshoe.  It was 15 minutes after noon, and the place was already fairly busy.  Walking into a bar wearing only  spandex is an awkward endeavor in the first place.  However, walking into a bar wearing only spandex on an Indian Reservation and being the only non-Native American there, now that is a really awkward experience.  There were about 10 guys at the bar, and from the looks of it, they had been there for a while.  Of course, I don’t personally have much experience with getting drunk at bars, but from what I’ve seen on TV, I’d say they were pretty hammered.  The place became noticeably quieter when I walked in, and one of the groups started whispering as I walked by. 

At first, I thought that maybe I wasn’t welcome there.  However, as I drank my 7-Up, I noticed a beer poster on the wall with a picture of a very muscular, shirtless man.  Suddenly, I began to worry that perhaps I’d walked into a bar where I was VERY welcome.  Moments later, a man walked up to me and started asking me questions about my trip.  He introduced himself as DJ, and then he joked that if I ever came through town again, he’d probably be sitting in the very same spot.  I wasn’t sure if he was just joking about being a drunk, or if it was some sort of invitation.  Well, I decided not to stick around long enough to find out. 

The other thing that was strange about the bar was that most of the guys were dressed in Western wear, just as you’d expect to find in a rundown, rural bar.  Why was that funny?  Well, for all of the stories and TV shows about Cowboys and Indians fighting each other, it was strange to walk into a bar full of Indians, who were dressed as cowboys.  Go figure.  (by the way, the people on the Indian Reservation refer to themselves as “Indians”, not “Native Americans”)

About an hour later, I arrived in Wolf Point and saw my first McDonald’s since Great Falls.  I felt a little guilty about eating at McDonald’s, but not much else was open on Sunday, so I acquiesed.  A retired police officer asked me where I was travelling from, and I started inquiring about the road conditions heading east.  He stopped and said, “You’re not thinking about staying in Poplar, are you?”  I paused and replied that yes, I was contemplating doing just that.  He advised against even slowing down in Poplar, saying, “Do NOT stop in Poplar, especially at nighttime.  You might be OK during the day, but don’t sleep there.  It’s the stabbing capital of the country.  My last assignment as a police officer was in Poplar, and I’d say that 40% of the people on the road today in Poplar are drunk.  They won’t even sell glass bottles in bars in Poplar anymore, because too many people were getting stabbed with them.”  After that glowing endorsement, I think I’ll stay in Wolf Point.  Plus, apparently it has a movie theater, and I haven’t seen a movie since I left San Francisco. 
 

 Above: I took this before I left the campsite in the morning.  It’s the boatramp down to the non-existent lake.

Above: The Fort Peck Dam.

Above: Ah-ha!  Here’s the lake!

Saturday, 7/8 8pm
Location: Ft. Peck, MT

Coordinates:
couldn’t get a reading for some reason

Today’s mileage: about 55
Tomorrow’s destination: Wolf Point

The best thing about today was walking into the air conditioned lounge in the Ft. Peck Hotel and ordering an ice water! 

Ft. Peck is a remarkable little town;  It was clearly built around a central, well-organized blueprint.  It sits near a river, has perfectly maintained roads, well groomed lawns, attractive buildings, and lots of public areas.  On the other hand, it only has about 200 people.  The entire town owes its existence to one thing: the Fort Peck Dam (which also explains the plentiful street lighting and well watered lawns).

The Ft. Peck Dam was constructed during the Great Depression, primarily as an excuse to employ 10,000 people.  At the time, it was the engineering feat of the region.  Even today, it’s the world largest hydraulic earth-filled dam, whatever that means. 

The hotel where I am staying has the distinct feel of a lodge in one of the national parks, only smaller.  It sports a cozy commons area, with a fire place and a high, wood-beamed ceiling.  On the other hand, the rooms don’t have bathrooms, air conditioning, or wall decorations.  Oh, and they smell like a retirement home.  To use the toilet, you walk down the hall to a door that opens into a small closet-like room.  Afterwards, to wash your hands (assuming you are so inclined), you go to the next door down the hall, which reveals a small room with a sink and a bath tub.  Finally, if you want to take a shower, you walk halfway down the hall to yet another room that has a shower and a sink.  Luckily, I arrived in early afternoon, so I didn’t have to contend with the line which I’m sure develops every night.

