8:1

Well, I’m officially over feeling sorry for myself and full into feeling sorry for the Brits and the EU.  Condolences to all of our British friends in Brussels.  What a depressing outcome.  Brexit leaders are already admitting that they exaggerated (read:  lied about) the advantages of leaving the EU and the downsides of staying.  Brady just texted that the most googled question in the UK now is “What is the EU?”  Truth…

As I was riding today (much better on all fronts) I was thinking about how all of our senses play a much bigger role when we’re outside on our bikes, but particularly our sense of smell.  Obviously, through our photos we’re sharing what we see.  But we can’t really share what we hear, smell or feel.  For the most part, our ears are filled with the sounds of passing cars, trucks and semis and trains.  We’ve gotten quite good at identifying what’s coming up behind us. But we also hear a lot of birds–many of which are new to us.  Smells on the road are numerous.  In Washington and Idaho we smelled a lot of pine, especially when trucks carrying logs came whizzing but, but also as we traveled through forests and past lumber mills.  The smell of decaying carcasses is a frequent one, even when we can’t see the dead animals.  The odor of skunk is one that hits us quite often.  Over the past two days we’ve biked past road crews cutting grasses along the edge of the freeways, so the smell of freshly mowed grass and sweet alfalfa accompanies us.  We also smell cattle, horses and manure.  And every once in a while we’ll smell what someone’s cooking for breakfast or dinner (if we’re on the road that late, which is not that often).  For me, the smells along the road have become an interesting and enjoyable part of my ride.

Believe it or not, now that we’ve turned off the hi-line and the neighboring BNSF railroad tracks, I find that I actually miss seeing the trains, counting the cars as the trains pass, and listening the the train whistles and the sounds the cars make as they pass us buy.  We did ride next to an abandoned track today.  Quite scenic…

We’re still enjoying ourselves most of the time.  I realize that the worst thing for me is a headwind.  I’ll just have to make sure I mentally prepare myself better for days that I know are going to include a headwind.  Luckily, tomorrow we’re supposed to have a very strong tailwind and I’m getting a massage in Medora.  Yippee!