Today was a long ride without any wind to help us on our way. Luckily it did not hinder us too much.

All off the day was spent cycling through an Indian Reservation. We have done this a few times and I haven’t really written about it much, but these places feel a lot poorer than other places we have cycled through and seem very separate. We didn’t really speak to anyone all day apart from when we brought an ice cream and drink and they were very friendly.

For the last 20 miles we cycled off highway 2 on an alternative route which was nice because it was car free but not nice because it was gravel. We cycled this last section with a cyclist we have been camping with for the last few nights.

Tonight we are camped in another park, free but with a five day limit. There is also another cyclist here, he is moving from Florida to somewhere on the West coast he is not sure yet.

Today was a pretty hard cycle mainly because of the distance as it was pretty flat, with a few sneeky hills at the end.

We had take away pizza for dinner which was a well come treat it was nice not having to shop and then cook and wash up.

Well its bed time for me now.

8.8.11

Today was another day on the plains. It was pretty uneventful. Apart from the fact there were a lot of oversized loads, so far in america there have been none, but today there was a train, on the road and lots of wind turbine parts.

At the start there was a tiny head wind which was horrible but luckily this changed to a tail wind and allowed us to make some good time.

We stopped in Glasgow to pick up some supplies before heading on to Nashua.

We arrived at the park and which is next to the Senior Centre, we got invited in for lemonade and brownies and pumpkin pie, it was all good, and good to chat to the people there.

One of the men used to be Santa for a shopping mall that one of the other cyclists we are with used to go to.

Tomorrow will be a fairly load day so I think I am going to get an early night.

Today was more cycling with a lovely tail wind.

We made good progress and are staying in a park in Malta. There is a park we are camping in with two other cyclist one we met earlier and another we haven’t seen before heading in the other direction.

Cycling today was pretty uneventful but quick due to the flat and the wind being in the right direction.

As another cyclists said to me it was a bit like cycling in a video game. I guess it is because the landscape seems almost pre loaded and doesn’t change that much. The trains that go past are pretty exciting but them seem to hoot a lot.

Well the mosquitoes are biting. I am siting outside a cinema using some free wifi and can hear a tiny bit of the film going on inside.

Today we cycled about 80 miles across the plains. You can see why Montana is called big sky country, there is a lot of sky and not much else. Towns appear out of no where then disappear again.

This amount of sky reminds me of a time in Holland when I spent a lot of time in a city and then I got a lift to Amsterdam and on the way there was a lot of sky.

We stopped and had lunch in a small town park carried on to Havre stopped at Wallmart before carrying on to Chinook, where we are camping at the Water Treatment Plant, there is a little park and a free warm shower. Its a pretty nice spot a local guided us here with a barking dog in the back of his pick up it looked like it might jump out at any time, luckily it didn’t.

We chatted a little with the guy who worked at the plant he was very friendly and turned of the sprinklers for us. The river where the water for the town is got from is the Milk River it looks pretty Milky. Lewis Clarke named the river because of its colour.

Its lovely warm evening tonight.

Today we continued across the plains. You can see so far and not much happens. We passed through a small towns, that were not that interesting.

We are following highway 2 and alongside this is a railway. We have had a few hoots and waves from the drivers. The trains are pretty long. Well very long. Sometimes they have two engines at the front and one at the back. I am not sure if the one at the back does anything. If somebody knows I would be grateful if they could tell me.

Tonight we are camped in the park at Chester, there are signs in the toilet warning us when the sprinklers will come on, so I guess they welcome campers.

We are camping tonight with two other cyclists, one which we met earlier in Republic about a week ago and another that we met in Glacier National Park and who we camped with last night as well.

It is a nice evening and it has cooled of nicely which is good.

3 August 2011

Today we woke early at 5am to ride up to Logan Pass. We got there without any fines and in good time. The ride was good and not as bad as we thought it would be it is the highest point on the whole trip.

