"I could hear the iron roof above me creaking and banging, then suddenly the earth started moving side to side".
Caramel Pig
Peddling the Dirt across North America
Shaking
Leg 4.1
Missoula - Lewistown Montana
384.50 Miles – 618.79 Kilometres
Total distance ridden 1430.52 Miles – 2302.19 Kilometres
384.50 Miles – 618.79 Kilometres
Total distance ridden 1430.52 Miles – 2302.19 Kilometres
Well, we had a wonderful Fourth of July. We spent the morning doing admin, spoke to our Lithuanian foster child and my Mum in two separate Skype calls and in the afternoon we walked our camera around Missoula. It is quite a pretty river city and was well worth the stop. In the evening our host had offered to take us out for an Independence Day barbecue. I ate bison sausage, drank beer and shot tin cans off a fence. Meat, beer and guns, how much more American could it be? People turned up in their pickup trucks and spoke with a slight Montana drawl. They talked about their families and hunting. They referred to themselves as rednecks. The only odd things were, they liked Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and were in favour of gun control and healthcare. Yep, they seemed to me to be the world's only left wing rednecks. It was a fascinating and educational evening. It was such a blessing to be able to share this holiday weekend with our host. Somewhere around dusk, five of us jumped on our bicycles and rode back into town.
We rose at six in the morning, pumped bucketloads of air into our tyres and set off to the Black Coffee Roasting Company. One of yesterday's redneck Democrats either owned or worked at it. The place looked like a corrugated iron aircraft hanger sitting across the road from the railway line. It was very industrial. We dumped our bikes out the front opposite shunting trains and I purchased a light-roasted Long Black. It was divine, possibly the best coffee I have had inside the USA. It seemed that quite a few people from yesterday's celebrations were there. We whiled away almost an hour of valuable cool cycling time talking, relaxing and savouring the coffee.
It was with sadness that we dragged ourselves away from this wonderful place and headed eastwards along State Highway 200 toward Great Falls.
On the way out of town Sharon was made very happy as we stumbled upon one of America's very elusive Post Offices. It was another long compulsory stop as stamps were franked and cards were sent to far-flung corners of the world.
This also signified the start of a third two-and-a-half day climb and the start of our final major mountain range. We were so looking forward to climbing the famous Rocky Mountains.
So with the temperature climbing rapidly, uphill we went. Sharon's chain came off just short of Clearwater. I had to double back up a wee hill to find her. Somehow the chain had managed to wedge itself quite hard into the cogs, I had to take two bolts off her lower chainring to free the thing. It had snuck up over 100 degrees, so was hot nasty work. By the time we got into town, I was quite shattered. We found a well equipped roadside rest area that had both toilets and water. We perched ourselves in the shade and boiled our couscous for lunch. In an effort to cool off we peddled across the junction into Stoney's Lounge and Casino. It had about a 50/50 split of people in it. Half were rednecks seemingly addicted to alcohol while the rest were RV owners seemingly addicted to gambling. Neither of them talked to each other, but all were friendly to us. I think we were a bit of a novelty. We purchased crisps and root beer. It was a fun way to waste an hour.
We were supposed to spend the night here, the day was still early but there was no reason to stop, so we pushed on another 20 kms to Orvando. This ended up being a very good choice. Unbeknown to us this was where Adventure Cycling's Lewis & Clark trail intersected with the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. This little dot on the map was totally set up for cyclists. There was a sign welcoming us into town telling us where we could camp. Unfortunately it was late in the day, the wagon was already taken and the jail was full of people from France. Sharon popped into the awesome store to buy tomorrow's food, before we found our way to a baseball diamond and camped in the dugout. We could see an electrical storm coming and wanted a bit of shelter.
We pitched our tent and promptly fell to sleep. Somewhere in the middle of the night we were quite literally violently thrown awake. Sharon woke first and said 'that was an earthquake', I replied 'na, it was just the storm or the sprinkler system'. Sharon got up and went to the loo, next thing I knew I could hear the iron roof above me creaking and banging, then suddenly the earth started moving side to side. Dang it was a big aftershock. I was pretty glad I wasn't Sharon shaking away in the Portaloo, still if you are going to have the crap scared out of you, the porta-potty is a good place to be.
