50 miles. Very pleasant riding … With one exception.

“Somedays are diamonds and some days are stones” J. Denver. Yesterday definitely was a big old, mud encrusted, worthless piece of rock and today, while not a perfect gemstone was fun biking on a cloudless day on a reasonable road. What more can one ask for?

We leave the acres of farmland and begin into a different landscape.  The sky was a much paler blue today.

We awoke and got on the road by 7, taking a state highway south east to Glendive and the Yellowstone River. It was so nice to be running the ridge of this hill system instead of crossing numerous ridges against the wind, as we did yesterday.  Early on we met two cyclists heading from Portland, OR, to Chicago and they, too, attested to yesterday being (in his words), “The worst day of cycling I have ever had!” We were corroborated! Yesterday really was horrible … It wasn’t just us.

We cycled on nearly empty roads for many miles, the wind, what little there was, from our left. We ran through a new landscape, the precursor to the Badlands we will see in North Dakota.  There were many old trestle bridges but the rail line here is weed covered and ostensibly abandoned.

Our first glimpse of the Badlands

Biking either downhill, level or slightly uphill we made very good time and were congratulating ourselves at our projected early arrival in Glendive. That was the time when Maja found she had a leak in her rear tire. There was no shoulder to retreat to so we moved as far off the road as we could and replaced the tire. That process involves unloading the bike, taking off the rear wheel, removing the old tire, finding the cause of the leak (in this case two small staple size pieces of metal probably from one of the many shattered truck retreads along side the road), installing a new tube then replacing everything.  The repair was a success and we cruised (or limped) into Glendive.

Tomorrow we head into North Dakota and we are allowed to ride on Interstate 94 since the smaller parallel roads are, for the most, dirt except for stretches of Old Highway 10.

The view of my “office”

And the road ahead. The divots next to the white line are the ubiquitous rumble strips that will definitely jar some fillings loose if you wander onto them. Our path is the shoulder between the rumble strip and the grass – for the most part. 

52 miles. Another “heroic” struggle against the wind.

We had a great plan today, to make 102 miles from Wolf Point to Glendive, putting us on the threshold of stepping into North Dakota. As is said, “no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.” Today the wind was our enemy so our plan flew by the wayside after 6 hours or so of hard pedaling, we even had to pedal going downhill! We sought refuge in the little agricultural town of Circle where anti-meth posters compete with new John Deere tractors for attention on Main Street.

There is only one motel in town, the other two are boarded up, so our choice was limited. But run down as it is, the motel gets us out of the wind and even has wi-fi.

Our trek today took us south east away from the Hi Line and the BNSF railroad. We crossed the Missouri River and then the fun began. The road crosses a series of ridges that separate the Missouri drainage and the Yellowstone River so we were constantly up but very little down thus far.  The up hills lead to plateaus and then more up hills all to the background of the wind buffeting us and whistling in our ears. On coming trucks provide a passing air dam that at times can bring a cyclist almost to a halt. Trucks passing on our side give one a shocking push but then the draft can push the bicycle away or even suck the bike into the whirlwind behind the truck. So the ride was stressful!

The landscape we are riding through is of vast fields of sweet smelling clover and wheat all bright green. That hue against the cloudless blue of the Big Sky reminds me of the Tellytubby set!

Tellytubbies?

The wind direction is predicted to shift to be from the north tomorrow so we’ll have a little advantage since we will be heading east toward Glendive.

Shiny new grain storage and a tiny little church.

48 miles -flat windless miles.

After a very pleasant stay with Mary and John and he dropping us off in Glasgow we continued our trek to the east.  Today was sunny, the road mostly flat and (hallelujah!) there was no wind. For the most part the shoulder was ample so we were able to make good time all the way to Wolf Point (4 hours, average speed 12 miles per hour).

Not much to report about the day other than there was little to report on. The landscape is much the same right to left, front to back – big fields of hay, alfalfa, clover, etc. And, of course, there’s the omnipresent BNSF railroad.  As a source of entertainment, Maja has taken to counting the cars on passing trains.  The longest so far has been 137.  Since we crossed the Divide, we have been riding steadily due east and downhill toward the Missouri River but here at Wolf Point we will turn southeast. We will cross some hills tomorrow then meet up with the Yellowstone River and, on Saturday, will leave Montana and cruise into North Dakota.

