We are delighted to have Willie here with us. We decided to go back to Choteau (rhymes with Toto - it's been tough getting local pronunciations right) and ride the distance we missed thanks to my tire problem. Willie could drive us up there & go on to explore Montana. I was sort of sorry we were not going to get to ride the side roads to the ranch, but then Bruce realized he had forgotten his helmet there. We had to go back!
3+ miles of unpaved road. Who needs fat tires??? I am getting used to all sorts of new ideas. And there are lots of ways to be unpaved. Hard and pretty flat with little of last year's gravel remaining did not present much of a challenge. Cattle guards, on the other hand - these were mostly made of round piping with plenty of space between the bars. I was not prepared to ride over - thought I might lose a tooth or two from the jarring - but walking wasn't a perfect choice, either. My feet won't reach two bars at once (on these particular ones - usually not a problem) and the round ones didn't much want to allow me to stand securely on my cleats. Bruce hauled my bike across and I eventually made it over, too. I think there were at least 7.
Once we reached the paved section we began to descend. We couldn't even see that we were going downhill, but the fact that we were going about 20mph almost without pedaling was a hint. Out to the main road - the one where it's a big deal if cars pass you from both directions at the same tine. We had about 58 miles to go. The road had seemed pretty flat from the car. Amazing how your eyes can fool you. It was a gentle descent again, almost all the way. This was by far the easiest 78 miles I have ever ridden.
Besides all that fun, we had good ice cream in Choteau, we stopped in Fairfield where a very nice woman reopened the little flower and coffee shop she was just closing so Bruce could have a mocha, and we stopped several times to look at all the incredible water birds on Freeze Out Lake. I don't know the story behind the name. I do know it is an area that is protected (at least part of the year - there were signs that talked about hunting, too) for those birds. Lots of white pelicans, terns, ducks, I could have stayed for hours.
Only I would have been pretty anemic by the time I left. I gave quite a bit of blood to the local mosquitoes. Yes, it took a few weeks, but they have found me. I don't really want to count all the bites. We stopped after dinner to pick up some anti-itch stuff.
The "waterfowl management" area reminded me of something we saw just after we first crossed into Montana, a sign that said, "Caution - Game Crossing." I commented that at home it would have read, "Caution - Wildlife Crossing" even if it happened to be in a hunting area. Sure enough, as we have moved into more heavily tourist-dependent parts of the state, the signs have become PC again.
The weather warmed up a bunch. No rain all day and temperatures reached the low 70s. It's supposed to get even better. Good thing, because tomorrow is the day we climb to Neihart, the place in the Little Belt Mountains; the place that will take us almost to the highest pass of our whole trip; the place I've been talking about so much - the one that averages 6" of snow in June. Those weather guys better be right this time.
12 miles yesterday; 79 today.
Total so far 931.
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