Home Sweet Home

I was so glad to see the welcome to Wisconsin highway sign this afternoon. In Montana and North Dakota traffic was almost nothing, but not so when we crossed into Minnesota near Fargo/Moorhead. Traffic today was awful, or maybe it's just that I'm used to the cowboys and farm trucks.

Coming from Fargo & Moorhead, the lakes are plentiful, and so are the ducks and water birds. I saw pelicans, geese, lots of ducks and blue herons.

Right outside of Albany, MN a time trial was taking place. Not sure which bike association was sponoring this TT, but it was fun to get a quick glimpse of the cyclists.

It's such a good feeling to be home and in my familar place. Tonight I actually cooked for the first time in about 10 days....wow! There's nothing better than a freshly grilled hamburger with lots of onions and cheddar cheese.

One more day of vacation and then it's back to work.

Spending the Night in Jamestown, North Dakota

Sakakawea Lake, North Dakota

We left Shelby, Montana by 6:00 am this morning and drove and drove and drove. Make that 12 hours, minus one hour break for lunch! We drove through all of Montana and most of North Dakota...almost made it to Minnesota tonight, but we found a motel room in Jamestown, ND tonight so that's where we stopped. Jamestown is near Fargo/Moorehead. It's only about 400 miles to home, so we should be back at our house by early afternoon on Sunday.

My bike soreness is pretty much gone. It's amazing how fast the body recovers. I can't wait to get home and hop on my road bike for a nice 20-25 mile ride around Colfax. The bike man wants to ride Lowe's Creek mountain trails in Eau Claire, so we'll see how busy we are on Monday. I'll be back to work on Tuesday all bright and cheery!

Saw lots and lots of bike riders on highway 2 in Montana today. We were thinking they are riding the Lewis & Clark bike trail that goes all the way down south to Missouri. Most riders had panniers or Bob trailers. We even stopped along the way to see if a particular bike rider needed help since he was walking up this long hill. It turns out he just wanted a walking break. This young guy was visiting friends on the west coast and was heading home to Chicago by bicycle. What I accomplished in six days seemed pretty small to what this guy was doing.

I'll be glad to get home tomorrow and be in my familiar setting. No more mountains for this gal!

We Said Our Good-Byes Tonight

Just imagine riding down this road on your bike and knowing that you are going to eventually climb those mountains ahead. This is what biking is like in Northwest Montana. I fell in love with the land, ranches, wild flowers, fresh air, dry air (no humidity) and beautiful mountain streams.

Today was the last day of our bike trip. The bike man and I opted out of riding today since we had such a long day yesterday. Instead, we packed up all our stuff, we rested, blogged earlier and boarded the tour bus at 3 pm for our trip back to Whitefish tonight. We arrived back by 6 pm. We shoved all our bags into the car and loaded our bikes on the back and headed out of Whitefish.

So here we are tonight in Shelby, MT along highway 2. We are now in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. We found a cheap motel for the night and will head out early tomorrow morning.

My head and legs are still spinning from consecutive days of cycling. It will take me a few days to settle down and feel normal again. As we all said good-byes in the parking lot back in Whitefish, I realized how quickly you can make connections and new friends. I'm glad I decided to sign up for this Adventure Cycling trip. I would highly recommend Adventure Cycling for other trips. I felt well-cared for during this trip, and the staff was amazing.

PS. Before we left Whitefish, we already plotted with Shelia & Leon (from South Dakota) about meeting up in two years to ride the Great Divide trail starting in Banff to the Roosville. What a cool couple. Shelia did way more training than I did on the mountain bike trails in South Dakota. I was really impressed.

Our Longest Day

As we headed out in the morning yesterday for our longest ride (67 miles), we stopped to take some pictures by the first lake along the way. Here is a photo of Russ and me. Russ was our oldest rider on this trip. At age 72, Russ biked everyday on his mountain bike that also was equipped with a little motor that came from a weedwacker. How cool is that?

The bike man and I headed out by 6:15 am to try and beat the heat. The morning temps were in the middle 40's when we started riding. By our lunch break it was already hot and the mosquitoes were biting.

We biked through one little town that had a nice little cafe/espresso/bakery...whoo woo, my kind of place. The bike man bought a piece of pie and I enjoyed a nice ice cold latte. We only spent out 20 minutes there and then hoped back our bikes and took off riding again.

Poor Jean, what a trooper she is. Jean and her sister Nancy were really cranking along good and then all of a sudden a bee flew into her mouth and she ended up crashing her bike! Road burn on her arms, and legs made for a bloody mess, but she survived.....no hospital visit thank heavens.

This was our last meal together last night. The Adventure Cycling staff and kitchen staff was awesome. They made the trip so enjoyable. I'm certainly going to miss talking to all these cool people!

Guess what? I biked the whole 67 miles yesterday!!!!! I did push my body beyond what I've ever done before, but I did it. We climbed 4,400 ft yesterday while biking. The bike man and I were in the saddle for 10 hrs & 45 minutes, but that includes walking breaks up the mountain pass and our quick lunch break. I think Huckleberry Pass was around 5,000 ft. elevation. The sun was very intense when we reached the summit and the horse flys and mosquitoes were plentiful, but at least we had a nice breeze at the top. Like usual, the decent went for miles and miles, along with a few surprise uphills, but then more descent. What goes up, must come down as they say. I've never had to use my bicycle brakes as much as I have on this bike trip....geez.

Another post will come soon to talk about our last day, and final thoughts on the trip.

