57 miles, 5:30/7:00

Today we start with breakfast at the local cafe. Breakfast is my favorite meal to eat out now. I love eggs, hashbrowns, omelettes, and french toast, and these things we don’t cook at camp. Plus, usually country cafes serve up big portions, and it takes a lot to fill us up these days. This morning we order a cinnamon roll on top of the usual breakfast, and it comes with our coffee and is huge and frosted. It’s gone within a couple of minutes. Oh, that was good!

We leave Lima and have a pleasant climb and then rolling hills. I love the rolling hills. You get to put in some effort and then recover before leaning into it again. We usually get good momentum built up. Because we know it’s only a short climb each time, we put more effort in and then really enjoy the downhill. There are horses here and there on the grassy hills today and they look pretty content.

I haven’t told you yet about the horses having a tendency to race Dave. It started back when we free-camped outside of Basin, Montana. First thing that morning we were riding along a pasture with about eight horses. What looked to be the lead horse yanked his head up from the grass and took off at a gallop right next to the fence by Dave. So Dave kicks it up a notch and they all join in to race him clear down to the end of the pasture, quite a long way. It was hilarious and Dave enjoyed every second. I was laughing so hard it took me a little while to catch up. Anyway, since then it’s happened a couple of times, so now whenever we see horses we sort of hope they’ll be game for a race.

But that doesn’t happen today. When we crest one of the hills we see a horse alone in a small pen (corral? yard?) and he perks up when we get close. I couldn’t resist, he was just begging for a good scratch. Oh my, he did want some scratching. He helped by yanking his head up and down while I applied pressure. I picked some of the soft green grass just outside his reach and fed it to him. He grunted, and then gave us a show of head twisting, lip stretching and teeth displaying. Oh, and tongue curling. Two or three times over. What a ham. Is this normal? Is this a sign of a happy horse or one that has been trained to entertain? I was tempted to let him out and take him with, but I didn’t have enough apples in my pannier to keep him happy so I let him be.

38 miles, 3:07/4:30

We wake up to a clear morning and beautiful sunshine. Dave is upset that he didn’t get a picture of his rain tarp setup, and so am I because it was so darn clever. We eat breakfast and clean the dishes in the tiny creek. It’s so clear, something rare in cattle country. I notice two things: there are no cows as far as we can see (must be out on national forest land for the summer?), and the creek appears to come from a fenced off area just up the hillside. Must be a spring. That’s about the only thing we see fenced off from cows.

Today’s ride is the antithesis of yesterday as it is smoother and almost all downhill! What a beautiful thing! In fact, it becomes our favorite part of the ride so far, as we roll down into river valleys and see cliffs, rocks, and aspen and mixed conifer stands. The last bit is on pavement, so we make great time.

We get to Lima and go the post office to pick up our resupply box of food. Then we get a site at the only place for camping in town, an RV park and motel right by the highway. The owner tells us our friend is waiting over in room 12 for us. “Robert?” I ask, and he says, “That sounds right. We’re not expecting to see Robert again because he really had a tight schedule with only a month to ride and was ending somewhere in Colorado. We set up our camp and head over to room 12 to invite Robert to dinner and get the scoop.

We’ve enjoyed seeing Robert at the end of the day at several of our camps. We’ve shared dinner and stories and discussed the day’s ride and rolled our eyes at his really terrible jokes. We’re happy to see him, but know that since he’s here he must have had a change of plans. He tells us he’s enjoyed the riding, but is really tired of the setting up and tearing down every single night, the pace that keeps him moving and unable to hike and look around and relax. So he’s decided to hop on the bus and spend his last two weeks in one place, and it might as well be the biking Mecca: Moab. Dave knows Moab well, so they discuss good camps spots and fun rides. After dinner we’re sad to say goodbye to Robert, but we hope he has a great time in Moab.

We are now in Lima Montana. The population is only a couple hundred and there is no grocery store. Only an Exxon station that has lots of fishing tackle and whiskey. Having lived in Arizona, we normally pronounce names with a Spanish pronunciation. That does not work in Montana. This is Lima, as in the bean, not the capital of Peru. However, the local school mascot is the Lima Bears, not the Lima Beans.

The ride to get here was through some of my favorite parts of Montana. The high mountain sagebrush passes reminded me of Tibet, with endless rolling hills and nobody around. The more remote the road, the more friendly the drivers. The past couple of days we would never pass a vehicle without a friendly exchange of hand waves.

The weather has gotten much cooler and wetter than when we began our trip a few weeks ago. Last night it started raining just when we were setting up camp. It rained really hard and the wind blew for several hours into the evening. I had to rig up a tarp next to the tent to be able to cook in the rain. But when we woke up this morning, it was bright and sunny once again. The air is clear and pure once again. Today’s ride was pleasantly easy after yesterday’s long ride up a big hill and into a headwind. We spent most of today coasting down a long winding canyon with gentle tailwind. Everything is going really well on this trip, and I’m glad Michelle and I are doing this together.

