St. Clair, MI to Port Burwell, Ontario (2 days-144 miles)

7-28-2010

We awoke to the overpowering sound of the interstate.  I quickly packed up my gear and set out to cross the Interstate to a Marathon gas station, for a cup of coffee.  When the rest of the guys joined me, we set off down the road to Marine City.  There we hopped onto an awesome little ferry to cross the St. Clair river and get into Canada.

This was a great way to make the crossing, there was only 1 car on the ferry and 2 guys with 5 cases of beer each.  I guess that's the limit for what they can bring into the states duty free, and the beer is half as expensive in the states as compared to Canada.

The ride down the river was beautiful, unfortunately we were fighting the wind a bit.  After a brief turn east, with the wind helping us, we pulled into Wallaceburg for a little breakfast.  After some mediocre potatoes and eggs, we put our legs back to work.  By this time the temperature had really started to climb, and to make matters worse, so was the humidity.  I've found that I can deal with some heat, but the humidity takes all the energy out of me.

After a couple of discouraging encounters with towns that had closed up shop, we rolled into Morpeth.  While the store that we were expecting had closed last year, there was an antique shop open.  The store owner allowed us to fill up our water bottles, and enjoy his air-conditioning.  Then with sights of thunderstorms in our eyes, we changed our plans and made for a hotel about 7 miles north of us.

Less than a mile in, the sky was getting really dark.  We were all riding as fast as we could, but were pretty worried about this approaching storm.  Don and Jeff were scoping out an abandoned barn when a man drove up next to us in his pick-up truck.  He asked if we would like to wait out the storm in his garage, needless to say we jumped at the opportunity.

Ken, and later his partner Patty, offered us sodas as we waited out the storm.  As the weather report announced that the storms should stick around until 8pm, he said that he had a couple of spare beds if we wanted to stay at his house.

As the night wore on, we ordered pizza (and gorged ourselves on it) and then slept soundly in their air-conditioned home.  They really saved the day, we would have been seriously miserable trying to ride into town that evening, if we weren't stuck in a hay barn avoiding the mice.

Our saviors and their dog, Duke.

The morning came too soon, only to find that Ken had already been to town and brought back Tim Horton's coffee for everyone.  (to my delight since only Joe and I drink coffee)  After some toast, muffins, coffee, and great farewells we got back on the road.

7-29-2010

The ride today went great.  The temperature was nice all morning, and even in the late afternoon it never got oppressive.  We stopped in Port Stanley for some beach time (it's a hotspot for beach-goers) and lunch, and then headed on towards Port Burwell.   We're staying in a gigantic Provincial park right next to town.  Now I'm headed back to camp to make some dinner.

Unfortunately the connection I'm using isn't showing pictures, so  can't tell what pictures I'm uploading.  So I'll try to add more pictures in a couple of days.  Ciao!

St. Clair, MI to Port Burwell, Ontario (2 days-144 miles)

7-28-2010

We awoke to the overpowering sound of the interstate.  I quickly packed up my gear and set out to cross the Interstate to a Marathon gas station, for a cup of coffee.  When the rest of the guys joined me, we set off down the road to Marine City.  There we hopped onto an awesome little ferry to cross the St. Clair river and get into Canada.

This was a great way to make the crossing, there was only 1 car on the ferry and 2 guys with 5 cases of beer each.  I guess that's the limit for what they can bring into the states duty free, and the beer is half as expensive in the states as compared to Canada.

The ride down the river was beautiful, unfortunately we were fighting the wind a bit.  After a brief turn east, with the wind helping us, we pulled into Wallaceburg for a little breakfast.  After some mediocre potatoes and eggs, we put our legs back to work.  By this time the temperature had really started to climb, and to make matters worse, so was the humidity.  I've found that I can deal with some heat, but the humidity takes all the energy out of me.

After a couple of discouraging encounters with towns that had closed up shop, we rolled into Morpeth.  While the store that we were expecting had closed last year, there was an antique shop open.  The store owner allowed us to fill up our water bottles, and enjoy his air-conditioning.  Then with sights of thunderstorms in our eyes, we changed our plans and made for a hotel about 7 miles north of us.

