Rodeo in Glasgow, MT
We saw MOOSE!
AMERICA!
Riding to Cutbank, MT
Sweep Day with Leisl. All smiles despite the head wind.
Marty sent me a mail drop. Nice joke. I'll use them as rags.
Glacier National Park
Starting to climb Glacier
Taking a break at the bed & breakfast and getting some puppy love.
AK is pointing out the road we will eventually be climbing.
AK, Chris, and I taking a break.
We made it!
The airport run day. Corker posing while we wait for the construction trucks to pass on Glacier.
Finally, we caught up with some riders!
Roofing!
Sam and I giving massages.
The view from the HFH house.
Last build day in Whitefish, MT
The group in Whitefish
Sadie Hawkins Ride Date
Lake Dickey. We got a tube ride from the locals.
The majority of time we were riding along Highway 2. The cue sheets looked like this: Make a right out of the church [.01 miles], Left onto Highway 2 [75 miles], Arrive at church. I have a love/hate relationship with this road mainly because it could really use some new pavement but the shoulders are pretty roomy. The flat count of the entire trip has gone up significantly since we entered Montana's Highway 2. 21 total in one day. Thanks Montana.
Once we entered the state we were ambushed by mosquitoes. I've never experienced anything quite like it. I would literally have to spray my body down with OFF if I wanted to survive pumping my tires in the morning. If you think we were safe while riding, you're wrong. My body was covered with bites, and now probably covered with scars.
After the mosquitoes came the grasshoppers. Millions. Hanging out in the grass along highway 2. We would ride in pacelines and they would jump all over us and because we were so close to one another they would jump from one person to the next. They got me in the face at least 4 times. That lasted for about 4 days.
We've also seen and learned some really interesting things along the way.
For starters, apparently Meth is a really big problem here. There are signs and billboards everywhere along highway 2. "Meth. Not even once" or "Close the door to Meth" (this was written on several doors)
Along highway 2 are train tracks that carry cargo carts and every once and a while we'd even see a Amtrack train. We had great success getting the train conductors to blow their whistles for us. These made for really beautiful landscapes. Also Montana has gotten an abnormal amount of rain this summer so everything is still super green which made the scenes incredible.
Huckleberries: I've never even heard of them until this state and people here are obsessed with them. Pies, Ice cream, Slushies, etc. They look like a blueberry but they taste a little more bitter. And apparently are expensive. So good!
Now for some specifics about the towns we stopped in:
Wolfpoint: An Indian Reservation where we saw a Pow Wow. A modern pow-wow is a specific type of event where both Native American and non-Native American people meet to dance, sing, socialize, and honor American Indian culture. There is generally a dancing competition, often with significant prize money awarded. Pow-wows vary in length from one day session of 5 to 6 hours to three days. Major pow-wows or pow-wows called for a special occasion can be up to one week long. There were 2 tribes. One being the Sioux. We had a native tell us a little about the culture and the traditions and later in the evening the group went back and even got to get to dance with them. I used that time to catch up on sleep.
Glasgow: There was a Rodeo in town. I've never been to a Rodeo so you can imagine my excitement. Also, the beers were $2. Win!
Glacier National Park (St Mary's campground): It rained this whole day. And it was freezing. And we were climbing! By this time we were entering the mountains and the terrain was AMAZING! I dressed in every piece of cold weather gear I owned and still there were times where I felt like crying and calling the van to come and get me because it was so cold. Nathan (CUS '08, NUS '09, & NC2SD '10) and Molly (NC2SD '10) along with her parents met us in a town called Browning and provided lunch and hot cocoa. Things started to turn around. I spent almost 2 hours in their car trying to warm up and figure out how I could not finish this ride. I put my big girl pants on and carried on. The rest of the ride was incredible. Ang K and I stopped at a bed and breakfast to get coffee and warm up a bit. The owner had a million dogs. They were cute, she was nice! Moving on the ride ended with a crazy decent into the campground. I was glowing. I was so happy the ride was over and we could finally warm up and eat good food at The Park Cafe where Sarah had worked last summer. They are known for the homemade pies! I got a 3-berry slice and it was heaven. When we arrived to camp the tents were pitched and everyone was trying to warm up by the fire. It rained on an off for the remainder of the day making a camping experience not so nice. None of us showered because I'm sure you can imagine how awful it would feel to use the hose when we were already frozen. So we were smelly and frozen and most of the riders snuggled throughout the night for the warmth.
