I've been riding 60+ miles for the last several days. All of the roads go up and down over and over. On Saturday I rode to Libby, MT. It was a pretty nice ride, the hills were sort of flat, usually 3-4%. The sun came out when I got to the Montana sign so I could take a photo of it with my bike (a bike tour tradition) --- it will be a long time before there is another state sign to take a photo of. After that the sun only came out for a few minutes here and there. The sky's were getting darker and darker as I neared Libby, so opted for a hotel after hearing the weather forecast. After I got settled, the sky's opened up and it poured. The Kansas 3 are also at the hotel, we went out for dinner together.
The next day it was off to Rexford. The ride was pretty much the same as the day before except the hills were more numerous and steeper. OMG over and over, they seemed to be in a pattern, a steep long hill followed by 3 less steep ones, then another long one over and over, they kind of all seemed the same. I stopped for a while at Libby dam and was told that when they built it it flooded the valley 40 miles into Canada. A guy told me his wife lived in Rexford when she was young and they moved their house (and many others) up the hill and formed a new Rexford, leaving many buildings from the original under water. Last year the water level was down and you could see some of the buildings. We stayed the night at an RV campground mostly made up of Canadians who leased the lots a year at a time. The Kansas 3 were planning on going to Eureka today, but I guess the climbing got to them too, as I was sitting in the cafe eating, I saw them roll up outside. We had another nice time eating and drinking while we all did laundry.
Yesterday I woke up to rain drops on the tent, rolled over for another hour, but then slowly moved forward and got ready to go. The sun came out after an hour or so so the riding was good, still some up and down, but with a tailwind to help at times. The Kansas 3 started out ahead of me, while I waited for the post office to open up. I did managed to catch up to them at mile 40 (ok they waited for me once they caught sight of me). There were lots of lakes to ride by and other pretty sites, but accumulated days of hill climbing took it's toll and with 15 miles left to go to Whitefish, I hit a wall. Combined with the heat, and the last hills, it was a struggle to get in. Again the forecast wasn't great, but I probably would have got a hotel anyway.
Today the thunder started at 4:30 am. I had kind of thought I might use the day as a rest day, but the weather made it official. I've been taking it easy, working on my stitching project and watching the rain pour out of the sky with regularity. The Weather Channel said there was a flash flood warning for the Going to the Sun Road today and other severe weather warnings -- a good day to be inside.
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