Less than a mile in, the sky was getting really dark.  We were all riding as fast as we could, but were pretty worried about this approaching storm.  Don and Jeff were scoping out an abandoned barn when a man drove up next to us in his pick-up truck.  He asked if we would like to wait out the storm in his garage, needless to say we jumped at the opportunity.

Ken, and later his partner Patty, offered us sodas as we waited out the storm.  As the weather report announced that the storms should stick around until 8pm, he said that he had a couple of spare beds if we wanted to stay at his house.

As the night wore on, we ordered pizza (and gorged ourselves on it) and then slept soundly in their air-conditioned home.  They really saved the day, we would have been seriously miserable trying to ride into town that evening, if we weren't stuck in a hay barn avoiding the mice.

Our saviors and their dog, Duke.

The morning came too soon, only to find that Ken had already been to town and brought back Tim Horton's coffee for everyone.  (to my delight since only Joe and I drink coffee)  After some toast, muffins, coffee, and great farewells we got back on the road.

7-29-2010

The ride today went great.  The temperature was nice all morning, and even in the late afternoon it never got oppressive.  We stopped in Port Stanley for some beach time (it's a hotspot for beach-goers) and lunch, and then headed on towards Port Burwell.   We're staying in a gigantic Provincial park right next to town.  Now I'm headed back to camp to make some dinner.

Unfortunately the connection I'm using isn't showing pictures, so  can't tell what pictures I'm uploading.  So I'll try to add more pictures in a couple of days.  Ciao!

Wisconsin and Michigan

I'll try to update this section later.  Right now I don't have the time, so check back in a couple of days.  Needless to say we made it through Wisconsin, and across the ferry into Michigan.  Then a quick three days and we were on another ferry into Canada.

It's been awhile - roughly 380 miles - 7 days

7-22-2010

Because of exhaustion, interesting happenings at night, and a lack of motivation for writing, I've cut down on my blogging quite a bit.  I imagine that I will continue to post less frequently than at the beginning of the trip as our mileage continues to increase and the towns we're in become more interesting.

It was great riding with Bob and Jim, great guys.  I'm hoping that we'll meet up on the ferry across Lake Michigan on Saturday, but that's not a sure thing.

After Fergus Falls we spent a day and a half on the Central Lakes Rail to Trail through central Minnesota.  It was a fun, relaxing ride.  After spending the night in Melrose, we said farewell to Bob and Jim who decided to rejoin the Adventure Cycling route that we had been following for most of our trip.

  After Monticello we crossed the Mississippi river!  pretty neat.

Then shortly after leaving the trail and braving heavy traffic in St. Cloud, we sought shelter in Monticello.  That evening a major thunderstorm blew through the area, as Doug (our Minnesota guide said, "this is the worst storm I've seen in 25 years here.")  there were 75mph winds, large hail, and it sprouted a couple of tornadoes though luckily not where we were sheltering in a motel.

Several trees blocked our passage through the suburbs of St. Paul.  Signs of the strength of the storm the night before.

Then we had a short ride into Shoreview to stay for a day and a half with Doug and Therese.  Therese was glad to be home, but Doug decided that he wanted to trade in his tandem for a single, and continue to Maine with us.

It was very relaxing staying in Doug and Therese's house.  Excellent meals and a very nice atmosphere.  I loved their screened in deck off of their dinning room.

We left their home on Tuesday morning, and after a long hot ride, we made it to Colfax, Wisconsin.  A nice park, but the drinking water wasn't very tasty and there weren't picnic tables nearby.

Yay we made it to another state.  Don, Joe and I wanted a picture, Doug is taking it and Jeff is walking up the incredibly steep hill that met us right across the border.

Then we had a major 90 mile day to Cherokee, WI only to find out that their park isn't really a campground.  However, while asking around for the police's phone number, we were invited to stay the night in someone's backyard.  She even let us use her bathroom for showers!  pretty fantastic and so generous.

Freshly remodeled.  The kind of home I'd like to have one day.  Very airy and on a large piece of property.

