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.