Epic Bike Ride Day 37 July 4
Thoughts from Kelly: Happy Fourth of July! After much debate about staying on route or taking paved roads, we flipped a coin and it told us to stay on route. Off we went, and we quickly ended up on a pretty rough road (455). The cycling map said to go around a gate, so we hoped we would both be able to pass, but I had a small feeling the truck would not. When we got to the gate, sure enough the road was closed to vehicles. We debated on Mark continuing on while I turned around, and met up with him further up the route. With our past experience of me getting lost, and Mark determining that I was a bit hangry and needed to eat, we both turned around and decided to go to Connies, a restaurant we had passed earlier. The only real gluten free option they had were ribs, so ribs I had. I had no idea I was hungry enough to eat nearly the entire rack! I saved a few ribs for Mark, who agreed the ribs were fantastic.
After eating, we found a way around the closed road and quickly made it back on route. We passed some beautiful lakes and stopped at an RV park for a bathroom break and to see what their rates were for our future RV life (hopefully). $90-$110/per night, which is out of our price range but it’s a beautiful area. The mountains, rivers, grasses, flowers, the sky, the trees are all so amazing to see in this area. I hope the pictures and videos do the beauty justice. It’s amazing how many abandoned cabins and barns there are along this route, makes me wonder how many there are in the country, the world. Lots of wasted resources, pretty sad in my opinion.
We made it into Montana today, (woohoo!!) our 5th state! Next up is Canada!
Our goal for the night was some a dispersed camping spot on the map but when we got there it was just the corner of the intersection. No trees or privacy at all, and surprise, we were next to a cow pasture. We wonder if we will hear fireworks tonight?
Thoughts from Mark: The issue with the closed gate was probably about 8-10 miles into the ride today, so we were able to backtrack easily, and not “waste” too much energy. I think the slight detour upset Kelly more than me, and I could tell she hadn’t eaten enough this morning. One of the issues with this trip is finding food for Kelly, and making sure she has eaten. She has a tendency to forget to eat, and then can (occasionally) become a bit “hangry.” I recognized this was happening, and as she said, we had a nice lunch at Connies. She even let me have a couple of the ribs she had ordered, and they were the definition of “fall off of the bone.”
Once we were back to riding, I felt pretty strong, and my back was feeling ok-ish (knock on wood). We passed a gigantic RV park, which was in a beautiful area surrounded by mountains, but it looked a bit out of place, as there weren’t any other businesses nearby, or many homes, either. We went inside to talk (and because I thought they would have a giant ice cream sandwich - they did). We were talking with the staff, and one of the customers about the ride, and becoming full-time RV-ers. It’s amazing to me how much people like to talk about the lifestyle. It will be interesting to see if we like it, once we hit the road.
The rest of the ride put us into some pretty remote country, but the scenery was beautiful. There were two large lakes, and we debated staying at a campground near the second lake, but it was three miles off of the route, and we decided to push on, instead. We passed a ranger station, which was surrounded by a small community. The people in the community were having a cookout, and I tried to talk Kelly into stopping to see if we could “bum” a plate of food, but she thought this wouldn’t be a good idea (she was right). We continued on, and eventually came to an intersection. The map indicated there was dispersed camping at this intersection, and so we set up camp. Kelly wasn’t totally comfortable with this spot, but we had some sandwiches, and called it a night.
Miles for the day: 65.77 Feet climbed today: 2,613
Total miles ridden: 1,722.54 Total feet climbed: 108,200