Seemingly endless sea of green.

A shiny grain elevator next to the BNSF tracks. These monuments appear almost like cathedrals in the distance and usually signal the location of the next town

72 miles. Oh Aeolus, what did we do to make you angry?

As wonderful as Sunday’s ride was (104 miles with a substantial tail wind), today’s was  conversely  horrible – a constant hard wind directly in our faces the entire day! We wanted to get to Glasgow, in reality there were not any midway stops available – no hotels, B and Bs, Warm Showers, campgrounds – so we were committed. We sort of took turns with one riding ahead and the other tucked into that person’s wind shadow – drafting. Sort of, I say, since Maja did most of the leading. I took two turns but even out front, Maja is a faster cyclist so I did little to speed up the trip other than give her a few minutes breather. Drafting is efficient only if the behind person can get perilously close to the one in front with his front tire nearly touching the other’s rear tire. The system does work but the cost is 100% concentration which precludes looking around at the sights!

Almost looks like a painting we have of hayfields in France. Because of the wind we took quite a few breaks today.

We slogged on, mile after mile and reached the town of Hinsdale. Kelsey and Craig (he was last night’s host) recommended a bakery in Hinsdale that is known for its sweets and ice cream. Once we reached the town (we still had about 30 miles to go and no let up in the wind) we stopped at a quickie mart just to get some A/C, water, eat our sandwiches and get our heads out of the wind.  There we learned that because of a family emergency, the much touted bakery was closed! Of course, we said.

At that point, my eternally positive outlook on life had definitely turned to the dark side. Averaging only 7 miles an hour into that wind meant we still had 4+ hours of hard work to go. But, as is said, there’s nothing to it but to do it so off we rode. Honestly, if some Good Samaritan with a pick up had offered us a lift from there to Glasgow I would have jumped at the opportunity.

So … 4+ hours later, fighting the wind and the swirling gusts from passing trucks, we “rolled into ‘Glasgow’ feeling about half past dead” (apologies to Robbie Robertson). We had originally been in contact with a Warm Showers host who offered her living room floor but as we stopped at the edge of town to call her, Maja noticed that she had a message from Mary and John (highly recommended by Kelsey the night before) and they had a bed for us.  They breed Angus cattle and live about 6 miles outside of town on a sometimes rutted dirt road (not good for our already drained biking legs) but Mary offered to come into town and pick us up in her truck (fantastic!) and … wait for it … would fix us dinner and send us off with breakfast the next morning.  All we had to do was meet her at the local Albertson’s. Wow!  The skies were looking pretty bad so we retreated into the store for shelter, water and a few bananas.

After a bit, a woman came up behind me and without any introduction asked, “What kind of beer do you like?” Well, she had me at “beer!” It was Mary who had observed that we tired looking people in biking jersies must be her guests. Gratefully, we helped her shop a bit then loaded everything into the back of her pick up and away we went!

The storm passed us by and shortly we pulled up to their house. Mary and John had spent a hard day on the final leg of the artificial insemination process for their cows so we were, all four, a bit worse for wear. Showers, beer, snacks and good conversation helped Maja and me get back to being a little more human and Mary’s cooking did the rest.  John educated us in the process of breeding their cattle and the arcane metrics involved with picking the right bull’s genetics – a preferable low birth weight of the calves coupled with fast growth later, etc. We had a very pleasant dinner and stayed around the table swapping stories and getting to know each other.

In the morning, true to her word, Mary fixed pancakes and sausages and John drove us and our bikes back into town where we reluctantly said goodbye and got on our way.

We are newcomers to the Warm Showers movement and have not hosted yet. We plan to offer our house when we return to Paradise Valley and are learning from some very kind and generous people how to do it right!

This rock was in a roadside shelter outside of Malta. Legend has it that the Native Americans thought it looked like a sleeping buffalo. It was moved into Malta for a while then relocated to near its original location where many people give offerings to it for good luck etc. Back in the 1800s, the tribes thought that making offerings to the sleeping buffalo would bring the buffalo back to Montana (hunted into extinction) where they  had provided food, hides, and bones for tools for the tribes.

92.8 miles. The day got harder as the wind turned against us.

