Montana

Day 8: Sourdough Waffles
In the morning, our hosts continued to impress us. We were served the most amazing waffles on the planet (fact) with breakfast sausage and REAL maple syrup. Simply scrumptious. If you have never had sourdough waffles, put them on your list. They will change your life. During breakfast, a beautiful Montana thunderstorm rolled in, which was going to be great for biking, haha. We then learned that our hosts were on there way towards Elmo, MT, a little past half way to our next destination, Columbia Falls, MT, they offered to give us a hitch if we wanted one. Heck yes we will take that offer after the day we had yesterday! When life gives you lemons, you take them because they’re free. We got back into the red pick-up truck with full bellies and were on our way. From Elmo, we only had 34 miles to Kalispell, MT where we were being picked up my our new friend McKenna. She is a goddess human and drove 30 minutes from her house to pick us up. Once we got to her house, we met her mom, Jan, and their other two friends, Kris and Ali. Kris and Ali were traveling around the country visiting National Parks for their honeymoon. These folks fed us very well, enchiladas, salad, fruit, and chocolate cake for dinner. Just when we thought the night was over, we heard music coming from next door. Jan and McKenna’s neighbors were throwing a birthday party and they had karaoke and booze: the perfect combination. Because we like to make an entrance and fools of ourselves, Ashley and I did a spectacular rendition of “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen in front a bunch of random strangers who were probably very confused to why we were there. I must say, it’s some of our best work. A great end to a couple pretty exhausting days.

Our warm showers hosts: Bryan, Kevin, Brian, and JJ

We spent the day with our new friends Jan, Kris, and Ali frolicking around Glacier National Park. It is quite the place. We drove up Going-to-the-Sun Road past Logan's Pass and then went for a jaunt in woods towards the Siyeh Pass. It was about an 8 mile hike in the end, which some might not think is a rest day but it's better than sitting on a bike for 8 hours. We didn't run into any grizzly's, probably because we scared them off with our wonderful singing voices. Pro tip: to keep the bears away, just keep singing, the worse, the better. It keeps the two-legged animals away as well.

Left to Right: Kris, Us (Ashley and Kelsey), Ali, and Jan

Kelsey frolicking through the beargrass

Lake MacDonald, Glacier National Park

Day 10:
After a delicious, full breakfast, we left Columbia falls heading southwest towards Condon. For lunch, we stopped at Swan Lake and took a nap on the rocky beachside. Many people gave us strange looks because of our garb. When folks asked where we were going, they were shocked by our answer. One gentleman explicitly told us he did NOT want to hear how this plan developed. Fine, we didn’t want to tell you, anyway. We arrived at Condon around 5pm, perfect time for dinner, and made our staple tortilla PBJs that we ate in a church parking lot. It’s starting to be a trend, eating in church parking lots. While we were eating, we noticed a small TV inside the church that showed us on the screen; we were on camera! That didn’t make us feel great  so we decided to go to the local tavern to chat with the locals and see where we could pitch our tent. The crowd, about 5 people, was very welcoming and super jazzed to hear about our biking adventures. We told them we were looking for a place to pitch our tent and many had great suggestions but the closest and easiest option was in the backyard of the tavern. It was even fenced in to keep the bears out! We made pretty good friends with the bartender, Lars, and a nice couple, Terri and Paul. If you ever pass through Condon, MT the people there will make you feel right at home. They also kept giving us alcoholic Root beer floats, so that made us like them even more.
Day 10: 74 miles

 