We woke up to rain in the morning, but started riding in good spirits.  That didn't last long.  The wind quickly picked up, blowing the rain right into our faces and down our jackets.  Pretty quickly, the rain had completely soaked everyone.  After a welcome break from the rain, and a hot breakfast in Mosinee, we decided that it wasn't worth the discomfort of riding on.  This is supposed to be a fun ride after all.

Despite the rain the next day, we were all hotted out when we saw the sign for Watermelons.  Needless to say, we all sat down and ate an entire melon, boy was it tasty!

Tomorrow we'll try for a big day to make up for only riding 30 miles today.  We're supposed to have clearing skies and a strong west wind, which should help push us towards 100miles or so.

Fargo to Fergus Falls (83 miles)

7-15-2010
Today wasn't a hard ride, but it also wasn't an enjoyable day.

We started off with a ride through Fargo.  The streets were fairly busy, but the traffic was amendable to us being on the road.  However, once we got into Minnesota (no welcome sign again!) the roads became really awful.  There was very little shoulder, and the roads were criss crossed with deep cracks.

Jeeze, where are the trees!  This looks the same as North Dakota.  (By the end of the day we were seeing lots more trees.)

Those cracks really ate at everyone.  The constant bah-bump, was annoying and painful on our sore rear ends.  After a day of that, we were not feeling like doing another day of it.  So at Pelican Rapids we decided to have some lunch (McDonalds, 2 burgers and a large chocolate shake) and then head off of the Adventure Cycling route to Fergus Falls.  There we'll be getting on a 120 mile bike path to near St. Cloud, and then getting on anther trail along the Mississippi River to Minniapolis.
Now we're all camped in a city park, enjoying dinner, and glad to be right next to the Central Lakes Trail, on which we'll ride for the next day and a half.

Cooperstown to Fargo (92 miles)

7-15-2010

A quick, enjoyable ride.  What a great decision it was to wait out the storm and bad winds for a day in Cooperstown.

We all slept in a bit in the morning, then quickly got ready to leave.  There had been severe thunderstorms while we slept, but the skies were clear, and the sun was shining when we left.
The ride started off nice, there wasn't much wind, and we just got the miles done.

Tom said fairwell after about 20 miles.  He was heading North to the Headwaters of the Mississippi, and we were heading South to Fargo.

After a couple of miles, we arrived at the November-33 missle launch site.  It was pretty neat to see the topside of the missle silo, and to read all of the interpretive signs about it.

Very cool.

It's amazing how little of the structure shows above ground.  The tall white pole on the right, is a motion sensor.

We arrived in Hope for a little snack, then headed on to Page for Lunch.  After Page, the west winds really picked up and we were scooting along at 17-23 mph.  In 2.5 hours we covered 40 miles!  It's so much fun to ride that fast so effortlessly.
Then we turned South for Fargo.  This was a little tougher, but the wind was still helping us a bit.
One of the amazing things during the ride today was the amount of water everywhere.  All of the ditches, rivers, and lakes were overfull, and in many places actively flooding.

Cooperstown - rest day (9miles)

7-13-2010

This morning we were packing up to the threat of thunderstorms.  Just as we got on the road, it started to rain and thunder, so we took shelter in a cafe in Cooperstown.  After watching the weather, and checking the forecast, Jeff, Doug, Therese, Tom, and I decided that it wasn't worth fighting the wind and risking hail/tornadoes.  So we decided to get a hotel and stay in town.  Don and Joe decided that the were going to try to beat the storm to Fargo.

After waiting out the rain, we found rooms at the Westside motel.  Then rode our bikes up to a really cool museum of a Minuteman missile control sight.

It was a great tour, very interesting to see and learn about this part of our history.

Pretty amazing, huge door enclosing part of the control room.

Each room Is suspended from the ceiling, so that the equipment would be more likely to survive a nuclear attack.  This in addition to being surrounded by 4-8 feet of concrete and 50 feet of packed dirt.

It was cool to see how old the technology was that they used here.  Even though it was closed down in 1997.

The last two people who had an alert in this missile base.

A neat mural that a missileer made in the control room.  Oscar the grouch because the base is "Oscar-Zero."

The misseleers and when and how how many days they spent in the control room.  They would be locked in for 24 hour shifts.