We rose early and with little fuss stumbled our way 40 kms into Lincoln. Here we found CNN and other camera crews who had all rushed in to get the scoop from the epicentre of this 5.8 earthquake. It was about morning tea time, all the locals were coming into town and checking up on each other. People were talking about damage done and things falling off shelves. We purchased our day's supplies and carried on.
It was a hot drudge from here on and was 120 degrees on the bikes when we pulled into Aspen Grove Campground. We were exhausted and I threw myself on the ground in the shade of a large tree. Quite suddenly I heard the sound of a large freight train rushing up from the belly of the earth. Then there was a moment of silence before the earth started rocking and rolling again, it was impressively long. Sharon was up and running, though I am not sure where she was going. I stayed lying on the ground thinking, hey this is cool.
But it wasn't cool, it was hot and it took me about 30-40 minutes of swatting flies to get our bear bag thrown over a tree for the evening.
The next day was a summit day and we love summiting. However, cycling through the pine trees over the Rogers Pass and over the world-famous Rocky Mountains was such an anticlimax. We were 5610 feet or 1707 metres above sea level, yet it was an easy, rumble-strip infested climb. We summited at 10:30 in the morning. We stopped and got our photos taken in front of the Continental Divide sign. I took a video of me pouring water out of my bottle and just out of shot viewers were led to believe the water was heading west or east, though in reality it was hitting the hot tarmac and turning into steam. Yep, the highest point in our journey was quite insignificant in comparison to the Cascade and Bitterroot mountain ranges.
What was significant was that this point was the end of our training ride and from here until the eastern mountains our goal was to increase our mileage from a daily minimum of 50 km to 80 km.
We set off down the Rockies. At first it was wonderful zooming through shaded switchbacks, but then quite suddenly the road straightened, the pine trees disappeared and the descent stopped. Coming down the mountain we dropped 794 metres and climbed 453 metres. Most of the climbing was two nasty, steep and and very hot climbs. It was a lot harder cycling down the Rogers than going up it.
We were absolutely stuffed by the time we hit the hot, miserable hole of Bowman's Corner. This intersection consisted of a few long-closed shops and ramshackle trailer homes. We wheeled on up to the first trailer and asked a lady if we could sit under a tree in the far corner of their property. The woman in her harsh hillbilly accent kindly consented, without showing any sign of curiosity about who we were or what we were doing. We pushed our bikes towards the shade while she plonked herself on an abandoned scruffy car seat under another tree and settled in to watch us.
She had a dog, the dog's name was Roxy. Roxy was a curious dog and wanted to come over and have a look at what we were cooking. Roxy wasn't allowed to visit us. We know this because...for about an hour, every five minutes the lady sitting in the shade by her trailer shouted, 'Roxy' f-ing get back here', 'Roxy get the f- back here', 'Roxy I'm f-ing tellin' ya' and on and on it went. We were too stinkin' hot and exhausted to care.
About two hours later we rode back to the 200, turned left at the lights and struggled up the dry hot 287 all the way to Augusta. When we arrived we were carbohydrate-starved and quite capable of eating every bit of pasta, bread and potato the town had. We rode our usual sortie, up one side of the street and back down the other. Most of the town seemed to be at a place called Western Bar. Sweaty and smelly, we pulled up and asked what was happening. It turned out to be the bar's fifth birthday and for a two dollar donation we could eat as much as we wanted. Oh my goodness did we literally pig out, they had a hog on a spit cooking away right on the street. First I went for the potatoes, fries and crisps, then I started on as much meat as I could find and finished off the meal with plates full of home-made cookies. It was like manna from heaven right there on the Lewis & Clark cycle trail. It was the first time I had felt full for quite some time.
We were told by the locals that this day equalled their record high temperature. I don't know how hot is was - after seeing 49˚C on my barometer, I had decided it was better not to know.
We asked around for a place to sleep and were eventually given permission to sleep in the rodeo grounds. Where there are horses there is horse poo, where there is horse poo there are flies. It wasn't the best spot, but it was free and with a toilet.