 
Day 11: First 100-mile day!
When we woke up, it was pouring rain. No need to fret, we had overhead shelter in the backyard of Liquid Louie’s, the tavern we went to last night. Oh, and in the middle of the night, we were strangely awoken by someone’s random dog who thought it would be funny to try and steal my shoes/socks. Not cool, random golden retriever. We finally got on our bikes after the rain stopped, about an hour and a half after our usual time of 5:30am. We stopped in Seeley Lake for second breakfast, because priorities, and shared a huckleberry smoothie with chocolate muffin, very nutritious. The next tiny town we stopped in was Ovando, MT. Many folks at the tavern the night before recommended going to this place called The Spare Bullet for lunch. We did, but the food was pretty mediocre even after riding 50+ miles. Then, we stepped in dog poop! Not great. While we were cleaning off our shoes, an actual cowboy rolled into town. He was riding his horses from Seattle to Maine. For those of you who think we are crazy for doing this on our bikes, let this just sink in. He told us it would take him about 3 years to complete because he was doing it in sections. After lunch we continued on, thinking we might be able to do another 45 miles. Our goal destination was Avon, MT. Around 6pm, we made it to Avon and stopped by the only cafe in town for a milkshake. We asked the server where we could pitch our tent and she suggested a Christian camp up the road about 3 miles. When we got there, the gate was locked but there was a phone number on the sign. We gave them a call and the person on the phone said the gait wasn’t really locked, if you shimmy it you can get in. No one was there so we had the entire camp to ourselves, even had bathrooms and showers. That’s some high class living, right there!
Mileage Day 11: 100 (total: 729)
No injuries, no repairs

Day 12: Continental Divide
When we woke up, the air temperature was about 47 degrees. We packed up camp and headed towards MacDonald Pass, about 2500 feet of elevation gain. On top of the pass, we ate our cold oatmeal in Ziploc bags and read a little history about the pass. The pass used to be a toll road for travelers. It was run by Frenchwomen who provided lodging and hot meals for folks coming through. The business was very successful until the leader of the organization was murdered and found in one of the cabins. The perpetrator was never caught but suspicions pointed towards the woman's husband who fled the area shortly after. The top of the pass also crossed over the Continental Divide Trail. We layered up and prepared to zoom down into Helena, Ashley put on everything she owned because it was cold and whipping wind. We stopped in at the University law library to complete some computer tasks, but they only let us use them for an hour. A little stingy, in my opinion. For lunch, we stopped in Winston, MT  and ate our sandwiches on the side of the road. Very glamorous. Before getting back on the road, Ashley somehow managed to fall completely over while clipped into her bike. That was pretty much the theme of the day: falling over for no reason. We had about 35 miles left to go after lunch, primarily being uphill, and the last 10 miles were exceptionally tiring. On our way, a gentleman stopped by and asked if he could take a picture of us with our noodles and post it on Facebook. He thought it was a pretty neat idea and wanted to spread the word to other bikers. We finally made it to our destination, Skidway Campground in Helena National Forest, and it just so happened to be closed....great. That didn’t stop us from finding a place to pitch our tent. We walked about 1/3 of a mile up the hill and set up camp. Ate some sandwiches, hid our food from the bears, and were asleep by 7:30pm. We were pooped, what a day.
Mileage: 83 (812 total)

...can you tell this was a self timer photo, real fancy 

Christian camp we tented at just before MacDonald Pass. 

Attempting to keep things dry.

Day 13

106 miles, 17.5 mph average! 

We woke up at the closed skidway campground after a night with light drizzle. We pulled the main portion of our bikes under the vestibule to keep the chain dry during the rain. It was a chilly morning so we were moving slow, didn’t leave camp till 6:15 or so. We had a bit more of the mountain to climb before a nice downhill while the sun was rising over the castle mountains in front of us. We made 20 miles before breakfast and stopped at the Branding Iron in White Sulphur Springs MT. As this was our first diner/cafe stop on our trip we went a little crazy on the food and hot chocolate. Since we were in our riding garb (aka bright yellow jackets) a group of people next to us asked us where we were biking. We had a wonderful conversation with the group about biking, hiking, CO, AZ, and Banff. It turns out that these ladies live in some of the places that we are moving so we exchanged contact information and made loose plans to meet up again (I ended up rooming with Dana McKeeman's daughter Katie when on clinical in Colorado Springs, CO). When it was time to head out when we went to pay we found out that the women, who had left at this point, paid for our meal which was extremely nice of them, especially considering we didn’t skimp on breakfast. We planned to do 88 miles after breakfast so it was like starting a new day, we made a plan and peddled on. Still on the highways of Montana, since there are no backroads really, we can only sometimes bike next to one another with most of the time spent rotating pulling. 

