McCall to Cambridge, Idaho

Such unattractive clothing

Really nothing to say here...

June 25th- Baker City, Oregon!

I wanted to update today, but I'm at a library with fairly ancient computers, so I can't get any pictures to download. So we'll try & update again soon somewhere else. But we're in Oregon!! Only a few hundred more miles & we'll be done!

Lolo Hot Springs to Idaho!

No more rain please

I think this picture was actually from the day before- oh well

Idaho! We're almost home!

The wonderful lodge where I had prime rib!

We stayed at Lolo hot springs last night & enjoyed a little bit of time in the springs which our muscles enjoyed. We chatted with the campground manager for awhile, who we discovered rode horseback for two years from Montana to Panama- crazy!! It rained all night long, which is always a joy. It has rained EVERY day since Pueblo. Thats been rain everyday for 2 weeks +! What the heck? I'm so sick of the crud weather. Seems like the whole nation has had a real shotty June. 

We stopped for lunch at a cute little lodge (the only place to eat for about 70 mile) that had really good food. We met our first female TransAmerica cyclists there. Two college-aged girls who are riding eastbound. They seem a little more in shape for the trip than we were, so it should go a little smoother for them. 

After we left the lodge we were just cruising along, & I was lamenting the crappy weather and wishing we didn't have our beast trailers along (I don't mean to be the huge whiner that I am, but the extra weight of the trailer causes me extra grief on the mt. passes because my back just starts to throb where I had surgery, and then I get some weird paranoia that I'll have to go through it all again- blah) when I looked up and saw a familiar vehicle. Dad! He has been in Idaho for a fly in, and we haven't had phone service for a couple days & apparently our GPS tracker hasn't been working (out of batteries but we didn't realize it) so he was a little worried & decided to back track & make sure we were ok. No complaints here- we loaded our trailers into that car and enjoyed some more load-free riding. Honestly, you can't compare the two, riding without the load seems to increase our speed two fold. Then of course it started pouring down rain & temps dropped into the 40s, so we went off route & got a hotel. 

We're not too far from Oregon!

Hamilton to Lolo Hot Springs, MT

Our site on the river

Part of our ride today consisted of 16 miles of bike path. I love not having to ride on the highway for a spell- Thanks Montana DOT! When we were stopped at a gas station in Lolo, a guy came up to us and lectured us on the dangers of biking the Lolo pass, which we'll go through for the next 30 some miles. My favorite part of the conversation was when he told us "You know, I have a motorhome, I can't slow down for bikers. Either I hit them or I hit the semi in the oncoming lane, and I'm not going to hit a semi." Hmm, I completely forgot that they no longer equip motorhomes with brakes. Seriously sir, consider letting off the gas for a second if it comes down to it. Overall we have found the drivers throughout the trip to be pretty great, but I hate stupid comments like that. It's not like a bike takes up a whole lane. Go around. 

Dillon, MT to Hamilton, MT

We made it into a cute little campground on the river near Hamilton, MT. The father has to leave now for an airshow in Idaho, so we're back to carrying our trailers. It was such a nice break... sigh. We camped near a group of middle school kids who were cycling on a historic tour of the Lewis & Clark trail. One of the teachers had started a non-profit and during the summers he takes group of students on different bike tours, mostly in the Montana region. He suggested I be a teacher, and then I could do the same. hmmm, I forgot that I'm going to have to get a real job soon. 

The campground was about 4 miles from town on a nice little bike path, so we rode into town and hung out for a little bit, enjoying even more of Montana. We decided we want to do a bike trip just through here sometime. 

West Yellowstone to Dillon, Montana

Historic Virginia City

Earthquake lake, formed by-you guessed it- an earthquake

Montana has been wonderful! It is such a beautiful state. One of the things that surprises us the most is how much different it is being here than say Kansas. In Kansas when we would enter a town of 1,500 people, there was usually 1 grocery store that closed by 6 pm, and 1 restaurant that offered burgers, cheeseburgers, & maybe a ham sandwich (thick white bread, a slab of processed ham, and Kraft singles cheese- mmm, tempt me more). Now in Montana we'll go into a town of 1500, and it will be bustling little tourist destination with several restaurants (including my favorite- sushi!), cute boutiques, organic grocery stores & normal grocery stores (that are still open when we get into town, which is key), and even when you go into what looks like a down home eatery there is a nice little diverse crowd of local farmers, fisherman, and everyday folk- all dressed in Patagonia and North Face. It's quite interesting the difference. But we are really loving Montana- all the towns and the scenery, and wishing more of our trip had been this gorgeous.

Grand Tetons and Yellowstone!

I have about 100 pictures from the national parks, but here's a few. The Tetons were phenomenal. I've been here before, but it never ceases to amaze. You see something different everyday, and if you pay attention there is always wildlife on the side of the road (and we saw several herd of buffalo). There was a ton of road construction going on when we entered the park, and they weren't allowing bikers (they were loading them in the pace cars) so we felt lucky that Dad is still with us and we can just go in our car & not try and lift our trailers into their big trucks. Also, when we got into the parks we tried to find a campsite and EVERY single spot was taken. I think there was a few RV spots, but if we wanted to pitch our tent there we had to pay a whopping $70 +. That sounds fair to me. I'm glad that the parks make plenty of RV spots and few tent spots, to really encourage the more eco-friendly version of camping. Some campgrounds will let you pitch your tent on an RV spot for the tent rate, but God forbid Yellowstone pass up on a little extra cash. But enough of the rant- we ended up having to go out of the parks to West Yellowstone (which was another 50 miles or so from where we were at, so again thank goodness Dad is still with us!)