Day 27 – July 9, 2015

Day 27- July 9, 2015
KOA near Townsend MT – Bozeman – 79.27 Miles

Bumble Bee – Audrey

This was our long day, about 30 miles more than we would normally be doing. We thought it would be good to get to Bozeman and take a day off. But this means we will be riding our bikes at least 8 hrs of the day. We figured we would get there sometime between 7:30-8:30pm if we started relatively early. We got going at 8am.

Yes it was long. The first part of the day started in what Gregg has been calling “the backwater”. The road conditions for the first section were OK but we met our next challenge – the long straight road ahead. For the last 850 miles we have had winding roads, that snaked along rivers, up and down mountains, with new things to see and experience around every bend. But now we faced the endless straight road with now variation to scenery, just straight. For me this is especially difficult challenge. I like to be stimulated by variation. But when nothing changes you have to find other things to occupy your wandering mind. First you start playing the regular games, how far is the next sign post, guess? 1/4 mile 1/3 mile? Or, don’t look at your odometer and guess when you’ve peddled 5 miles? Hard? yep! While waiting for that, you start reviewing your body parts, “how does you butt feel today?” “How about your arms?” “Why does your neck hurt on the right side? Switch positions maybe it will help?” “Why is your wrist hurting?” “don’t hold onto handle bar too tight” “When will my feet start burning?”

After all of that you look down and see that you have only gone 1 mile. You start looking at the road, looking for treasures maybe? Instead, yesterday morning we saw lots of dead birds. Usually when you drive down the highway you think to yourself that those birds are smart enough to avoid hitting vehicles. Well I can tell you, they aren’t. Yesterday we must have seen about 30 beautiful, but dead, magpies. It was strange, for about 5-8 miles they were all over the place. Sad. When you slowly ride you realize how fragile they are, yet there is something peaceful and beautiful as they lay there lifeless. They are still magnificent beings in death.

The other very odd phenomenon in Montana are the roadside crosses. As you drive along the road all over this country you sometimes come across a little shrine to auto fatalities. We in California see many make shift crosses, flowers, Mexican prayer candles, teddy bears. Well in Montana they take this to another level. As soon as we crossed the border from Idaho into Montana there was a sign that indicated that – I think it was the American Legion or something – had put up white crosses for every death along the roads. Well we must have seen at least a couple hundred crosses so far. Some of them are decorated with flowers, Christmas lights, flags, names, toys, and once we even saw a Spiderman guarding a white cross site. It is kind eerie to see them. Gregg and I wonder what could have happened? Many of these roads are straight aways and other simple roads. We figure they were probably drunk driving accidents. My theory is that they could have also had to do with snow and ice and too much speed. Weird.

So the road was endless. We had a few other obstacles too, road side construction, and absolutely no shoulder on a major country highway. Wow, I’m telling you, not fun riding,
Before we ventured into these dangerous sections we stopped at the next intersection of roadways. What do you find there? As usual a tavern. Montana has more bars per capita than I have ever seen! This is probably how all these lonesome ranchers socialize. They drive their huge pick ups to the bar for a beer or Fire Fly Whiskey, a round of pool, and then home (if they make it – remember the crosses). These bars are also the local beer and liquor stores. Not only can you drink there but you can take a bottle to go if you like.

So we stopped for a cold drink, I had a beer, Gregg iced tea, and we had special treat, warm pretzels with melted mystery cheese for dipping. Well, it was weird but at least we didn’t get the micro waved pork rinds that were also on the menu.

We peddled and peddle on. They were paving the highway so we slowly rode passed giant asphalt trucks. That was stinky and hot. As we rode along we noticed airplanes flying only a hundred feet above the ground, two of them at great speed. At first I though they were racing but then we saw that they were crop dusting. Those pilots were incredible, just 50 ft before the high wires they pulled up just missing them by mere feet.

Now for the real challenge a road without shoulder. What do we do? I relied on Gregg as the expert bicycle road man to lead the way. He mastered it. We road on the other side of the fog line until the next set of cars, campers, and trucks passed when we rode directly on top of the white stripe. But it didn’t work all the time, twice we had to pull completely off the road into the grass, a wide load was passing, and another large truck, too dangerous to risk it. Gregg has a great tactic when he sees cars in the distance he pulls out into the lane. He makes sure that that vehicle sees him and slows down. When that happens he pulls over and lets the vehicle pass at slower speeds. It works most of the time. Once he had to play chicken with a big truck to really slow the guy down.

Well, for me this is extremely stressful. I tense up and the tension shoots through my arms into my neck and shoulders. At one point I had to tell Gregg to just pull over so that I could relax and catch my inner breath.

After about 6 miles we were through with that and we coasted downhill to the truck stop where Robin and Peggy just happened to be passing thru on their way back to Missoula. Great fun to have someone actually visit while we are doing this. They even managed to get some pictures of both of us, a rarity since either one or the other of us is taking a picture of the other one.
We had a bad lunch at the Wheat Montana – do not stop even if the sign beckoned you there 50 miles before you got there. It is not good. Anderson’s Pea Soup shop in Buellton, which does the same, is worth the stop. Beware.

We said our final goodbyes to Robin and Peggy and we were on our way, the home stretch, just another 39 more miles to go!!! I had a hard time with this stretch, especially the first section. I had to go to the bathroom urgently about 4 miles into it and we peddled a 3 mile detour into the Missouri River Headwaters State park. Then about 10 miles after that I was “bonking”, I had no more energy, I had a hard time concentrating, I felt dehydrated even though I was constantly drinking. Bad times. We finally got to the little town of Manhattan. Yes Manhattan, which is an Indian name, is in Montana. There we stopped at the first little cafe we came upon. Gregg had a toasted cheese sandwich and I had a magical formula that I will remember next time I get into this physical state. I had 2 scoops of coffee fudge swirls ice cream!! and an Arnold Palmer. Yes, just like magic, when I got back on my bike I felt like I could do 100 more miles. Perfect.

The next 20 miles were uneventful. We finally got to Missoula, tired and hungry. We checked into the Best Western, took some hot showers and went to the grill for mediocre food and some cold drinks. We had arrived. An almost 80 mile day. A record for me since the most I had ever done was about 68. Wow I can do this!