Anyhow, I managed to get on the road pretty early this morning, by my standards at least.  After departing at about 8am, it took me about 30 minutes to travel the 5 miles along dirt road back to the main highway.  Dirt roads are considerably harder and slower than paved roads!

I basically groaned and muttered to myself for the next 50 miles.  I don’t know if I was hungrier than I thought, or thirstier, or more tired, but the 50 miles today were harder than the 90 miles yesterday. It felt like a constant uphill.  Granted, I was dealing with a nasty headwind today, but I don’t think the road conditions fully account for how difficult it felt.  In any case, I was estatic to finally reach civilization again. 

If you were to add up the listed populations of the towns which I have passed through since Wednesday afternoon, it would total 938.  That covers a distance of over 200 miles.  Now, I’m sure that there are more than 938 people between Ft. Peck and Lewiston, but they don’t live in any established towns. 
 

Above: Thirsty?  This is my water bottle the morning that I left Sand Springs.

Above: It’s 50 miles in either direction to ANYTHING.

Above: The dirt road to my “lakeside” campsite.

Above: On the shores of Ft. Peck Lake, only 40 miles from water…

Above: The moon over the Charles Russel National Wildlife Refuge

Saturday, 7/8 8am
Location: Charles Russel National Wildlife Refuge, MT
Coordinates:
47.5684 N
106.2334 W

Today’s mileage: about 90
Tomorrow’s destination: Ft. Peck

The day started off with a first for me: I got onto the road at 8am, and I didn’t get passed by a car until almost 9am (8:56am, to be exact).  After that, I saw a car every 5 minutes or so, but I don’t think I’d ever gone an HOUR on a state highway without seeing another vehicle.

I also learned a valuable lesson today: there’s a lot (of unusual things) going on in the middle of nowhere.  Case in point: I was standing outside a gas station/mini-mart in Jordan, and a group of oddly dressed people walked by me.  They had pulled up in a fullsize school bus filled with household items, like a mattress, clothes and assorted stuff.  The men were all wearing dark slacks, button-down collared shirts with vertical stripes , suspenders, and work boots.  The women were all wearing old-fashioned dresses, like you might imagine seeing in The Little House on the Prarie, and sun hats.  To top it off, they were speaking to each other in another language, and then speaking to other people, like me, in English (albeit with an accent I couldn’t place). 

As curious as I was about who these people were, they were just as curious about who I was.  One of the gentlemen began asking me questions about my trip, and before long, I began asking him questions too.  As it turns out, he and his companions are part of a group of people called Hutterites.  I didn’t press him on the details, but they live in colonies out in the middle of nowhere, keep to themselves, and practice their beliefs.  I don’t know what those beliefs are, but now I’m super curious.  He mentioned to me that the June 2006 edition of National Geographic has a profile on them (in fact, he said they were personally interviewed).  So, if any of you out there reading this get National Geographic, I’d love to know what the article says.

Oh, and the language they were speaking was German.  Normally I’d be able to identify German pretty easily, but I guess I had something more unusual in mind.

From Jordan to Ft. Peck (100 miles along Highways 200 and 24), there are exactly zero stores, gas stations, or post offices.  Luckily for me, there IS one rest stop with running water.  However, that rest stop is still 67 miles to Ft. Peck.  So, it took quite some planning and effort to survive the span. 

In planning my stopping point for the day, I was excited to find a National Wildlife Refuge along the route.  The map showed a campground on the shores of Ft. Peck Lake, which is a huge reservoir created by Ft. Peck Dam.  Even more enticing, the map points out that the campground is 5 miles along dirt roads away from the main road.  I envisioned camping along the shores of the lake, with elk, big horn sheep and exotic birds swarming all around. 

When I turned onto the dirt path, things appeared to be unfolding just as I had expected.  I found myself in the middle of nature, with no signs of humans in any direction.  As my odometer neared 5 miles along the dirt road, I became anxious to see the massive lake, at least along the horizon.  I neared a campsite, but still no water.  To my amazement, I approached a boat ramp, which led down about 50 yards to…  a tiny creek.  Where’s my freakin’ lake?! 

