Montana....you gloomy

Montana's been tough. She's chewed us up and today, God willing, she'll spit us out when we cross into Yellowstone National Park and Wyoming. The whole state has been beautiful, however, the weather the past week has been rather unfavorable. It seems when we weren't ducking from one place to the next trying to avoid the rain there was a relentless headwind trying to blow us the other way.

Since our last posting....the weather cleared up enough overnight to allow us to push off from our cabin and climb 3000' up and over our highest pass yet at 7,250'. After reaching the top we cruised 25 miles into the little town of Wisdom. Along the way we met a handful of cyclists and also spent some time at the big hole battlefield visitors center, which was a very interesting walk through of the battle between the Nez Perce and the U.S. Army that occurred in the valley. 

 

 

That night we were very lucky to find this covered pavilion in the local park, which we deemed the "hobo hideout", as the skies weren't looking promising.

 

 

Good thing as it rained all night and into the early afternoon the next day. Pushing off after a late breakfast and too many cups of coffee.....

 

 

 .....we were stopped by a local fella warning us of the "rainbow gathering" up ahead, informing us we should most certainly take a reroute around the chaos. We had been warned of the gathering in passing through the last 3-4 towns. The locals were panicked and on high alert to "protect their own", however, in our passing through the "chaos" amounted to a handful of dreadlocked kids hanging around town. Upon riding into Dillon, and our campground for the night, we met the campground host, Bob, with a 8" Rambo knife dangling off his belt. Bob needed to first assure himself we weren't "rainbow people" before granting us admittance into the campground....so after successfully passing a brief "how do I know you're not a hippie" interview we threw out our tent for the night.

We deemed the following day "eccentric Bob day". We met our second Bob at the grocery store in the morning. This fella has rode his bike all over the States. Every summer he rides a different tour, or does a hitchhike/bicycle tour combo. Rather interesting fella. Also interesting to see a fella in dirty sweatpants riding a $4-5,000 bike.

 

Our third Bob meeting in twelve hours came by the way of Bob in Twin Bridges. He biked the same route we're on back in the '50's when he was just 15 years old. When discovering Sarah's hands have been hurting he took us back to his house and modified her bike to remedy the problem. Very nice guy, with a really interesting story, and I can only dream of having a head of hair like his when in my seventies.

 

 

 

That night we stayed in Virginia City, an old mining town where all the original buildings from the 1800's have been preserved. The next day after a steep uphill we cruised down into the great little town of Ennis. After a late breakfast we emerged back outside to a super powered headwind. After a couple miles of attempting to peddle on we threw in the towel and headed back to town for the night with hopes of a calmer day the next..... It was for the first two hours of the morning, after which we spent the rest of the day peddling hard and inching along. Easily the hardest day of the ride thusfar. We covered half the distance we're used to in a day with twice the effort. Towards the end of the day we met a group of ten riding the same route, which were nice enough to share their dinner of hotdogs, venison steaks, potatoes, veggies, and beers with us. The following is a picture of the "tent city" of last night. That's it for now. On to a new state......Wyoming!