After a nasty 4 mile ride back to town, fighting 15 mph headwinds, we went back to the hotel to relax.  I as able to finish my book, then I took a nap.  Then a little dinner at a burger joint, yum!  Now, I'm watching a little TV and looking forward to sleeping in a bed.

Tomorrow the weather.com is predicting north and west winds all day long.  That should help us to push all the way to Fargo (90miles) where we can meet up with the rest of our group.  

New Rockford to Cooperstown (63 miles)

7-12-2010

We set off fearing our worst wind day yet, and while it was tiring it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been.

The Bison Motel, it's amazing how nice a mediocre little motel is after camping for a while.  

We again slept in a little bit.  Between not feeling rushed to be out, and not having to pack up camp, I was able to get an extra hour of sleep.  The a quick breakfast of PBJ sandwiches and coffee and we were on the road.

The first 15 miles were tough.  The wind was blowing strongly into our faces and I was still loosening up.  After a bit of struggling, I rolled into Carrington, where everyone else was just sitting down for a little 2nd breakfast.

For the last thousand miles we've been seeing acres of these different colors.  The blue is flax.  The green is soybeans (though we've seen a lot of wheat and corn too) and the yellow is canola.

After resting up, we got back on the road.  This time the wind was only partially into our faces, so it wasn't nearly as bad.  We made good time to Glennfield where we had lunch in a city park.  Then it was back on the road to Cooperstown.

A pretty Lutheran church that we road past.  Jeff is standing on the porch, and Don is riding on by. 

This stretch was much more difficult because it was getting warmer and we were getting tired.  Finally we pulled into town.  A shower, and some grocery shopping helped to finish up the day.  Tomorrow we're thinking about trying to finish the 90 miles to Fargo, though I'm not sure if we'll make it.

Esmond to New Rockford (60 miles)

7-11-2010

Another, "fight the wind" day, at least it wasn't that hot out this time.

We had a late night because the band didn't stop playing until after 2am.  So we decided to sleep in a little, and have breakfast in town.  Breakfast was fantastic, I had the special; 2 eggs, 2 pieces of bacon, and 2 pieces of French toast.  Now with our fuel tanks full, we headed out into the wind.

The fantastic cafe, perfectly situated to save us.

The morning was tough, we had a 5-10 mph head wind slowing us down.  Finally, we got to our midway point, Minnewauken.  An interesting little resort town, that's experiencing some major flooding.  The snow is melting faster than the lake can drain.  Some town members were telling us that they were worried that the town would be drowned.

Tom looking at the flooded road near town.

After a nice little break in town, we got on the road again.  The road conditions were unpleasant, though at least we weren't fighting the wind the whole way.  Finally we pulled into town and found a hotel.  We had decided that after a couple of exhausting days that we deserved a rest in a hotel.

After doing some laundry, I made dinner and went to bed.  Ahh so nice not to have to set up a tent, and to be able to sleep on a mattress.

Granville to Esmond (80miles)

7-10-2010

What a day!  We started off early, expecting it to be the hottest day of our trip so far.  However, we didn't end until late in the afternoon, hot and exhausted.

We were on the road by 6:15 am, hoping to avoid some of the day's heat.  Then about 19 miles into the day, we had a decision to make.  We could either go south on 14, or go on to Rugby.  Jim and Bob decided that they'd rather head south on 14, because of construction on highway 2.  The rest of us decided to brave the construction because we wanted to get to a town sooner than 32 miles and we wanted to see Rugby.

4 miles later we were enjoying another fantastic breakfast in a Towner cafe.  Then we were off towards Rugby.  We quickly ran into the promised construction, but it wasn't as bad as we were afraid of.  The traffic wasn't too heavy and the road was paved the whole length.  However, it was definitely scary having semi-trucks pass right next to us, because they didn't have room to get over a lane.

It's getting hot already, jeeze.

Finally we arrived in Rugby, the geographical center of North America.  After a few pictures and a dairy queen, we were on the road again.

The center of the continent, cool!

By this time the day was getting seriously hot, by the time we got to Esmond we were told it was 100 degrees.  To make matters worse we fought a crosswind the entire afternoon, which slowed and frustrated us.