I looked around at the campsite, and it was masterfully appointed, with picnic tables, covered areas, fire rings, and several outhouses.  Indeed, it looked like the perfect lakeside campground.  Unfortunately, there’s no lake near the lakeside campground.

A bit disappointed, and I must admit, a bit freaked out, I shrugged and began setting up my tent.  Several minutes later, an SUV came rolling down the dirt road towards me.  It was the County Sheriff!  I wasn’t sure if I had done something wrong, so I kinda didn’t move, thinking that maybe he wouldn’t see me and simply drive by.  Well, he drove right up to me and began asking me questions.  After a few minutes, it became apparent that he wasn’t interested in carting me away in shackles.  Instead, he told me two interesting facts: 1) there hasn’t been water at this campground for years 2) I was the second person he’s seen stay here this year.  As surprised as I was to be only the SECOND person this entire year to sleep there, under the circumstances, I could see why.  As it were, the campground is now just randomly located next to nothing. Well, I didn’t see any elk or big horn sheep, but I also didn’t see any humans, so it was still pretty neat. 

Musings:
The towns out here are even to small to support fast-food chains.  I don’t remember how many days it’s been since I saw a national fast-food chain.  I know I haven’t seen any since Lewiston, and I don’t think there were any there either.  That would mean that I haven’t seen one since Great Falls, which is 360 miles away.  Oh, and can you believe it?  No Walmarts either!  This truly is the hinterland.  Uh, I mean, Big Sky Country.

Thursday, 7/6 8am
Location: Grass Range, MT

Coordinates:
47.0251 N
108.7993 W

Yesterday’s mileage: about 30 (half-day)
Today’s destination: Sand Springs
 

Not much to report today.  No good pictures.

Above: My 4th of July was pretty typical… I just hung out at an old hole in the wall.

Above: Mom – Tori tried to get me to climb to the edge of the 300 ft. cliff with her, but I said, “No way! My mom wouldn’t want me to! You go ahead, wild woman.” Someone’s got to be the sensible one…

Above: The hole in the wall from farther away. (click to see a larger version)

Above: The view of the hole in the wall from the canoe. This provides a nice perspective. It’s the little dot in the top right corner. (click to see a larger version)

Above: If you’re going to canoe with a girl, make sure she’s an outrigger canoe world-champion from Hawaii…

Above: The White Cliffs Area of the Missouri River Breaks.

Above: A nice view…

Above: “Dave-o is so swell” (what Tori is thinking in the picture)

Wednesday, July 5 3pm
Location: Lewistown, MT

Mileage on the river, Sunday-Tuesday: about 65
Today’s destination: Grass Range (short day)

On Sunday morning, I rode my bicycle to the Great Falls airport to pick Tori up. I was a little worried that I didn’t schedule enough time to ride to the car rental location, fill out the necessary paperwork, and then get to the gate in time to greet Tori coming off of the plane. However, when I arrived at the airport, I realized that I’d have plenty of time: the rental car parking lot was adjacent to the rental car office, which was in the same building as the terminal gates, all 6 of them. You can sure get around an airport quickly, when the whole thing is smaller than a food court at DFW.

Tori and I rented a car, so we threw my bike and Tori’s luggage into the back and headed for the river. Even getting to the drop-in location was a bit of an adventure. We had to drive about 50 miles, the last 10 of which were on dirt roads. After buying food and supplies, we loaded up the canoe and got ready to shove off into the Missouri River.

I must admit that it took a bit of a leap of faith, for Tori and me both, to hop in the canoe knowing that it’d be another 3 days before we’d come across civilization again. We didn’t have a checklist of food or supplies, so we pretty much just estimated what we would need. Just as we were about to lock up the car, Tori remembered to grab my Leatherman multi-tool, which proved to be a lifesaver, since more than one of our meals relied on a can opener.

The canoe rental company gave us maps of the river, but we still weren’t sure how we were going to know where we were or how fast we were moving, given that the river doesn’t come with milemarkers or street signs.