We rose at 5 a.m., had a quick, uncomfortable breakfast among the flies and rode into the gas station to fill up our water bottles. We were heading to Great Falls and trying to get there quickly. It had been a little hard to organise this stop, but basically for months I had been pestering the local Vineyard church to host us for a night. We hadn't been close to a Vineyard since Boise, tomorrow was a Sunday and we were excited about being hosted by people from our tribe and visiting their church. So we upped the anti and peddled quickly. This was made easier by most of the day being slightly downhill. For the first 23 km we flew past deer, sunflowers and cacti. We knocked on the door of a church in Simms hoping to use a toilet. They had cold, cold air conditioning on, which made me realise that it must be getting hot outside. We hit the 200 again and as the day grew hotter the traffic got heavier.
At Vaughn we dashed into the air conditioning of a post office and sat on the floor among the letterboxes and cooled down whilst snacking on bagels. We were soon forced on to a busy frontage road alongside the I15. To me, coming into a busy larger town after cycling days on quiet country roads is just horrible, it feels like someone sneaking death metal into my jazz playlist. We trudged along getting hotter and grumpier. Eventually we stopped at another scuzzy casino and purchased ice cold root beer.
The other annoying thing about big towns is that it is hard to keep realistic expectations about distance. We tend to get all excited about finally getting to the town, only to discover that we have to cycle 10 km through it to find where we are staying. We were smarter this time and decided to stop in Rhodes Park for another bagel, we didn't want to be both hot and hangry for what turned out to be the next eight miles of riding. We crossed the Missouri River and stayed beside it on a rather lumpy independent cycle path. The path was never ending and the air just seemed to be getting hotter and hotter. There was no way I was going to check our barometer and freak out, we already knew it was hot. It was somewhere around here where Sharon had a meltdown, she had finally overheated. In hindsight we shouldn't have taken to cycle paths and should have crawled along Great Falls' quiet, shady residential streets. I knew we were close to our destination, being hot and bothered myself I urged Sharon forward and before we knew it, we were cycling down 7th Ave N toward our hosts. We arrived well overheated and at our wits' end.
On our blog we have a page entitled 'How to host stinky, hungry & tired tour cyclists?' Our absolutely amazing hosts had clearly spent hours studying and memorising it. From memory, they met us on their driveway and totally ignored our death stares and quickly helped us with our gear and got us out of the heat. Inside, it felt like they had their heaters set to +50°C, but they assured me it was closer to -50°C, they immediately started pumping ice cold water into us and thus lowering our body temperature and transforming the monsters back into humans. After having showers and snacks we started to notice that the house was quite cool and for the first time we started to appreciate that our hosts had been a little concerned and were doing their best to look after us.
Whilst our washing was whirling its way through the machine, Anthony took me to a bike shop and a pub for a delicious Montana IPA. The whole family all smiling shared a carbohydrate packed pasta meal with us. It was interesting hearing about their lives, joys and struggles. In such a polarised country, it seemed that this was a family prepared to overlook differences in search of common ground. I really really appreciated their warm family welcome and instantly regretted that we hadn't planned to stay two nights.
Sharon and I missed church, we missed fellowshipping with other believers oh so much, but what we missed even more was the natural and comfortable fit with worshipping in our own movement. It was great to visit Great Falls Vineyard Church this Sunday morning. On the way home we stopped at an outdoor store and purchased another insulated water bottle. After a quick lunch and with sad hearts, we received goodbye hugs and gifts from the kids and set out on to the early afternoon roads.
The first few miles were along a busy Highway 87, before turning north up Highwood Road. The whole area seemed to be Airforce bases and nuclear missile silos. It was a bit crazy of us to start our 50 miles at one o'clock, but even though it was hot, it was not roasting cooking, and our Thermos and new water bottles were packed with ice. The terrain was pleasant and lumpy. We sped on all the way to Highwood where our carbohydrate tank emptied. Highwood was a quiet wee town in the middle of nowhere that boasted an immaculate independent cycle path. We stopped at a tidy wee bar that was supported by a gaggle of pickup trucks. The pub was one small room with a few tables, a few pokie machines and a bar that was propped up by a bunch of whisky-drinking men crammed in so tight that their white straw cowboy hats must have been rubbing.
We had a lovely feed of burgers and fries washed down with the now very familiar root beer. When the waiter came over he asked how the meal was. I said 'oh the beef was particularly good'. It turned out the farmer that grew the beef was one of the belt buckle-brandishing ranchers lining up empty glasses inches away over my shoulder. Well, word got out and it turned out we were the flavour of the month. All of a sudden we were being offered a ride to our destination of Fort Benton, but first the driver wanted to have another beer and for me to have one as well.
