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Published: August 5th 2015
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Hello from Lima, Montana - pronounced like the bean, not the Peruvian capital! Since our much-needed rest day in Lincoln, we've been making good progress south and have now broken the 500-mile mark, which feels great. The riding has continued to be challenging, with extreme heat being a factor on many days, and at times we've deviated from the official Great Divide route and found our own way on less gnarly terrain. We've crossed from one side of the Rockies to the other three times now (this trail must have been designed by a sadist), so are accumulating some pretty decent climbing stats. For anyone interested in such things, we've done over 28,000 feet of total elevation gain since we left Whitefish. Despite these grueling facts, some of the riding from Lincoln has been fantastic and we had a particularly great downhill run into the state capital, Helena, last week.
One of the most enjoyable aspects of the trip so far has been the encounters with local folks and also fellow bikers. At the top of one particularly awful climb, when my bike computer thermometer read 101 degrees Fahrenheit, we met Owen from New Zealand. Traveling by himself and with
Taking a little break
Ken, standing around while Jay, from our last blog entry, rides up on us. a much more sensible amount of gear than us, he is blazing the trail in a remarkably tough way, living mainly off peanut butter sandwiches and doing about twice the daily mileage that we've been able to cough up. We spent an enjoyable evening sharing a camping spot with him near the town of Divide and hearing about his close encounters with grizzly bears (this did nothing to ease my own ever-present concerns about coming into contact with one of these terrifying creatures). A couple of days later we came across a Belgian couple traveling by bicycle from Colorado to Canada with their 2-year-old son, whom the dad was hauling the whole way on a little seat fitted to his own bike. They were the first people to make us feel as though we are traveling light, and the kid didn't seem to be worried about bears, so who am I to fret about such things?!
Our appetites are getting increasingly enormous the more days we amass on the trail. A couple of nights ago we found ourselves asking for another look at the menu after we had rapidly devoured a huge plate of spaghetti bolognese and were still
Another rest stop with a nice view.
This was a hot day...that pond was very tempting! famished. The waitress took pity on us, and for our second meal of the night produced a generous-sized basket of chicken wings with twice as many as it should have contained. Pretty much everyone we've met has treated us with kindness and shown a genuine interest in our trip, which we truly appreciate. This, however, has not stopped Ken from alienating some of them. Allow me to elaborate: at a lovely inn near Polaris we got chatting with an affable couple from northern Utah. They were pretty excited to hear about our travels and before long had extended a generous invitation to stay at their home with them, should we happen to pass that way. Unfortunately (for me), Ken had clearly soaked up too much sun that day, and with a couple of beers also in his system started laughing uncontrollably, as though the kind folks were putting on a comedy show just for him. As he swayed on the spot, convulsing and snickering while they made their kind offer, I knew our good fortune had run its course. Sure enough, their muttered promise to give us their contact details the next day never materialized and they were up and
out of the motel at an unusually early hour the following morning. No doubt they are still puzzled by the peculiar behaviour of the mentally-deranged cyclist, who himself is still unable to explain this incident!
So here we are in Lima, looking ahead with some trepidation at the days to come, which will see us riding into Idaho and then Wyoming. Montana has been great but we're definitely looking forward to some new states and fewer grizzly bear horror stories. I'll leave you with a few photos from the last week and hope you've enjoyed this excerpt. Thanks for all your messages of support and bye for now...
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