Near death Story: 

We were on the road going around a slight bend when we saw a car coming down from the hill we were approaching. The car started to drift into our lane and we thought that they would correct immediately; when they didn’t correct and were fully in our lane and not stopping we saw the driver look up, we dodged left, and the car flew into the ditch on our side! We turned to look behind and the car kept speed and drove themselves out of the large ditch swerving back on the road and continuing away. My heart was beating at probably 200 bpm and Ashley seemed slightly unphased, she later said that it was because it didn’t seem real. I’m thankful that we weren’t 20 feet further ahead, or that the individual in the car didn’t correct sooner or else I might not be writing this post. The adrenaline from that instant made the next climb fly by and we continued with our day. 

The day continued to be odd because we almost had a deer run into us, we had to pass in the left lane around a tractor, and mid day we hit a 4 mile gravel construction zone that we had to keep up with traffic going 25 mph to get through, it made for a nice mid day sprint. We stopped for a late lunch at a rest area and heard that the wind was picking up to be anywhere between 15-30mph coming from the west, which is amazing for us! We pedaled on and I was amazed to find that we were holding 25-29mph averages for the final 30ish miles of our day. We rolled into town early, where we planned to stay with Dave and Patti from warmshowers.com, and debated if we should waste time in town because it was still fairly early in the day (3pm). As we stood there David drove by in his truck and asked if one of us was Kelsey. He lead us back to his place where him and his wife showed us their beautiful home and told us we could wash up, do laundry, and even explore town in their golf cart before dinner. Over the course of the evening it was fun to sit down with them as if we were family and chat about life. As evening fell we were exhausted since we are used to going to bed at 7:30/8 so we hit the hay at 9:30 so we could have a nice day to ride into Billings MT. 

David and Patty, with pups Kessie, Coon Lily, and Bella

Day 14: Donuts
In the morning, we had breakfast with David & Patty (our warm showers hosts); a large amount of yogurt, granola, and fruit. Gotta carbo' load, ya know? At around 7:30 we headed to Billings, which was said to be a lovely ride with rolling hills. Yesterday, we had an amazing tail wind. Today, that was not the case. The wind wasn't horrible, but it wasn't great. So, it made for slow biking. We had lunch on the side of the road, our usual glamorous location and got to Billings around 12:30. Beforehand, we made plans to get a hotel for the night so we could take a half day off with showers. Very exciting stuff. Before checking in, we stopped by a bike shop in Downtown Billings: The Ride Cyclery where we met Sam (human) and Laney (canine). They helped us out with some lube for our bike and air in our tires. Good company too. 10/10 would recommend. Afterwards, we checked into our hotel and set off to get some grub at one of the places Sam recommended: Last Chance Cidery. It was very tasty. We got an amazing platter of nachos with pickled vegetables. It sounds weird but it's a good combination. After feeling pretty good about ourselves on 1 pint of cider, we rolled our way to the grocery store for the essentials and extra-special essentials: a donut to celebrate our 1st 1,000 miles! Truth be told, we hadn't actually crossed over 1,000 miles yet. It would be the next day but we needed to celebrate while we had access to a store! We went to the bakery section at Albertson's and asked the person behind the counter if she could write "Happy 1st 1,000th!" on our donuts in hot pink icing. She thought it was a great idea and was happy to do it. We rode back to our hotel, ate some dinner, and laid for the rest of the evening like two lazy blobs. It was awesome.

Mileage: 64 (982 total)

Celebrating 1,000 miles; we almost got a sheet
cake, I'm glad we settled on donuts. 