Don, like the rest of us, is hotted out.

Finally we arrived in Esmond, where we found a great cafe, with cheap good food.  Then we set up camp, and went to enjoy live music.  It just happened to be Esmond Day, and they were celebrating.  The party lasted until 2am, though none of us lasted even close to that long.

We've had many great sunsets, though this is the first one that I thought might turn out in a picture.

Stanley to Granville (87 miles)

7-9-2010

Today we were aiming to get some miles in.  We first thought about Surrey, but after arriving there fairly early and with a tailwind, we road on to Granville.

Many of the small cities that we pass through have these great signs welcoming you to their town.

For the past several days, we've stopped after a couple of hours of riding we stop for breakfast.  In yellow is Ron, who we met in Idaho to ride with, but decided to mostly ride on his own.  We have met up several different evenings.  On the right is Rudy, we camped with for a couple nights.  He is on the was to Rag Ride in Ohio.

The ride was fairly uneventful.  We rode through Minot, which felt like a big city.  We rode right downtown to find a bike shop, and the streets were very busy.  We were also very overheated, so we stopped into an Irish pub for a lemonade.

We all love these wonderful city parks that are usually free and very convenient to use.

In Granville we found a nice park, until we looked at the bathrooms.  We were without flushing toilets or showers, which made the night fairly uncomfortable.  After setting up camp, Don and I decided that we were not interested in cooking, so we went into town to the White Buffalo bar, and had a steak dinner.  It was good, and affordable.  After we were finished eating; Doug, Therese, and Jeff joined Don, Joe and I for drink and some laughs.

Williston to Stanley 72 miles

7-08-2010

Mornings are always rough, and first days after rest days are even worse.

Today morning found it darker than we're used to.  The time zone change as we came into North Dakota meant that it was light much later than we've been used to and the sun didn't come up until after we were making breakfast.

Our tent city, at this campground we stayed with a total of 16 cyclists, most of whom are with us again tonight.  We just all happen to be traveling in the same direction and at the same speed right now.

Once we were on the road, we had to get through a very busy section of Highway 2.  Through Williston, the traffic was very heavy and the shoulder was full of rocks and debris.  Once we were out of town, the traffic stayed farily heavy, but the shoulder got a little better.  However, we did have one really nasty stretch where the shoulders were less than a foot wide, and half of that was rumble strip.

Jeff cruising up a hill, i the back ground you can see how green the fields are in ND right now.

At about the halfway point we rolled into Ray, ND.  We found a little cafe and had some breakfast.  I really enjoy stopping for a midmorning meal.  It's really cheap and breakfast food has always been some of my favorite.  Then we were on the road again.

You can see the narrow shoulder we had to ride today, you also see Doug, Therese, Tom, and Jeff stopped for a break.  In the background is a yellow VW van, that's Kathy who is driving the sag wagon for Ron, who rides with us briefly every couple of days.

As the day wore on, it started to get pretty warm.  The high today was only 82, but that's a lot warmer than we've had in several weeks.  We also didn't have the benifit of any wind today, which made everything seem to drag by, though at least we didn't have a headwind.

After so much green, these yellow fields of mustard really glowed.

Along the road today, we noticed a lot of oil drilling and related construction.  This part of North Dakota is in a major boom, similar to what the Rock Spring area was experiencing a couple of years ago.

We've been sharing the roads with these oil/fracing fluid trucks since we entered North Dakota.  The rig in the background is a common sight in the part of Wyoming where I live as well.

It felt good to roll into town, I had gotten into a rythum, but I was still tired and hot.  A nice shower, and a trip to the grocery store for dinner, and we all settled down into our camping mindset.

Sako, MT to Williston, ND - 3 days - 193 miles

Again I'm going to combine several days into one post.  Except for the 4th, there hasn't been a whole lot of interesting things to write about, just covering miles.

7-4-2010  Sako to Nashua - 56 miles

After spending a restful night in Sako at a hotel, we planned an exciting day for the 4th of July.  However, as plans do, they changed as the day went on.  