Jumping in pickup trucks with boot-clad cow cockies who have been drinking their afternoon away is just a bit too ludicrously stupid to even consider. He offered me both beer and bourbon and some for the road. Cycling with alcohol in me is stupid and absolutely crazy, especially when it was over 100 °F outside. We quietly snuck back out on to the burning afternoon roads under a storming sky, rode beautiful undulating roads and enjoyed watching pregnant clouds colour crops and pastures.
Late afternoon we crossed the wonderful Missouri river again and cruised the streets and closed shops of Fort Denton searching for anything. We found some sort of canoe launching campground that was very clean and had good hot showers. After last night's hospitality, even this excellent facility felt quite lonely.
I awoke the next morn to the delightful sight of deer rollicking in the river, it was an excellent way to start the day.
For some reason we left camp a little late and tired. We swung by the local market to buy our day's food. Outside the store a lovely lady approached me and said she had seen us ride into town and would have loved to invite us in for the night; she never gave any indication of why she didn't. We would have so loved to had been with people.
It was quite a steep climb out of the valley on quiet roads. We decided to detour slightly into Geraldine. We have a lovely Geraldine in New Zealand and for some reason I was expecting this version to be similar. I was so, so wrong. This tired wee town had lost its soul and resembled a tumbleweed-infested cowboy outpost. We stopped at a bar for some less-than-average fries and root beer. We were glad to leave town and ride through a few hail showers.
Our next stop on State Highway 80 was another lonely ramshackle town called Square Butte. Here we stopped and cooked lunch on the deck of a bar that had recently shut down. We rushed the food because the wind was picking up and a storm was blowing in and we wanted to be on our packed bikes when it hit. Just before we left, a very sad and dishevelled woman approached us and went into a long monologue about her lost dog. We listened patiently, but couldn't be of any help.
Five miles after leaving, the sky suddenly got dark and we got smashed by gale-force winds and rain. We hurriedly rode under the shelter of some tired willows. No sooner had we got off the road than at least 15 semi-truck and trailers appeared out of the darkness. They were also struggling with the storm and were using all of the road. They were hauling combine harvesters and all the necessary accessories. The storm and trucks were an exciting few minutes and a reminder of just how vulnerable we cyclists are.
We turned east on to the 81 and ploughed our way along undulating dry roads past seemingly miles and miles of railway oil tanker carriages into the tiny and delightful ghost town of Coffee Creek. We rode the gravel streets, posed for photos and not finding any reason to stop, rode on to Denton.
We hadn't been able to find a place to buy our tea all day and the supermarket here was closed, so we stopped at a nice family-run bar on the main road in Denton for another burger before settling in for the night at the local town park. We shared our campsite with a Dutch father and son who were also on a cycling adventure.
In the morning we were up well before the supermarket opened, so were forced to buy our breakfast at the Shade Tree Cafe. As usual, and to the stunned amazement of the waitress, we ordered the largest possible breakfast, in this case the formidable 'Long Haulers' eggs, sausage and pancakes. The local Lions Club was holding a meeting this morning and people were very friendly to us. We talked with club members about how they could make the town more cyclist-friendly.
In my trip log I describe this as an uneventful day, but in reality this was the day that I travelled from loving Montana to hating it, but that story will be mostly told in the next chapter.
Once again we struggled to find a public place to stop for lunch and once again were forced to stop on private farm land and once again, within minutes of arriving, the farmer turned up to find out what we were doing. It still baffles me how they actually knew we were there. On this occasion we were quite close to his home.
We were chatting away to him on the side of the road, somehow the conversation got to church and next thing we knew he was telling us how happy he was that he finally had a great Christian president. This was the first time I had met someone who was actually prepared to voice such a thing. Instantly vision's of Planet Hollywood and some very childish bullying behaviour during the election debates flooded my mind. However, in effort to not offend, I replied with a 'so I have heard'.
This lovely man was so excited to find an ally that he eagerly invited us back to his home where we could fill our water bottles and use his toilet. We sat on his front lawn for about 30 minutes, ate delicious chocolate cake with ice-cream whilst chatting to him and his wife. It was a beautiful snapshot of rural Montana. I was amazed at how people who love such a divisive and possibly hate-filled president can be so kind and loving themselves.
