To Missoula

My friend Eric joined me from Livingston north up 89 until about Roundup. He had to hold back at the end, but overall we had a tailwind and a fairly pleasant experience. He also gave me a bunch of cookies. Anyone can bike with me if they give me cookies. Actually, anyone can bike with me even if they don't give me cookies, but everyone's happier with cookies.

On the first night I had a visitor: my mom. She was so worried about me being on the road again that she drove all the way to the pass before Helena and gave me tons of food. I ate it all. I guess it's a good thing she came.

The riding has been a bit more difficult than I remember. And now I don't even have the trailer; but I am doing longer days.

I was pretty thrilled to get to Missoula where I knew Chris and Virginia and Matt and Shay would put me up. My enthusiasm ebbed slightly when I realized I had to climb the steepest hill of the trip to get to their house. I got to the top of the hill and found it was a dead end. Then I got to go down the steepest hill halfway until I found the turn that would have saved me going all the way up. Biking by trial and error: only for those with the luxury of time and a tolerance for hills, I guess.

A big advantage to getting to Missoula was all the food that Chris and Virginia have. I made it my duty to eat as much as possible, usually after everyone else went to bed. I ate all their chocolate. Actually, I couldn't find any chocolate, but I would have eaten it all if I had. But I tried to make up for it by cooking a bit. Here we enjoy chicken and dumplings.