We slept in a little that morning, planning on leaving town around 9am.  However, as is our groups' habit, we were all up and ready to go earlier than we had planned.  Our first stop was only 13 miles away in Hinsdale.  We had heard that they were holding their annual 4th of July parade and BBQ that morning starting at 11am.  We rolled into town around 10am, and spent some time exploring the town and talking to people.  

The parade was exciting, we saw more people in one place than we had seen in days.  The streets were packed, and everyone was excited.  There were numerous old cars, the Shriners made an appearance, and there was plenty of candy being thrown to the awaiting children, (and a few of us as well).  

There were people from all over the region in attendance for this annual extravaganza.

Shortly after the parade, they did the coolest activity any of us had seen yet.  They flew a plane low over the town, and dropped thousands of numbered ping-pong balls into the street.  Each ball was worth a prize, small to large.  People were scrambling all over to get the balls, which bounced all over the place.  It was hilarious to watch, and exciting for the people involved.

This pass most of the ping-pong balls landed onto slopped roof of a restaurant, still neat but not as crazy as when they all landed in the street.

Then we proceeded to look for the promised BBQ only to find out it wouldn't start until 12:30, by which time we really wanted to be on the road towards Glasgow.  Instead, we headed down the street to the Methodist church, where they were serving fresh pies.  I had a lemon meringue pie, which was delicious.  Unfortunately Tom took the last piece of blueberry pie, my first choice.  

Tom joined our group in Whitefish, though he's headed off on his own again in Minnesota to meet some family and friends.  He's keeping a blog too if you're interested http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/tomwild

Then as we were walking back to our bikes, folks decided that they would rather not camp in Glasgow, because it would be noisy because of the fireworks and because then the next day we would need to ride 104 miles to our planned destination.  Instead we headed for Nashua, about 15 miles further east.

Yum pie!  To the right, Therese gets a photo for her blog as well http://tandemonium2.blogspot.com/.

Nashua turned out to be a great choice, their little city park was perfect for our needs.  It was free, and had bathrooms and a shower.  Everyone turned in too early to see any of the neighborhood kids lighting off fireworks that night.

7-5-2010  Nashua to Culbertson, MT - 92 miles

This was planned as a long day, but turned out to be fairly easy.  It also led to a split in our group, temporarily.

Everyone awoke bright and early with the sunrise, as is our habits.  After cooking breakfast and packing up our campsite everyone was ready to go by quarter 'til 7am. However, three members of our group took off 30 minutes before the rest of us were ready, and we wouldn't see them for a couple more days.

Wishing these were the views we were riding with, but I'm quite glad to have left the steep mountains behind.

As we left, we had a light wind to our back.  It was a nice cool morning, with beautiful views of the morning sun poking through a thunderstorm just ahead of us.  As the day wore on the breeze picked up, and fairly soon we were shooting along at 15-20 miles an hour without straining too hard.  We made the halfway point by 10am.  After a little lunch around 11:30, we got going again, pulling into Culbertson around. 

After a little grocery shopping, we received a message that Bob, Jim, and Bill had arrived at 1pm and decided that they were still fresh so they were going on to Williston, another 40 miles down the road and our planned destination for the next day's ride.  After much discussion, it was decided to stay put in Culbertson and see how things worked out over the next couple of days.

It turned out to be a good decision.  The city park was one of the nicest campgrounds yet, made all the better because of all the other cyclists.  8 other riders showed up that evening, and it was nice to talk and share stories with them.  We were also able to enjoy a shower and swim at the city pool for only $1, it made all of us feel like kids again.

7-6-2010 Culbertson, MT to Williston, ND - 45 miles

Another easy day with the winds to our backs.  We stopped after 15 miles near the MT border for nice little breakfast, then confronted some serious hills, and heavy oil truck traffic as we entered North Dakota.

Rolling out after breakfast.

Once we were into town, we struggled to find a hotel, as most places were full up with oil field workers.  However we were able to find rooms for 1 night.  Then a little laundry, some shopping at Walmart, and dinner at a buffet, and we were ready for bed.

Group photo in our 4th state.

The 7th will be a day off, though we'll have to pack-up to move to a city campground.  Still a very relaxing day ahead of us.  Then relaxed and recuperated we'll be ready to get to the Great Lakes in 2-3 weeks.