Day 15: Afternoon starts are the worst
Woke up in a wonderful king sized bed in the hotel Vegas, Billings, MT. Ate the breakfast that was included at the hotel and lounged around till the local bike shop was open and we had to check out. Kelsey's tire over night has dropped down to 12 PSI so we need to get more sealant and air put in and check for any impurities. Checkout was 11am so we waited till then and headed to The Ride Cyclery to visit our new friend Sam. He fixed the tire right up and Ashley even got a new waterbottle holder so that she didn't have to use a bungee to hold water to her bike! By the time we left town it was 12:12pm, our bags fully loaded with food, headwind of 10mph, and a hill to get out of town. We were moving like SNAILS! We were on old highway 87 out of Billings and there was nothing out there, no house, no trees for shade, no people. The crickets in the area were bountiful and were jumping so high that they would land on us as we biked, we also killed a lot with our tires accidentally; however, I don't think it's an endangered population in the area haha. Since there was no shade or driveways we ate lunch on the shoulder of the road just barely out of the way of cars. The sun was beating down on us as we ate Mangos, cheese sticks, carrots, and peanut butter. This lunch spot was actually pretty close to the 1,000 mile mark, so no better way to celebrate than on the side of a highway! After lunch we were still moving slow due to the wind and it was starting to get to us mentally. We looked up if there was anything in the towns to come and there was a Dairy Queen! With the thought of ice cream in 15 miles our moods and speed picked up. We stopped in the DQ for ice cream and to use the bathroom before heading out with the aim of getting to little big horn national monument in hopes to camp around the area. The latter part of the day was spent passing through the Crow Reservation on the roads nearest I-90, as we got within a few miles of the monument there was a local park with several dozen people at it with pitched tents and what looks like a concert wrapping up. We rolled into the park and asked a group of people if it was okay for us to camp, which they told us by all means pitch a tent; they informed us that it is a revival festival with the church. We set up camp and continued our nightly chores when an individual rolled by in a truck asking us if we knew what we were getting ourselves into, honestly we didn't; he informed us that it was going to be a concert late into the night with food, games and music. We thanked him for the info, looked at each other and just shrugged thinking that we were tired enough to sleep through anything...we were right. We heard the beginning of the commotion and children playing just outside our tent but we fell asleep just fine.
Mileage update: 67 for day (1,049 total)

Good curvy uphill out of Billings MT

Our nice 1,000 mile lunch spot on the side of the road.
No one even stopped to ask if we were okay or needed any help. 

Roughly our 1,000 mile mark: hot, sweaty, and lunch right on the side of the road.

Our Tan lines are really looking good. Camping at a concert on reservation.

Day 16: Let's do more than 100 miles, just for fun!
Today, we only rode on MT-212. It was a joy and to wake us right us, we were chased up a substantial hill by a pack of dogs. For some reason, dogs out in rural areas really like to chase bikes. Beforehand, we made a game plan to bike about 40ish miles to the town of Lame Deer before second breakfast. Very important meal of the day. The town of Lame Deer is in the Northern Cheyenne Reservation and is very segregated from the surrounding areas. Up until this point, we had not truly biked through any reservations because everyone we talk to says to avoid it. My takeaways from the short time we spent there: the reservation was very "run down" visually and it was obvious the members of the community were living either at or below the poverty level; no one bothered us or was even a little bit malicious. We actually had the opposite experience. Everyone was very nice to us, letting us know where bathrooms were, how far away towns were, and how great it was to see new people come through, wishing us the best of luck on our journey. It does hurt the heart to see members of our own country living in these areas that they were, for the most part, forced to live in. We, as a nation, need to do better.
Anywayyyy, done with the soap box. Moving onto the rest of the day. We stopped in Ashland at a gas station for lunch, just 2 miles outside of the reservation that was drastically different in visual appearance. Because we are super healthy individuals with aggressive appetites, we finished off a bag or carrots and tossed back an entire large bag of Doritos. It's called balance. No shame. Oh, and a couple liters of soda. At this point, we had gone about 65 miles and the next "big town" was in 44 miles. That isn't too bad and the day was still very young. There was minimal wind and the elevation gain was the same that it was in the morning. Little did we know, the temperature was getting hotter and a nice, long mountain pass was coming up. We slowly made it up the pass and took a 10 minute lay-on-the-ground break. What is interesting is that even when you are ON THE GROUND, no one really cares to stop and ask if you are okay. Which is fine because we are technically okay, but it would just be nice if someone asked.
We rolled into the town of Broadus, MT around 6pm, feeling exhausted as ever, and found an elementary school on the edge of town to pitch our tent. It gets old staring at the same person all day, so we changed clothes and walked back into the center of town to a convenience store to kill time before bedtime. There was a large tub of pretzels up for grabs, that we almost demolished, while scoping out road maps to plan a route through South Dakota.
Mileage: 107 (1156 total)