We depart our luxurious camp in Circle hoping never to return. The townspeople were friendly and willing to talk about their life. No new blood stays long there. I can see why. I grabbed a cup of coffee at the conference stop then headed east.
I could tell right away that the road was on an incline by the lack of speed. Just couldn't get the old bike moving. Ugh. This went on. And on. For ever it felt like. Finally I looked ahead to see where we were headed. A set of small hills lay on the horizon. We were headed for a pass! Relief was in sight. So after nearly 2 hours of steady climbing we get to enjoy the fruits of our labor. A very long downhill ride. It wasn't fast but it went on and on. Joy.
The ride into Glendive wasn't bad. Flat and a little breeze at our backs was all good. We even stopped in one tiny town for a drink. The town? Lindsay! That's Sandy's maiden name. Of course they had a ticker tape parade for her.
Just outside Glendive the cloud that had been trailing us for a while finally let loose. Gradually at first. We reached an underpass about the time the thunder and lightning started. We waited for a while then we went looking for a place to have lunch. We enjoyed a leisurely lunch and decided that we had it in is to do another 27 miles. How bad could it be? Famous last words.
The first 8 or so miles are on the interstate. The shoulders are wide and the traffic isn't bad. It's legal in most western states as there aren't any other options sometimes. To this point the road was uphill. I wish was kidding.
Then we had a chance to get off and take a parallel route. We could see that it was going to be rolling hills. But what we couldn't see it that it was down some and mostly up. To boot the road was in very rough condition. It had lots of unavoidable cracks. Felt like we were riding on corrugated cardboard. Not one of my favorite stretches of road. I just couldn't get it going. Every bump felt like it was slowing me down. To add to this little pain in the behind we had another storm behind us. I couldn't stop to rest to keep the rain at bay. Finally we had to get off this hellish road and get back on the interstate for 7 miles. Thank heavens most of it was downhill! We had to pull off the exit at the interstate which was kind of weird. But we knew what to do. This town was Wibeaux. Just a few miles from North Dakota.
Tomorrow we head for Belfield.
Today- 77.17 miles
12.1 mph avg
28 mph max
6:20 in the saddle
Time for some rest. Thanks for reading.
Cheers!
Kim
Wow ---rough day . It's been in the 90's here but none of us were experiencing it the hard way--striving through the day.
ReplyDelete15 musicians are going to be in our driveway for a couple of hours tomorrow,practicing for the Bastille Day celebrations here in Ghent .The French flags will definitely be out . Later !