Such things were on my mind as we were cycling down West Washington street in Lewistown. We were looking forward to two nights staying with a Warmshowers host. As was our habit when searching for addresses, we were cycling along following the map on my phone, looking at letterbox numbers, hoping that the home we would be staying in would be some big beautiful mansion with lovely hosts. I looked ahead and spotted a house covered in religious yard signs, most of them telling me to find Jesus or burn in hell. My heart sank and became full of dread: this was to be the house we were staying in. Right here at the end of stage 3.1 was the moment I totally fell out of love with this brutal and beautiful state. It took me years after this moment to have anything positive to say about Montana. Such a beautiful state ruined by interactions with a few locals. So, so sad.
We rose at six in the morning, pumped bucketloads of air into our tyres and set off to the Black Coffee Roasting Company. One of yesterday's redneck Democrats either owned or worked at it. The place looked like a corrugated iron aircraft hanger sitting across the road from the railway line. It was very industrial. We dumped our bikes out the front opposite shunting trains and I purchased a light-roasted Long Black. It was divine, possibly the best coffee I have had inside the USA. It seemed that quite a few people from yesterday's celebrations were there. We whiled away almost an hour of valuable cool cycling time talking, relaxing and savouring the coffee.
It was with sadness that we dragged ourselves away from this wonderful place and headed eastwards along State Highway 200 toward Great Falls.
On the way out of town Sharon was made very happy as we stumbled upon one of America's very elusive Post Offices. It was another long compulsory stop as stamps were franked and cards were sent to far-flung corners of the world.
This also signified the start of a third two-and-a-half day climb and the start of our final major mountain range. We were so looking forward to climbing the famous Rocky Mountains.
So with the temperature climbing rapidly, uphill we went. Sharon's chain came off just short of Clearwater. I had to double back up a wee hill to find her. Somehow the chain had managed to wedge itself quite hard into the cogs, I had to take two bolts off her lower chainring to free the thing. It had snuck up over 100 degrees, so was hot nasty work. By the time we got into town, I was quite shattered. We found a well equipped roadside rest area that had both toilets and water. We perched ourselves in the shade and boiled our couscous for lunch. In an effort to cool off we peddled across the junction into Stoney's Lounge and Casino. It had about a 50/50 split of people in it. Half were rednecks seemingly addicted to alcohol while the rest were RV owners seemingly addicted to gambling. Neither of them talked to each other, but all were friendly to us. I think we were a bit of a novelty. We purchased crisps and root beer. It was a fun way to waste an hour.
We were supposed to spend the night here, the day was still early but there was no reason to stop, so we pushed on another 20 kms to Orvando. This ended up being a very good choice. Unbeknown to us this was where Adventure Cycling's Lewis & Clark trail intersected with the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. This little dot on the map was totally set up for cyclists. There was a sign welcoming us into town telling us where we could camp. Unfortunately it was late in the day, the wagon was already taken and the jail was full of people from France. Sharon popped into the awesome store to buy tomorrow's food, before we found our way to a baseball diamond and camped in the dugout. We could see an electrical storm coming and wanted a bit of shelter.
We pitched our tent and promptly fell to sleep. Somewhere in the middle of the night we were quite literally violently thrown awake. Sharon woke first and said 'that was an earthquake', I replied 'na, it was just the storm or the sprinkler system'. Sharon got up and went to the loo, next thing I knew I could hear the iron roof above me creaking and banging, then suddenly the earth started moving side to side. Dang it was a big aftershock. I was pretty glad I wasn't Sharon shaking away in the Portaloo, still if you are going to have the crap scared out of you, the porta-potty is a good place to be.
We rose early and with little fuss stumbled our way 40 kms into Lincoln. Here we found CNN and other camera crews who had all rushed in to get the scoop from the epicentre of this 5.8 earthquake. It was about morning tea time, all the locals were coming into town and checking up on each other. People were talking about damage done and things falling off shelves. We purchased our day's supplies and carried on.
It was a hot drudge from here on and was 120 degrees on the bikes when we pulled into Aspen Grove Campground. We were exhausted and I threw myself on the ground in the shade of a large tree. Quite suddenly I heard the sound of a large freight train rushing up from the belly of the earth. Then there was a moment of silence before the earth started rocking and rolling again, it was impressively long. Sharon was up and running, though I am not sure where she was going. I stayed lying on the ground thinking, hey this is cool.
