Day 64: It kind of is; It really kind of is...

1.Turn off 6:00am Alarm

2.Shower (takes 7 minutes for the water to warm up)

3.Get dressed and Eat Breakfast (Donuts, Choc. Milk - not spilling on clothes)

4.Check email (John Egan wrote with advice on Glacier)

5.Brush Teeth (are bears attracted to toothpaste?), Pack up Bags, Dummy Check

6.Wave goodbye to the owners of the hotel

7.Head West on Hwy 2 for what SHOULD be the last 100 mile day of this trip.

The morning is hard. My legs feel sluggish and tired, which doesn’t make sense to me since they got to lie around all day yesterday. Eventually, I start to get acclimated to being back on the road (amazing what one day off can do) and we put down some serious mileage in good time. Grab Lunch at Shelby and head over to Cut Bank, where we realize that the winds are quickly becoming horrendous. We have 37 miles of Indian Reservation to cover before we hit the next town, and only 4 hours to do it. This reservation is pretty notorious for drunk driving, and so we DO NOT want night to fall on us. We climb a MASSIVE hill and start out on the “flats” to Browning (at the foot of the Rockies), but the wind is ridiculous. We are probably averaging 8mph, which is not good enough to get us there by night fall. We toy with the idea of hitchhiking.

Drafting back and forth, it is without a doubt the most difficult and miserable afternoon of the entire trip. The mountains loom in the distance, propelling us forward, o’ so incredibly slowly; every rotation of the pedals burns in my legs. Miserable.

The sun sets when we are 3 miles outside of town, and like clockwork… a carload of drunken Native Americans pulls up and they goofily wave at us through glassy eyes and happily numb facial expressions. The guy in the backseat looked ready to vomit. Broken glass everywhere on the road. We get into Browning and stop at the first motel… the War Bonnet Lodge. Very nice accommodations. The restaurant just down the road is FANTASTIC. Much better than what I have gotten used to while in the pain states.

I stay up watching TV and savoring the warmth of the motel room. I’ve been staying in too many motels, and I’m a bit too nervous to look at my bank account. But every night when the sun is setting, it seems so incredibly worth it. And with this weather, it kind of is. It really kind of is.