Just as we were about to push off, Tori stopped short and said, “We didn’t remember cooking fuel, did we?” Oh sh-t!

To our great fortune, a ranger at the drop-in site had a leftover cannister of stove fuel. It would have been an interesting trip had she not. Thank goodness for that ranger, and thank goodness for Tori’s memory!

Finally, we hopped into the canoe and floated off downstream.

I didn’t keep up with my blog entries during the trip, on account of being distracted by Tori. However, here are some of the highlights:

1) Finding a box of matches with my camping stove, after realizing at our first campsite that we had forgotten matches too.
2) With a few exceptions (including my rendition of “Amarillo By Morning”), we spent 3 days in the absence of man-made noise. We only saw about a dozen people over the course of 3 days.
3) My second bald eagle sighting in Montana. More wild rabbits too.
4) Hiking around in the rock formations. We saw a lot of towering monoliths, soaring cliffs, and jagged canyons. Erosion is nifty!
5) Being the sternsman in a canoe behind someone who paddled competitively in Hawaii for many years. “Don’t worry, Tori. It only FEELS like I’m not paddling back here. Keep up the good work…”
6) Switching sides of the canoe and being the bowman in front of someone who’s used to paddling in 6-person, ocean-faring outrigger canoes. “Dave-O, what’s wrong with this stupid thing?! How do you make it go straight?!”
7) And most importantly, having 3 1/2 days with Tori all to myself!

We made it to the take-out site on Tuesday afternoon, which was about a day earlier than planned, so we dropped off or gear and drove to Lewistown, MT, in search of 4th of July fireworks. Lewistown put on quite a fireworks display at the country fairgrounds, which capped off the weekend nicely.

Sadly, Tori left for the airport this afternoon, and I hit the road again on my bike, bound eastward towards the North Dakota state line.

Above: If you’ve ever wondered what the view is like from the expensive seats, here it is.  That’s right folks, in Great Falls you too can have an up-close view of the ump’s butt, for only $8!

Above: The hostel in Great Falls. 

Above: I opened up a shop in Great Falls to sell my photos from this trip.

Sunday, 7/2, 1am

Great Falls, MT

Coordinates: didn’t get a reading

Yesterday’s mileage:
Today’s destination: Tori and I are going to rent a canoe and paddle down the Missouri River for 3 days. Tori arrives at 11am.

I arrived in Great Falls on Friday afternoon, with enough time to get my broken spoke replaced at a bike shop (called Knicker Biker. It’s a nice shop) and to get a hair cut. I spent some time exploring the downtown area, but it all seemed empty and deserted. Generally, I look for restaurants or cafes where people are hanging out, but I couldn’t find anything like that, despite the fact that the town has 60,000 residents. The coolest thing I have found is the hostel where I’m staying. It’s a neat little house that one guy lives in. He did the Southern Tier bicycle trip several years ago, and afterwards he decided to convert part of his house into a hostel. Other than that, the word that unfortunately comes to my mind to describe the feeling in Great Falls is “tired”.

Regardless, on the heels of seeing a minor league baseball game in Missoula, I biked across town to watch the Great Falls White Sox play the Billings Mustangs. If you recall from my Missoula posting, the Billings Mustangs beat the Missoula Ospreys the night that I saw them play. I must be good luck for Billings, because they crushed Great Falls too.

When I approached the ticket sales window, I didn’t have any cash on me so I asked to pay by credit card. The woman told me to walk around to the side to sign my receipt. I walked through the gates and was stopped by a friendly, sharp-looking man who said, “Lance? Well, come on in!” I should mention that due to some logistical issues at the laundrymat, I was wearing my bright yellow jersey to the game, as dorky as that sounds (and looks).

I gave the guy a half-smile, because at this point I’ve heard so many Lance Armstrong jokes that I just kinda play along now. Come on people! It’s not like I call everyone driving a car Dale Earnhart! Nonetheless, I explained to the man that I was traveling on my bicycle from San Francisco, and he became noticeably excited. He pulled out his business card, which read “Jim Keough, General Manager”. Subsequently, he personally ushered me to my seat, which happened to be 2nd row behind home plate. Jim even took off his enormous, diamond-covered gold ring that he received after the Chicago White Sox won the World Series, and he put it on a table to let me have a close look (the Great Falls White Sox are affiliated with the Chicago White Sox). I got the royal treatment, to say the least. A few innings later, I even had one of the ushers come down and say, “So, I hear you’ve got an interesting story…” It was a lot of fun and quite the experience. I left feeling ever more convinced that minor league sports are the way to go! That kind of experience just wouldn’t happen at a big league game.