More Random Photos

One of our food/water stops. This was the rainy and muddy day.

Our group meal at Condon, MT...we enjoyed steak that night and then a bunch of people went across the street and bought whole fruit pies and everyone shared. The Huckleberry pie was the all-time favorite. Jean & Nancy off to the left (sisters), and P & M from Madison WI.

Mark was brave and walked this wooden board that went way out into the mountain creek. It's suppose to be a good swimming area, but it was another rainy day and everyone was freezing cold. Not a good idea for swimming.

My Polish friend Phil off to the left (1/2 polish I must add). My Uncle Jack would love this guy. He's 68 years old and his activity level is off the wall. This guy blew me away cranking up the mountain yesterday. Off to the right Phil's friend Mark, and can't remember the name of the nice man in the middle, but he and his wife are from Santa Barbara, CA.

The bike man caught a back shot of me as we headed out on our first real hard day after Big Fork. It was nice when he took this photo, but the weather quickly took a turn and it rained the rest of the day.

I am Learning the Meaning Of Pushing the Body Beyond

Here we are in Seeley Lake, Montana. Thank heavens I finally found an Espresso cafe. Caffeine has been badly needed over the last three days. These pictures I'm posting are of day 4 of our mountain bike trip (we didn't have Internet in Condon, MT). We completed two back to back extreme days of mountain cycling. I didn't think I could physically and mentally do it, but so far I've survived....and little muscle soreness, but it's bearable.



I just have to mention the meals on this trip have been great. We've had salmon, Chicken Enchiladas, steak and then some sort of shrimp tai entree last night. I'm not a big shrimp lover, so the bike and man and I found a local bar last night and I ordered a late night cheeseburger with fries. Yeehaw, that's my kind of energy food...add a couple bourbon and cokes to that as well!!!!!!!!!!!!!! One of the cool things about biking with a group of 45 people for 7 days is that you get to know many of the other cyclist and we all look out for each other. Here's a picture of Marilyn (today) as she is nursing a little ankle sprain from a fall on the single track yesterday. Adventure Cycling reserved two motel rooms next to the campground so we could all have a community bathroom and showers. This room is also where you would gravitate to if you want Internet!

Yesterday was one of our extreme days. We were biking on the trails for 9 hours and climbed to around 6,600 ft. elevation. I never knew what it meant to climb and climb for hours on end. Now I know what that means to the body and mind. The thing to remember is to continually eat energy bars and DRINK fluids.

Here is a picture of our single track on top of the mountain. After we peaked and headed down the trail, it narrowed a lot! Like scary narrow with plenty of wet rocks and overgrown bushes.

There was a bunch of us that pretty much stuck together on the climbing and decent down the mountain. All of us would ride a little and then stop and get off our bikes to take pictures and to rest the legs.

Even though the climbing was challenging, the beauty of it all just made up for the body aches. There is so much more to tell you, but one thing I can tell you for sure is that I burned 3,000 plus calories yesterday. We had two water/food stops and one lunch spot. It rained again on this particular day so we were all cold and miserable...even the experienced cyclists in our group were having problems with the rain and cool temps. I guess it's unusual two have two straight days of rain and cool temperatures in Montana in July, but most of their weather comes out of Oregon.

Today is our rest day in Seeley Lake. The bike man and I got up early and did laundry...or I should say the bike man did laundry. Guess what was right down the road from the laundromat? An awesome bead shop! This was the best bead shop I've ever experienced with lots of gemstones I've never seen before. I was so excited (for some of you that know me personally, you know how much I love to make jewelry). Thank goodness I'm not hauling all this stuff myself, otherwise I would had to skipped the bead shop.

Tomorrow will be our longest riding day (67 miles), however, I physically know I can't ride another 9-10 hour day, so I will more than likely take the Adventure Cycling shuttle bus after riding 40-50 miles. Not sure if we will have Internet tomorrow, but I hope to update tomorrow if possible. Thanks for following my trip.

Big Fork, Montana

After we arrived we Big Fork, we ate lunch, showered and headed out on a walking tour of this little cute mountain town. Our ride was good and mostly cloudy conditions, but the temperature quickly rose as the sun came out behind the clouds. I told the Bike Man I was parched from our 45 mile bike ride today so we stopped at the local bar and enjoyed a nice cold brew! What is better than riding 1/2 day and then ending it with a nice cold one! We spotted some people from our bike group so we all enjoyed some nice conversation.

Here we are at Big Fork Elementary school for the rest of today and tonight. The showers were nice...we had some warmer water this time!

Had to stop and take a picture of the Swan River, which we rode along side outside of Big Fork. It was a clear drop off down to the river, so I made sure I gave myself plenty of room on the bike trail.

Another shot I took this morning of a small lake with the mountains in the background. The water was actually greenish, but it was clean! I can see that it's going to be a challenge for me to stop and take pictures, especially when the terrain becomes difficult. My bum was sore today, but that's my fault....not enough training in hills. Riding on gravel roads is not exactly easy on the body so I popped a Tylenol...that should do the trick.

We are all excited about our dinner today. We have an awesome female chef and crew that will be making great meals of local and organic food. Last night we were treated to Sockeye Salmon, a delicious salad with hominy, corn, peppers, tomatoes & cilantro. We also had a delicious fresh veggie salad, and then homemade dinner rolls. I think people sign up for these expensive bike tours just for the food!!!!

Tomorrow a hard day....62 miles of mostly climbs and forest roads.