30 miles, 4 hours on the bike, 5 hrs 20 mins. with breaks

Another day of climbing but shorter in length, though the last bit was so steep and without a break that I had to stop a couple times to catch my breath. My bike weighs a million pounds. In a month I’ll feel so much stronger!

I’m sitting here by the lake and the fish are jumping, we just saw a moose across the lake, and we nearly have the place to ourselves. It feels like we’re days from any town. Mostly dirt today, rough roads that we hardly ever see anyone driving on. We’re getting into a bit of smoke from the fires around this part of the state, but not too bad.

Edited to add: There was a wall of smoke upon cresting the Whitefish divide, and the second half of the day was like riding through a smoky campground. We know there are several big fires, but don’t know which are the closest and where this smoke is coming from. Fires are on the front page of every newspaper we can see…