Fast forward a few hours. There’s a bar in Great Falls that GQ magazine declared the #1 Bar in the World to Travel to. No joke. GQ ranked bars that would be worth taking trips to visit, and a bar in Great Falls was at the top of the list. Replete with skepticism, I decided that if there’s ANYTHING in Great Falls that a national magazine spent the time to write about, then it may be worth a look-see.

This bar, called Sip And Dip, is located in a motel that has a pool. The bar designers were clever enough to place a large glass window behind the bar that looks directly into the pool. The bar then hires attractive, curvaceous women, known as the “mermaids”, to swim around in the pool, creating quite the spectacle for would-be barflies.

Well, the mermaids didn’t show up at the bar tonight, but Bill and Carl did. I’m beginning to think that I could write a book about the characters that I’ve met at bars on this trip. When I entered the bar, Bill (as I later learned is his name) was sitting by himself at the last bar stool on the far end of the bar. He looks like a tall version of Mr. Burns (from the Simpsons), with a bit more hair. When he does talk, which is not often, he has a slight stutter. However, mostly he just sits there drinking his Olympia beer, which both he and the bartender call “Olly”.

Soon after I took a seat near Bill, Carl walked in. It was hard to miss Carl. He had a grey ZZ Top beard, a Tommy Bahama straw hat and shorts. I couldn’t quite figure him out when I first saw him. He kinda looked like he’d washed ashore from a Jimmy Buffet music video.

Anyway, Carl and I soon began talking, with Bill silently nodding along nearby. Perhaps I should have known, but Carl turned out to be a fishing guide from Alaska. I didn’t quite understand his story, but it went something like this: He originally came to Helena, MT, to visit his ex-wife, but shortly thereafter, he traveled to Pennsylvania to spend some time with his dad, and then somehow flew back to Montana, but the closest he could get to Helena was Great Falls. That part confused me, but the details didn’t seem hugely significant.

Anyway, I mentioned the I recently learned that the capital of Alaska, Juneau, has no roads leading into or out of it. In fact, there are only two mechanized ways to reach Juneau: by boat or by plane. That must have hit Carl’s political nerve, because went on for the next half an hour about how the government should be overthrown and how society is going to crumble some day soon. Of course, he added that when it does, he’ll be ready, because he knows how to live off the land. After his fourth double-whisky and soda, he offered his own explanation of why Juneau has no roads in or out: so we can’t run the politicians out of town! (with that, I suddenly envisioned a brilliant solution to the US’s problems, but it’ll have to wait until I get further east…)

Bill didn’t add any solutions to the “political problems” that Carl raised, although he did seem to be looking hard for them at the bottom of his can of “Olly”. On the other hand, Bill knew where to find the restroom, which proved to be the most useful advice of the evening (and a welcomed solution to a more pressing issue anyway).

I spent about two hours at the Sip and Dip, searching for clues as to how it could possibly the #1 bar in the world to travel to. I never figured it out, but I suppose that GQ doesn’t have to worry about anyone contesting their rankings, because it’s a safe bet that few people will ever actually fly to Great Falls, Montana to find out.

Well, Tori is flying into Great Falls tomorrow (actually, today). She’s going to spend her 4th of July weekend floating down the Missouri River with me. We arranged for a canoe rental company to drive the rental car to our take-out site, so we’ll just float down the river and then drive back. It’s going to be a blast!

Observation:
There are lots of Confederate flags in Great Falls. By itself, that’s creepy, but it’s even stranger given that Montana was never even in the Confederacy. There are no laws against being an idiot, I guess.

Above: There sure are a lot of nice buttes in Montana.