I’m writing this on June 22 as we sit in our hotel in Wolf Point. Our previous days’ riding were long and hard and we were too tired to add to the blog. We left Havre still buoyed by our wind aided ride the day before. We had contacted our Warm Showers host in Malta and told him we would be to town early in the afternoon. Oops!  The fickle wind turned and we had a small head wind for a while that grew stronger as the day grew longer and our energies grew weaker.

We stop at almost every historical marker. They usually give an unvarnished view of how the US treated Native Peoples.  This one describes the final defeat of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce.

The towns along Route 2 (called the “Hi Line”) were built originally by the railroad companies to serve the grain producers. According to legend, the railroad magnate(s) spun a globe and wherever their finger landed became the name of the next town – Harlem, Glasgow, Nashua, Malta, etc. At one point we were low on water but there was a town just ahead and we knew from other bloggers that there was a bar/cafe there where we could fill up. Surprise!  The bar was boarded up!

Lunch table provided by the shuttered cafe

We had lunch at one of their outside tables and moved on down the road to the next town of Dodson where there should have been a convenience store. That too was closed and may have opened in two hours or so! There was a three man crew digging a huge trench next door with a back hoe and they gladly pulled two bottles of water out of their ice chest for us. They told us that under a nearby house the town’s water main  was broken and that house was basically a swamp. They were searching for the main so they could cap it off but could not find it. This region of Montana is covered with about two feet of topsoil and below that is sand so once the crew hit sand (the foreman called it “quicksand”) the trench collapsed. Frustrated, they were calling it a day and offered us more ice cold water!

You’ll have to look closely to read the lettering on the grain elevator. It says “Howdy Pardner. Welcome to friendly Chinook.” The reality is that Chinook almost doesn’t exist anymore.

Our maps indicated an alternate route on a few BIA roads that got us off busy and narrow shouldered Rte. 2.  It added a mile or two but the road was completely empty. It ran more or less parallel to the sinuously flowing Milk River (eons ago the Missouri River followed this course but it was diverted by a huge ice dam to its present course. The Milk eventually took over the old Missouri channel and many centuries later Lewis and Clark named the Milk for its color.

The road outside of Malta. Note the narrow shoulder as well as the marker on the other side of the road with 7 crosses.

Finally after all the struggles with wind and lack of water we made it to Malta. We had agreed with our host, Craig, that we would supply the chicken for dinner and he would do the veggies so we stopped at the town Alberstson’s and then made it to Craig’s house.  He graduated from Nebraska a few years ago and had just moved to Malta within the last few months to work for the Bureau of Land Management. He welcomed us in and we sat and talked about Montana, biking and Warm Showers. He started the BBQ and his friend Kelsey joined us for dinner – she supplied a bottle of currant and honey wine from Canada. Craig also provided a delicious taco dip, eggplant and asparagus.

Over dinner, Kelsey asked where we were headed to next and said she knew a couple in Glasgow that did Warm Showers hosting and what great people they were.  We had contacted them but thought they (John and Mary) were unavailable. (More on this story in tomorrow’s blog).

We also heard from Craig and Kelsey that the storm we had avoided by sleeping in a motel in Shelby on Saturday had blown over a standing train in Malta.  We had seen the crushed cars being transported on truck beds on our ride.  Our warm weather hosts in Glasgow (details to follow in upcoming post) showed us the impact of the hail on their alfalfa.  We were lucky we were inside that night rather than in a tent.

Finally settling to bed – we were to sleep in Craig’s spare bedroom on the floor on our camping pads.  Maja discovered that she had apparently left her pad somewhere between Glacier and Malta! Craig, being the super nice person he is, offered her his pad not only for the night but to take with us to be mailed back to him once Maja got a new one.  She got on the phone to REI and they are shipping a new pad to our hosts in Bismark, ND!

Thanks to Fred Prozillo for recommending Gorilla Tape for our tool kit, the tape is holding my pannier together until we pick up the new one at General Delivery in Dickinson, ND.  Thanks also to Jean and Barry Bingham for their gift of miscellaneous items for out trip – some of the twist ties are employed to insure my pannier stays on the bike  and the anti saddle sore cream has been a life saver!

The weather is warming so Maja dons her sun sleeves.