But it wasn't cool, it was hot and it took me about 30-40 minutes of swatting flies to get our bear bag thrown over a tree for the evening.
The next day was a summit day and we love summiting. However, cycling through the pine trees over the Rogers Pass and over the world-famous Rocky Mountains was such an anticlimax. We were 5610 feet or 1707 metres above sea level, yet it was an easy, rumble-strip infested climb. We summited at 10:30 in the morning. We stopped and got our photos taken in front of the Continental Divide sign. I took a video of me pouring water out of my bottle and just out of shot viewers were led to believe the water was heading west or east, though in reality it was hitting the hot tarmac and turning into steam. Yep, the highest point in our journey was quite insignificant in comparison to the Cascade and Bitterroot mountain ranges.
What was significant was that this point was the end of our training ride and from here until the eastern mountains our goal was to increase our mileage from a daily minimum of 50 km to 80 km.
We set off down the Rockies. At first it was wonderful zooming through shaded switchbacks, but then quite suddenly the road straightened, the pine trees disappeared and the descent stopped. Coming down the mountain we dropped 794 metres and climbed 453 metres. Most of the climbing was two nasty, steep and and very hot climbs. It was a lot harder cycling down the Rogers than going up it.
We were absolutely stuffed by the time we hit the hot, miserable hole of Bowman's Corner. This intersection consisted of a few long-closed shops and ramshackle trailer homes. We wheeled on up to the first trailer and asked a lady if we could sit under a tree in the far corner of their property. The woman in her harsh hillbilly accent kindly consented, without showing any sign of curiosity about who we were or what we were doing. We pushed our bikes towards the shade while she plonked herself on an abandoned scruffy car seat under another tree and settled in to watch us.
She had a dog, the dog's name was Roxy. Roxy was a curious dog and wanted to come over and have a look at what we were cooking. Roxy wasn't allowed to visit us. We know this because...for about an hour, every five minutes the lady sitting in the shade by her trailer shouted, 'Roxy' f-ing get back here', 'Roxy get the f- back here', 'Roxy I'm f-ing tellin' ya' and on and on it went. We were too stinkin' hot and exhausted to care.
About two hours later we rode back to the 200, turned left at the lights and struggled up the dry hot 287 all the way to Augusta. When we arrived we were carbohydrate-starved and quite capable of eating every bit of pasta, bread and potato the town had. We rode our usual sortie, up one side of the street and back down the other. Most of the town seemed to be at a place called Western Bar. Sweaty and smelly, we pulled up and asked what was happening. It turned out to be the bar's fifth birthday and for a two dollar donation we could eat as much as we wanted. Oh my goodness did we literally pig out, they had a hog on a spit cooking away right on the street. First I went for the potatoes, fries and crisps, then I started on as much meat as I could find and finished off the meal with plates full of home-made cookies. It was like manna from heaven right there on the Lewis & Clark cycle trail. It was the first time I had felt full for quite some time.
We were told by the locals that this day equalled their record high temperature. I don't know how hot is was - after seeing 49˚C on my barometer, I had decided it was better not to know.
We asked around for a place to sleep and were eventually given permission to sleep in the rodeo grounds. Where there are horses there is horse poo, where there is horse poo there are flies. It wasn't the best spot, but it was free and with a toilet.
We rose at 5 a.m., had a quick, uncomfortable breakfast among the flies and rode into the gas station to fill up our water bottles. We were heading to Great Falls and trying to get there quickly. It had been a little hard to organise this stop, but basically for months I had been pestering the local Vineyard church to host us for a night. We hadn't been close to a Vineyard since Boise, tomorrow was a Sunday and we were excited about being hosted by people from our tribe and visiting their church. So we upped the anti and peddled quickly. This was made easier by most of the day being slightly downhill. For the first 23 km we flew past deer, sunflowers and cacti. We knocked on the door of a church in Simms hoping to use a toilet. They had cold, cold air conditioning on, which made me realise that it must be getting hot outside. We hit the 200 again and as the day grew hotter the traffic got heavier.
At Vaughn we dashed into the air conditioning of a post office and sat on the floor among the letterboxes and cooled down whilst snacking on bagels. We were soon forced on to a busy frontage road alongside the I15. To me, coming into a busy larger town after cycling days on quiet country roads is just horrible, it feels like someone sneaking death metal into my jazz playlist. We trudged along getting hotter and grumpier. Eventually we stopped at another scuzzy casino and purchased ice cold root beer.