Above: It’s all downhill from here.  Isn’t it?  [it sure doesn’t feel like it]

Above: Kenny, supreme badarse.  He’s literally racing from Canada to Mexico, along the Rocky Mountains on mountain bike trails.  Besides the fact that he’s intentionally riding up and down mountains the whole way, he also doesn’t have the luxury of mini-marts and gas stations along the way for supplies, like I do. 

Thursday, 6/29 7pm
Location: Simms, MT

Coordinates:
didn’t get a reading

Today’s mileage: about 60
Tomorrow’s destination: Great Falls (short day)

As I was leaving my campsite today, a guy on a bike named Kenny stopped me to ask if the bathrooms were clean.  He was riding a fancy full-suspension mountain bike, complete with downhill tires and disk brakes, with a hiking backpack strapped to his back.  Immediately, I realized that he must be doing the Great Divide route. 

The Great Divide bicycle trail starts at the U.S./Canada border near Whitefish, MT, and follows the Rocky Mountains south to the U.S./Mexico border.  It basically traces the Continental Divide across the U.S.  The route is roughly 75% unpaved, and the majority of it passes through back country.  Supposedly, it’s the longest offroad bicycle trail in the world.

In other words, you have to be one tough/crazy SOB to do the Great Divide Trail.  Getting back to Kenny, it turns out that he’s doing the Great Divide Race.  As the name implies, the Great Divide Race is simply a race from the beginning to the end of the Great Divide Trail.  The cut-off time for racers is 25 days.  Allow me to repeat that: 25 frickin’ days!  Kenny said that the top competitors average 120 miles per day, on the dirt trails over the Rocky Mountains!  Unreal.  Previously, I figured that the Race Across America (San Diego to New York non-stop) was the most insane bike race I’d ever heard of.  Now I think the Great Divide Race takes the cake.  Well, Kenny was a friendly fellow who happily informed me that he was placed dead-last.  Regardless, he’s still averaging more miles on dirt trails than I do on paved roads.    

At around noon, I crossed the Continental Divide myself, heading east.  Whenever I anticipate something being really difficult, like crossing Roger’s Pass over the Continental Divide, it ends up being somewhat anticlimatic.  On the other hand, whenever I anticipate something being really easy, like coasting down from Roger’s Pass, I end up being equally mistaken.  Somehow descending from 5600 ft ended up being more difficult than climbing up to 5600 ft.  The maps just show a gradual descent, but in reality, it was almost as hilly as Northern California.  I didn’t go as far today as yesterday, but I’m almost as tired.  The temperature got into the mid-90’s today, so I think I’m just having trouble keeping properly hydrated in this heat.  Water and Gatorade aren’t doing the trick.

My maps showed a place to camp out in Simms, but unfortunately, the tenter campsites have been replaced by a mobile home.  As a result, I’m spending the night camped out in the grass next to the only gas station in town.  As the gas station doesn’t have a shower, tomorrow I’ll be going on four days without a shower. 

Musings and Observations:
1) The drink of choice in this corner of the country appears to be “red beer”.  Actually, even back in Oregon, I noticed a lot of people ordering this peculiar libation.  The preferred method of concocting a “red beer” is to pour a pint of Bud Light about 3/4 full, and then top it off with Clamato, which looks something like V8. If Clamato isn’t handy, sometimes tomato juice is used.  It sounds pretty nasty to me, but I’ll have to give one a try, purely for the cultural experience, of course.
2) As I head farther east, the local accent is slowly changing.  In the last two days, I have detected a Midwestern or Canadian tint to the Western drawl.  Perhaps I just ran into a few transplants, but I’m pretty certain that I heard “don’t ya know” in a fashion that only someone from Fargo or Minnesota should attempt.    
3) Following up on #1, red beer tastes pretty much how I expected.  No big surprise there.  Bleh. 
4) My alcohol tolerance is zilch.  I can aready feel the said red beer.
5) Two red beers taste better than one.