A few people made the joke that its all downhill from here! We met another touring cyclist at the top he was carry a guitar with him, which he had found.

At the top we went on a walk in the snow in crocs not the best snow wear my feet got very cold. We saw a few mountain goats and a marmot or two. The snow was pretty deep and there were a few skiers and snow boarders which we saw. The walk was to the hidden lake overlook. There were quite a few people there and at the Logan Pass visitors Centre it was rammed. It was pretty crazy walking in the snow and the road was amazing too great views and not too steep.

We headed down the other side of the mountain and stayed at the campground in St Mary it was pretty dusty but the toilets were good and new. There were three other cyclists and a hiker at the hiker/biker part of the campsite it was good chatting with them, none of them had seen a bear in the park.

After cooking dinner and waiting till dusk about 10pm we headed to an astronomy talk, it was good and the stars were excellent, but I felt the talk was a bit to in depth for people who know nothing about the stars. We found out about the talk because at the top of Logan Pass we looked at the sun, this was pretty good you could lots of stuff I have now forgotten the name of.

4 August 2011

We headed out of the park towards Browning and there started heading east on highway 2. After Browning it started to get very flat and plain like. A bit like the fens but bigger! This is why montana is called big sky country.

The day was pretty much cycling we saw a few other people and we are now staying at an RV park in Cut Bank, (where the Rockies meet the plains).

The RV park is pretty good and has showers so it was good to have a wash. We are camping with one of the cyclists who we camped with yesterday.

I think the plains could become quite relentless, I hope not boring. A lot of people we met have either got a train or said it was very dull.

Today we had an early start which was slightly but very nicely delayed by bumping into our warmshowers hosts and having a second breakfast and a lot of coffee.

Then I brought some bike gloves as I had lost mine somewhere along the way. Then we headed into Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park World Heritage Site. This was a nice ride until we got pulled over and fined for riding on the road. It is closed to bikes between 11am and 4pm we thought the ban was further along the road, but there was a sign though.

So we paid up and sat on a beach for a while, there were a lot of flies here.

At 4pm we left the beach and headed onto Avalanche were we got a space on the hiker biker site. There are two more bikers and two more hikers here as well.

The campsite is pretty basic and we seem to be miles from the toilets and waterpoint but it was only $5 so its okay.

We are just cooking dinner now before getting an early night as tomorrow we are riding the Going to the sun road, completed in 1932. The road has time restrictions on it as well.

Today was fairly uneventful apart from the following two things that happened.

We had a good breakfast prepared by our host, the bacon was excellent.

And after lunch we saw the warmshowers people we stayed with in Lake Stevens again, they kindly gave us so more water. They were helping their son move house and decided to take a road trip to Glacier National Park afterwards. It was good to see them again. We all wished each other well on our travels and headed on to Whitefish.

We headed to the state park campsite which at first was full. But there was some space on the hiker biker area but this was $15 per person which is a little steep we though. Then there was a site that became free and was $23 all in so we went for that.

The campsite is fairly nice but there is a gravel enclosure for pitching tents which made that interesting.

As we are sitting down to cook dinner another factor has become apparent there is a freight train track which seems to have fairly regular trains on which goes over the campsite.

We sat and talked with some other cyclists there are quite a few staying here and put our stuff in the bear proof storage thing before going to bed.

Today we left our hosts after a good breakfast with good coffee. So far the coffee in america has been very good and there is lots of it everybody seems to drink it!

We rode out of the town with our host and started riding on a very nice quiet road, we got pasted by very few cars.

We stopped at Libby dam for a little bit this was created about 70 years ago and Rexford was moved as it was going to get flooded.

It was very hot today and there were a few more hills than we were expecting, but it was a good ride along the lake but at some points it got a little too hot.

Whilst having lunch we got attacked by flies, and lots of them. They just kept coming.

After lunch we continued on to our warm shower host in Rexford. We had a BBQ which was good and we heard a lot of stories about what he had done.