The other annoying thing about big towns is that it is hard to keep realistic expectations about distance. We tend to get all excited about finally getting to the town, only to discover that we have to cycle 10 km through it to find where we are staying. We were smarter this time and decided to stop in Rhodes Park for another bagel, we didn't want to be both hot and hangry for what turned out to be the next eight miles of riding. We crossed the Missouri River and stayed beside it on a rather lumpy independent cycle path. The path was never ending and the air just seemed to be getting hotter and hotter. There was no way I was going to check our barometer and freak out, we already knew it was hot. It was somewhere around here where Sharon had a meltdown, she had finally overheated. In hindsight we shouldn't have taken to cycle paths and should have crawled along Great Falls' quiet, shady residential streets. I knew we were close to our destination, being hot and bothered myself I urged Sharon forward and before we knew it, we were cycling down 7th Ave N toward our hosts. We arrived well overheated and at our wits' end.
On our blog we have a page entitled 'How to host stinky, hungry & tired tour cyclists?' Our absolutely amazing hosts had clearly spent hours studying and memorising it. From memory, they met us on their driveway and totally ignored our death stares and quickly helped us with our gear and got us out of the heat. Inside, it felt like they had their heaters set to +50°C, but they assured me it was closer to -50°C, they immediately started pumping ice cold water into us and thus lowering our body temperature and transforming the monsters back into humans. After having showers and snacks we started to notice that the house was quite cool and for the first time we started to appreciate that our hosts had been a little concerned and were doing their best to look after us.
Whilst our washing was whirling its way through the machine, Anthony took me to a bike shop and a pub for a delicious Montana IPA. The whole family all smiling shared a carbohydrate packed pasta meal with us. It was interesting hearing about their lives, joys and struggles. In such a polarised country, it seemed that this was a family prepared to overlook differences in search of common ground. I really really appreciated their warm family welcome and instantly regretted that we hadn't planned to stay two nights.
Sharon and I missed church, we missed fellowshipping with other believers oh so much, but what we missed even more was the natural and comfortable fit with worshipping in our own movement. It was great to visit Great Falls Vineyard Church this Sunday morning. On the way home we stopped at an outdoor store and purchased another insulated water bottle. After a quick lunch and with sad hearts, we received goodbye hugs and gifts from the kids and set out on to the early afternoon roads.
The first few miles were along a busy Highway 87, before turning north up Highwood Road. The whole area seemed to be Airforce bases and nuclear missile silos. It was a bit crazy of us to start our 50 miles at one o'clock, but even though it was hot, it was not roasting cooking, and our Thermos and new water bottles were packed with ice. The terrain was pleasant and lumpy. We sped on all the way to Highwood where our carbohydrate tank emptied. Highwood was a quiet wee town in the middle of nowhere that boasted an immaculate independent cycle path. We stopped at a tidy wee bar that was supported by a gaggle of pickup trucks. The pub was one small room with a few tables, a few pokie machines and a bar that was propped up by a bunch of whisky-drinking men crammed in so tight that their white straw cowboy hats must have been rubbing.
We had a lovely feed of burgers and fries washed down with the now very familiar root beer. When the waiter came over he asked how the meal was. I said 'oh the beef was particularly good'. It turned out the farmer that grew the beef was one of the belt buckle-brandishing ranchers lining up empty glasses inches away over my shoulder. Well, word got out and it turned out we were the flavour of the month. All of a sudden we were being offered a ride to our destination of Fort Benton, but first the driver wanted to have another beer and for me to have one as well.
Jumping in pickup trucks with boot-clad cow cockies who have been drinking their afternoon away is just a bit too ludicrously stupid to even consider. He offered me both beer and bourbon and some for the road. Cycling with alcohol in me is stupid and absolutely crazy, especially when it was over 100 °F outside. We quietly snuck back out on to the burning afternoon roads under a storming sky, rode beautiful undulating roads and enjoyed watching pregnant clouds colour crops and pastures.
Late afternoon we crossed the wonderful Missouri river again and cruised the streets and closed shops of Fort Denton searching for anything. We found some sort of canoe launching campground that was very clean and had good hot showers. After last night's hospitality, even this excellent facility felt quite lonely.