Shelby to Sako, 3 days - 220 miles

I'm going to compile the last 3 days of riding.  Every day has been pretty similar and I didn't take many pictures.

7-1-2010  Shelby to Hingham - 68 miles

Shelby was a very nice campground, though we were rudely awoken when the sprinklers popped on while we were all making breakfast.

Our last mountain views...then it was only wide open grassy plains.

The ride was nice.  We had thoughts of getting to Havre, but the wind wasn't with us.  When we stopped for the night, we found a great free city campground.  After setting up our tents, we spent several hours at the local bar talking with the farmers and ranchers about the road ahead.  That was very pleasant.

After a great nights sleep we were on to Havre and then Chinook.

7-2-2010  Hingham to Chinook 56 miles

The ride to Havre was a breeze, we had a tailwind which always makes things easier.  Once we got into Havre, it was time to visit Walmart and pick up some necessary supplies.  Just as we were finishing up, a major thunderstorm rolled in and we were warned to seek shelter because this storm had dropped quarter sized hail earlier.

After sheltering from the worst of the storm we took advantage of the strong winds to help push us on our way.  Once I road into town, I met Jim who escorted us to the ice cream shop.  After a wonderful root bear float, we found the city park which would be our home that night.

Throughout Eastern Montana and North Dakota we are riding on US highway 2, which parallels a major train route.  So we've seen hundreds of trains.

In this campground the mosquitoes drove me to my tent, where after reading a couple pages of my book, I fell asleep.


7-3-2010 Chinook to Sako 96 miles

Another wonderful ride with the wind at our backs.  It amazing how much easier it is to cover the miles when the wind is helping you.

As we road down the road, we discovered that the mosquitoes we had had so far were nothing compared to these bugs.  They would catch up to us as we road and I would look down on my arm to find 10 mosquitoes sucking my blood.  It was awful!

A wet drizzly day as we began in Chinook, thought it turned out pretty nice.

It was so bad that we decided that we couldn't camp, so we road into Sako and found a cheap motel.  That turned out to be a relaxing decision, setting up a great fourth of July.

The funky little laundry mat in Sako and Don's feelings towards more photos.

Now it's off to bed, I'll try to get the next three days tomorrow evening.

Saint Mary to Shelby, MT (90 miles!)

6-30-2010

What a day!  It started off difficult but ended as one of the most fun days of riding I've ever had.


Morning broke bright and early.  Everyone was quick to pack up and get out of camp.  I was running  a little slower than the group, so I was one of the last people out of the camp, but it was still before 7am.

A wonderful last view of the mountains as we left the park.

The day started off with a nasty hill.  It was fairly steep and long (5 miles and 1500 vertical feet), especially since it was right off the bat and my knees hadn't been able to loosen up yet.  As I climbed, I was struck by the beauty of Glacier, the mountains are just incredibly rough.  Later I found out the some other riders had seen 2 moose and a bear as they climbed, but I wasn't so lucky.

Actually I encountered this bear on the way down from Logan pass the day before, but it fits better here.  As I road around a corner I noticed 2 cars stopped looking at it, so I pulled up.  It was a little scary being only 25 feet away from a bear without a car between us.

After reaching the top we sailed down the other side only to find another steep hill awaiting us.  Finally after surmounting that frustrating obstacle a few more times, we sailed into a valley where we found a road that led to Browning.

Not Browning, but pretty much from that point on, this is the most exciting that our scenery gets.

This is when the true fun started.  As we road, we discovered that we were going incredibly easily at 20+ mph.  Later we realized that we were both going with a tailwind and going slightly downhill.  After cruising into Browning for some quick food, we got onto Highway 2, which we'll stay on until Minnesota.

Luckily, we were able to retain the wonderful tailwind until Chester, all together we covered 50 miles in only 2 and 1/2 hours!  Because we were in Chester so early, we decided to push on to Shelby, another 25 miles.  These miles went much more slowly, as we lost the tailwind, but still much quicker and easier than we've been used to in the mountains.

The Shelby campground was very nice.  It was in a city park, but was quite wonderful.  We had electrical hookups and a nice shower house.  Three cheers for unlimited shower times!