47 miles, 5:32/7:00

We climb out of the Bannack State Park fairly early this morning knowing the winds will probably be kicking up and we’ll be heading right into them. Instead of our usual 8-8:30 wake up time we set my watch for 7:30 this morning and we’re out of camp by 9:30. It’s still chilly, but the sun is out and it’s warming us up quickly.

We’re traversing the Wild West out here: big wide gravel roads rolling through the sagebrush, hill after hill. After about an hour I feel warmed up, knees and all, and we make good progress. Today is all about climbing, and we set our sights on a big Divide crossing, Big Sheep Divide, which will take all day to attain. The sights slowly change from sage to bushes to trees, with a healthy sprinkling of cows throughout.

We stop about every hour to hour and a half to eat. We just keep eating and eating. I’m sort of amazed and horrified by the amounts of food I’m consuming.

We wind up a grassy river valley full of cows. As we approach groups of them on the road Dave commences to ringing the bell on his bike. If they’re very stubborn I ring mine as well. Cows are so stupid. Sometimes they’ll freak out and run straight ahead, stop, turn around and see you, and then get all freaked out and do the same thing again. What’s up with that?

We can see the pass up ahead for quite a while before we get there. We’ve been climbing gradually all day on rough roads, but soon the road steepens and gets rougher and looser. The last two or three miles are tough, but we stick to it and soon make it to the top. We congratulate each other on another good Divide crossing and put on some extra clothes for the reward: the descent. It’s getting windy and it’s just starting to sprinkle rain. We know from the map we’re just a few miles from our camp spot and we just can’t wait.

We start down and after only a few short minutes the road goes back up. It’s very hilly here and I think to myself, no biggie, it will go back down once we get over this hill. But no. We get over that hill and there’s another to climb. And another. And then it’s a gradual incline that looks to never end. We’re back in sagebrush cattle country and we don’t see any sign of the creeks that show on the map. We can camp anywhere now, we just need to find water to filter and we’ll be OK. We agree to stop as soon as we find some water.

The turn indicated on our map as our stopping point finally appears. But there’s no clear sign of water and the road that goes to the lake looks to be longer than we can handle at this point. It’s late and really starting to rain now. So we head up the road to check it out and pass over a small creek. It’s completely hidden if you’re very far away from it, as it’s a small trough that runs through the sage with no other vegetation to indicate a riparian area. We quickly decide to camp right by this little dirt road and go about setting up camp. We’re really getting efficient at this now. But one thing we haven’t dealt with yet is cooking in the rain. There are no trees here at all, the rain is coming down and the wind is starting to howl. Dave whips out the spare tarp, brought just for such a time, and rigs up a porch for the tent using the bicycles and the tent to anchor it. It works great! Dave cooks up a great dinner and we’re warm and dry while it’s just crazy outside. Tonight we sleep well to the lullaby of rain on the tent.

The other day while biking from an enclosed area of trees into an open grassy field, we saw a young man running shirtless through the field with a compound bow held high in the air. He had a grin on his face as though he just returned from a meal with ol’ Roy. As the man was collecting his missed arrows, the cows in the field were stampeeding and making a big fuss of noise. Our sudden presence initiated an observer effect causing the assailant to retreat to his white truck containing three other males. The cows continued to scream their moo’s. As we rode by, the four guys left the scene. A half mile away, the sound of the wailing cows reverberated in the canyon.

What transpired during those brief moments? Was this redneck tribal warfare involving tit-for-tat killings of rivals’ cattle? We may have had an encounter with the up and coming Montana mafia. Or, was this four impoverished brothers out to hunt some meat to feed their starving families back at their shared trailer? At least they were carpooling. And, if you were to hunt large game in Montana, then you might as well begin with cows. I would say their numbers have gotten too high. With each cow pooping on average 100 pounds of manure a day, it really makes a mess of the land and streams… Or, was this a dangerous combination of drunken human breath and a secretion from the stupid gland? For some reason, stupidity seems to reach a maximum when it involves four shirtless males, a truck, and a dirt road. I’m not exactly sure what happened on this day, but I had the feeling it was a case of people hurting other people through the suffering of animals. I don’t really understand it.

We have moved on to map 2! We’re making progress! Here’s where we’re headed next:

39 miles, 3:50/4:40

Today we face headwinds almost the entire day. What should have been an easy day was pretty difficult again. Sometimes the winds come straight from the side so hard I swerve to the side several feet. It is actually kind of fun, I’ve never ridden in such winds. Sometimes I feel like I’m leaning 45 degrees to the side, though of course I’m not. It’s all very exciting, actually. We’re glad it isn’t a busy road so we have room to float around a bit. But Dave doesn’t float that much. He’s pretty solid when he’s riding. He’s got about a million pounds sitting low on his bike in his panniers, which he’s taken to calling the Pigs, and it looks like the wind hardly hits him.

We get to the state park, which is a campground at the edge of a pretty big ghost town. Bannack was a mining town through various phases of mining from the 1860s through the 1940s. Almost all the buildings–something like 4 dozen–are preserved and we are allowed to just walk inside and tour on our own, using a small booklet as our guide. We have spent the day riding through sage brush and rolling hills that have reminded me of the wild west, and here we get to see a real western ghost town too. It’s a fun evening and a beautiful camp spot by a river. Other campers are friendly and curious.