My night however was a different experience. I had to drive a rider Mark to the airport so he could return to Alaska to teach children. This meant I had to wake up at 2:50 Am. So I slept in the van. When my alarm went off I got my flashlight and opened the van door to find a spot to pee. I heard rustling and got nervous there were bears around going through our stuff. I waited for my eyes to adjust perfectly still and realized that the black blobs I was seeing were shadows from my flashlight. Perfect. Mark, Kira, and Andrew joined me in the van and little did we know, we began our journey through hell. In order to get to the airport, which was in the town we would be riding to in the upcoming hours, we had to go up and over the mountains and Logan Pass. It was still pouring out and through most of the switchbacks there was thick fog. So we were moving very slowly. At some point I noticed that every time I breaked the interior lights would flicker. Great. When I finally had to use my breaks the lights went out and then we smelled burning. While having a heart attack I decided to turn the van off. Then get out. Then have another heart attack because we were in the middle of nowhere, on a mountain, at 4AM, in a habitat where bears live. Right. I got back in the van and we drove with a flash light on for interior lights. The headlights worked, the rear ones did not. Hmm... We got to the airport 30 mins before Mark was supposed to get on his plane. I panicked, worrying he would not make it in time. We dropped him off and then tried to find a manual for Elvis ( the van). No luck. But the sun was coming up by this point so we found a gas station and tried to get service on our phones to use the web and look up the fuse box manual. No luck. The last resort was to call Brendan at 5AM and when he didn't pick up Kristian finally did. He worked on getting us the interior lights fuse number but by that point we just started pulling fuses to see which one was blown. About 30 mins later with the sun up, we were on the road again driving back to St. Mary's campsite to pick up the trailer. At this point the riders had a 4 am wake up and were already climbing to Logan pass. With the sun up we actually got to see the crazy views I was driving through hours earlier. I've never seen anything more beautiful and scary ever. It wasn't so bad when I couldn't see the drop from the edge of the mountains on the way there, but now I was actually using caution. Finally, we started passing riders and I felt better seeing them. It was still pouring, fyi. Once we got the trailer hitched we set out again only this time we went around the mountain and that entailed backtracking to where lunch was the previous day. It should be noted that all moving vehicles put me to sleep...so at this point I had 3 red bulls and 3 coffees and I was still having a hard time staying awake. I was flying because I was afraid I would miss the riders at the bottom of the park for the lunch stop but to my surprise I caught the first group as soon as I pulled up. 220 miles later, we had made it and I was cracked out. That was Glacier. I wish I could have been on my bike that day. OOF!
Whitefish Build Day: This city is really cool. We worked on a smaller Habitat home but we got a lot done. Really refreshing especially since most of our build days have been a huge bust. Shout out to Dan at the church that made magic for us during our stay. We decided to do a twist on a Sadie Hawkins day so the ladies got paired up with the guys and we had to find creative ways to ask them for "a day on the bike date." Our numbers are off so I got matched with Kelsey and decided to have our friends send random text and photo messages to her giving her clues on who her date was. I did this at the build site so most of the clues had to do with building and the tools we used. For example, "Fun fact #3. Your dates likes to get hammered."[HAHA] I gave myself up with Fun fact #8. "Angela wants to know if you'd be her date." Liz took a picture of me sitting on a deck beam in front of the house and when Kelsey came out of the house she found me sitting there. And she accepted.
Eureka: Today was our Sadie Hawkins ride! Kelsey and I doubled with Ange K and Diane and we had a crasher, Steph because her date, Andrew was in the van. Kelsey was putting a lot of pressure on me to do something good for lunch and all I was planning was to find a diner and get food. Lucky for me the lunch spot was at this cafe that looked like a country club out back. It was a perfect lunch spot and it even had water fountains and bench swings! We got amazing burgers and hung out for a while. On the ride to the church we were riding along Lake Dickey. It was the most beautiful water I have ever seen in my life and we were determined to find our way to swim in it. We found a little beach and other B&Bers were there as well. Jamey let us know that Josh and Jess had scored a sweet tubing ride with a locals boat and then Kelsey gave me the look. So as her date I asked these people if they'd take us out and they did! I've never been tubing before so it was hysterical! Diane was on my right, I was in the middle, and Kelsey was on my left. This guy had youngsters so he knew how to make the tube go crazy and thats exactly what he did. They both got thrown off a few times while I was hanging on for dear life. It was awesome. Perfect bike date ride.
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