Rainy Days

After two rest days in Missoula we pushed off yesterday morning with a rather daunting grey horizon. After riding through drizzle and gusty winds for the better part of the morning we pulled over to fix a popped tire under the covered porch of a bar/restaurant in Victor, pop. 800. Just then the skies let loose. We hung at the bar for the better part of two hours drinking tea and waiting for the heavy rain to let up. There we met Janice, among others, who is the cook and also the local fear monger. Her stories went on and on concerning the local wildlife and what they're capable of...packs of hungry wolves, aggressive black bears, an over abundance of mountain lions, etc. On and on, if you didn't know any better, making you believe around the next corner they're all flipping a coin to determine who gets you for dinner. After realizing the rain was sticking around, and before Janice started configuring ways to mount a shotgun to our bicycle frames, we said our goodbyes and pushed off into the rain as she finished the last slug or her lunch break Budweiser. Twenty more miles through the rain brought us to the realization that riding a bicycle in the rain just isn't much fun, and to the Super 8 for the night.

The storm stuck around for the night and this morning we set off into a steady headwind along with some drizzle. Met two interesting people while taking breaks today. First was Lowell, the tour guide in a really cool museum with a lot of local history...there's a lot of Native American history in these parts. Lowell was an inspiration...a man in his seventies with the energy of a twenty year old. Then we met a lady, while waiting out the rain, who along with her husband traveled and lived along the Pacific Crest Trail, by horseback, for an entire year. They came down off the trail for two months in the winter and lived in a teepee by Redmond, OR. A rather interesting story. 

In just the last five miles of today we rode through a short but heavy and drenching rain/sleet storm, saw a  bald eagle from a stones throw away, I fell over on my bike, and we somehow missed 7-8 big horn sheep that were "right next to the road". We're shacked up in a little cabin for the night as sleet and snow are expected through the night just over our next pass. 

Also, for the long winded readers, we passed and admired this "ancient medicine tree" today.

 

According to Nez Perce religious teachings, a god named Coyote battled a huge ram at this site. The ram charged and, missing Coyote, buried his horns deep in the trunk of this large yellow pine. Coyote destroyed the ram, but left it's horn embedded in the tree. Indians found the scene of the battle and draped the horn with beads, declaring the tree a religious site....