37 miles, 3:55/6:00

Much of today’s ride is paved, though we are riding against the wind a lot of the time, with rain here and there near the end of the day, so it isn’t quite as easy as it could have been (I know, complain complain…).

We stop in Wise River (there’s a bar, a mercantile with one gas pump circa 1960, and a restaurant) to get groceries, and end up spending nearly $50 for one bag of food. Robert gets there just before us and says he doesn’t think the country folk know what to think of him with his jersey and shaved legs. He’s a roadie from head to toe, even though he’s riding a loaded mountain bike. Dave and I eat our ice cream bar, drink our soda, pack in our groceries and move on.

The afternoon is spent dodging cowpies on the wet, paved road. It’s not easy. They’re everywhere. I’m not kidding. After a couple hours I’m nearly sick to my stomach from the stench and the flying cowpie-water coming off the back of Dave’s wheel as it continues to sprinkle rain. We’ve seen cows probably every single day of our tour but today I’m just irritated to the core. I don’t want to see another cow in my life. But I know I will. Probably every single day of the rest of the tour. I know they’re docile and can be cute, and lot’s of people like to eat them. But they’re stinking nasty beasts and I wish we could just grow them on another planet. Or at least keep them off the roads. OK there, I feel better. Sorry about that.

We are near what will probably be our last fire in Montana. At the campground, another beautiful but empty one by a river, ash is falling by sundown once again. We look forward to clean air and ashless picnic tables, but we do appreciate the quiet that comes with the place to ourselves. The river is wonderful and we sleep well.

I’m tired and my knees seem to need a break, so we take a rest day at Beaver Dam campground, even though we can’t find the beaver dam and the stream is a muddy, cow-trodden mess. It doesn’t matter, we spend our day climbing the boulders that top the hills around us and reading in the tent when it rains.

Oh, and visiting with Christian and Frank.

Some time around six AM we hear a kid singing or talking to himself, a yipe once or twice, and the tap-tap-tap of a walking stick. Then when I finally get out of the tent at ten he’s right there within minutes, talking quickly and asking me what I’m doing and telling his Pa Pa that we’re awake. Then Pa Pa comes walking in our camp and introduces Christian, his grandson, “He’ll pester ya, he’s awfully bored.” Frank is the campground host, Christian is his grandson who’s come up for the week. Christian sits at the table and plays with his walking stick and Frank leans on his walking stick and talks for probably at least forty-five minutes. I hear more about the family and Christian’s boredom than I could have thought questions to ask. Dave stays in the tent.

We end up getting visits from Christian and Frank several times throughout the day.

That night our friend Robert catches up with us and sets up camp next to us. Of course, Frank and Christian are there within a couple minutes getting the low-down on the new residents. I guess with the fires the campground has been pretty darn empty for weeks on end. Both Frank and Christian are going nearly insane with boredom (our prognosis, not theirs). Robert, being the clever professor that he is, knows exactly how to employ the young Christian who seems full of energy. He hands Christian his tent and asks if he would set it up “right over there” for him. Christian is eager to help. After that it’s fetching water from the well.

We finally start cooking dinner and poor Frank is still hovering, leaning on his walking stick and offering a comment now and then. We invite Robert to eat with us once again (we share bits of food and tasty candy bars with each other) and I think we nearly consume our meal with Christian and Frank just hovering there. They’d already eaten.

In the morning we pack up, feeling rested and ready to get on the road again. Frank and Christian are there to visit–Frank giving advice and Christian getting a cup of hot cocoa from Robert. They go back and forth between our two camps as we eat, clean up, pack up, and get ready to go. They finally head off to go fishing just before we leave. I think we made one of our earliest departures yet.

39 miles, biking time 4:30, total time 6:30

We make a quick post and leave the KOA in Butte, starting with a steep climb on pavement and then we’re in cattle country the rest of the time. Rolling hills keep us pushing hard for a good coast over and over. We make our fifth divide crossing and then a thunder storm rolls in. We make the long, steep, roller-coaster descent on a dirt road with lightning hitting the ridges closer all the time. We get down just in time to roll under the I15 overpass and miss the worst of the downpour. It doesn’t last long, but it seems at least a couple inches of rain come down in that time. We’re glad for our rain gear and the overpass, and pass the time eating–something we’re doing more and more of all the time.

Then we cross a valley and head up a canyon toward Beaver Dam Campground, and for the first time since this morning we see a house, then another, and a couple more. This is rugged Montana backcountry and I wonder who lives in each house I pass. But all is quiet.

Until Dave comes to a skidding stop.

I look around to see what he’s spotted (a bear? another deer?) when I finally see her come trotting out to greet us…

Her name is Penelope (because she is loyal, her owner says) and she’s the most friendly dog to greet us on this trip. We don’t catch her owner’s name, but he offers us water and advice for the road ahead, and asks Dave all about St. Bernards once he finds out Dave’s had two. After chatting a bit we head on to our campsite just a few miles further.