I awoke the next morn to the delightful sight of deer rollicking in the river, it was an excellent way to start the day.
For some reason we left camp a little late and tired. We swung by the local market to buy our day's food. Outside the store a lovely lady approached me and said she had seen us ride into town and would have loved to invite us in for the night; she never gave any indication of why she didn't. We would have so loved to had been with people.
It was quite a steep climb out of the valley on quiet roads. We decided to detour slightly into Geraldine. We have a lovely Geraldine in New Zealand and for some reason I was expecting this version to be similar. I was so, so wrong. This tired wee town had lost its soul and resembled a tumbleweed-infested cowboy outpost. We stopped at a bar for some less-than-average fries and root beer. We were glad to leave town and ride through a few hail showers.
Our next stop on State Highway 80 was another lonely ramshackle town called Square Butte. Here we stopped and cooked lunch on the deck of a bar that had recently shut down. We rushed the food because the wind was picking up and a storm was blowing in and we wanted to be on our packed bikes when it hit. Just before we left, a very sad and dishevelled woman approached us and went into a long monologue about her lost dog. We listened patiently, but couldn't be of any help.
Five miles after leaving, the sky suddenly got dark and we got smashed by gale-force winds and rain. We hurriedly rode under the shelter of some tired willows. No sooner had we got off the road than at least 15 semi-truck and trailers appeared out of the darkness. They were also struggling with the storm and were using all of the road. They were hauling combine harvesters and all the necessary accessories. The storm and trucks were an exciting few minutes and a reminder of just how vulnerable we cyclists are.
We turned east on to the 81 and ploughed our way along undulating dry roads past seemingly miles and miles of railway oil tanker carriages into the tiny and delightful ghost town of Coffee Creek. We rode the gravel streets, posed for photos and not finding any reason to stop, rode on to Denton.
We hadn't been able to find a place to buy our tea all day and the supermarket here was closed, so we stopped at a nice family-run bar on the main road in Denton for another burger before settling in for the night at the local town park. We shared our campsite with a Dutch father and son who were also on a cycling adventure.
In the morning we were up well before the supermarket opened, so were forced to buy our breakfast at the Shade Tree Cafe. As usual, and to the stunned amazement of the waitress, we ordered the largest possible breakfast, in this case the formidable 'Long Haulers' eggs, sausage and pancakes. The local Lions Club was holding a meeting this morning and people were very friendly to us. We talked with club members about how they could make the town more cyclist-friendly.
In my trip log I describe this as an uneventful day, but in reality this was the day that I travelled from loving Montana to hating it, but that story will be mostly told in the next chapter.
Once again we struggled to find a public place to stop for lunch and once again were forced to stop on private farm land and once again, within minutes of arriving, the farmer turned up to find out what we were doing. It still baffles me how they actually knew we were there. On this occasion we were quite close to his home.
We were chatting away to him on the side of the road, somehow the conversation got to church and next thing we knew he was telling us how happy he was that he finally had a great Christian president. This was the first time I had met someone who was actually prepared to voice such a thing. Instantly vision's of Planet Hollywood and some very childish bullying behaviour during the election debates flooded my mind. However, in effort to not offend, I replied with a 'so I have heard'.
This lovely man was so excited to find an ally that he eagerly invited us back to his home where we could fill our water bottles and use his toilet. We sat on his front lawn for about 30 minutes, ate delicious chocolate cake with ice-cream whilst chatting to him and his wife. It was a beautiful snapshot of rural Montana. I was amazed at how people who love such a divisive and possibly hate-filled president can be so kind and loving themselves.
Such things were on my mind as we were cycling down West Washington street in Lewistown. We were looking forward to two nights staying with a Warmshowers host. As was our habit when searching for addresses, we were cycling along following the map on my phone, looking at letterbox numbers, hoping that the home we would be staying in would be some big beautiful mansion with lovely hosts. I looked ahead and spotted a house covered in religious yard signs, most of them telling me to find Jesus or burn in hell. My heart sank and became full of dread: this was to be the house we were staying in. Right here at the end of stage 3.1 was the moment I totally fell out of love with this brutal and beautiful state. It took me years after this moment to have anything positive to say about Montana. Such a beautiful state ruined by interactions with a few locals. So, so sad.
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