Above: “Hello World!”  World, meet Karin.  This is Karin’s first picture on the Internet.  Karin was camped out at the same KOA in Missoula where I stayed, so we hung out a bunch of times while I was there.  She’s definitely one of the coolest people I’ve met.  She’s pictured here at the Missoula KOA (the day I departed) accompanied by her beloved dogs

Wednesday, 6/28 9pm
Location: Lincoln, MT

Coordinates:
46.9535 N
112.6710 W

Today’s mileage: about 80 
Tomorrow’s destination: Augusta

The bicycle gods punished me today for hanging out in Missoula for so long.  It was rough!  The heat just kicked my butt.  It’s amazing how much energy a hot day can suck out of you.  At one point, I took a swig of gatorade, and it was so warm that it felt like sipping on a steaming bowl of soup.  Bleh.  By th time I pulled into the campsite, my entire body was encrusted in a layer of salt from sweating all day.  My cycling shorts looked like I rolled around in flour.  Even worse, the campsite doesn’t have a shower.  At dinner, I ordered a burger with onion rings, and then I buried it all in salt.  I also drank about 8 glasses of water, but I’m still thirsty.  
  In addition to the heat, one of my rear spokes broke, so the second half of my day was spent wobbling down the road.  All told, today was a struggle.

Of course, there were some good things as well.  I saw a heard of elk.  The lady at a gas station didn’t make me pay for my mega fountain drink, which I refilled a few times.  A friendly motorist offered me a cold bottle of water, during the peak of the midday heat.  You can bet that it was gleefully accepted.

My plan is to wake up early tomorrow and get as many miles in as possible before noon.  I haven’t been good about waking up early so far, but hopefully today’s experience will serve as a strong motivator.

The night before I left Missoula, I went to a Minor League Baseball game.  The contest pitted the Missoula Ospreys against the Billings Mustangs.  Billings won.  It was “Ride Your Bike to the Game” day, which was quite convenient under the circumstances.  As a result, I got a second ticket for free!  Unfortunately, I didn’t have anyone to give my ticket to, so I had plenty of room for my snow cone and bread sticks.

If the pictures below aren’t classic small-town America, I don’t know what is.  It was a lot of fun, but I’m still partial to the Durham Bulls…

Here are some additional photos of Missoula, for your viewing pleasure…

Above: The sky above Missoula, MT at 10pm last night.

Above: The University of Montana

Above: This guy’s going to business school? Unless I find a suit before Saturday, this is the photo that’s going in the Kellogg photo directory.  Yes, I’m one goofy-lookin’ cracker.  See #2 below.

I’m still in Missoula today because it looks like I don’t need to be in Great Falls until Friday or Saturday. As a result, I had a chance to hit up the U of M library again for another Internet fix.

Results:
1) I have reconfirmed that I’m an idiot. It turns out that I’ve been getting emails in my new Kellogg email account since March, and until today I had never checked that account before. Lo and behold, they’ve sent me all sorts of useful things. For example, they emailed me my housing contract, which I was supposed to return by June 22nd. Also, my student mentor sent me an email about a month ago, which I just now responded to. In addition, I got an email about a week ago informing me of which orientation trip I’ll be going on, which I’ve been wondering about for a long time. Luckily, I got the trip I wanted: windsurfing in the Dominican Republic (if that doesn’t kick arse, I don’t know what does). Oh yeah, and I learned the name of my future roommate. I sent him an email, so hopefully he’s more on top of the whole Kellogg email thing that I am.
2) I realized yesterday that I’m supposed to send in a photo of myself for the photo directory by July 1st. Given that I didn’t bring a suit and tie on my bicycle trip, I guess a photo of me at the KOA in my “Property of Jagermeister” T-shirt will have to do. That should make quite an impression… (don’t worry mom, I think they crop the photos so that just your neck/head appear. Or at least, let’s hope so).
3) The canoe rental guy left me a message saying that the trip that Tori and I want to do will cost $1,500. WHAT!? $1,500 to rent a canoe and equipment and float ourselves un-guided down the river for three days? That’s at least $1,000 more than I expected. I’ll talk to the rental guy, but it’s looking like Tori and I may be spending the 4th of July weekend in the very popular travel destination of Great Falls, MT, where the attractions include… uh, hmm, I’m gonna have to get back to you on that one. The backup plan is to drive to Glacier National Park, which wouldn’t be the worst way in the world to spend the weekend.