Missoula, Montana

Montana gets better!!!

It's been awhile, and there is much to say (I think...it always seems like more than it is). After our blog in Livingston (which is a RAD little town and I want to go back someday to hang out more) we went to the grocery store to stock up on sale energy bats and peanut butter, and ran into our new friends George, Gus and Sony(j?)a outside. George very graciously offered us 2 stinky dirty cyclists a place to camp out in their backyard!! We met Katherine at home and had a lovely time with this lovely family. They made us dinner AND breakfast, let us shower, had 2 dogs and a cat to play with and even had our favorite salad dressing! Yay! Thanks again, guys. Our ride out to Bozeman the next day was short and sweet, 20 miles over Bozeman Pass which turned out to be quite easy. We got to Bozeman around lunchtime and ate at the local co-op which might be better than Willy Street! Not as much vegan stuff, but it's bigger and has a huuuge Deli and a little cafe upstairs! We spent the rest of the day drinking coffee and wandering around town until 5 when we went to the Tuesday night Farmers Market. We had dinner and people watched for awhile until we met Tom and Robbie(y?) who let us stay in an empty rental apartment of theirs. Once again, thank you and our stay was wonderful. Bozeman is a cool little town...very Madisony with LOTS of bikes, but very unpretentious bikes. Just a city full of people on 2 wheels.

The next day we rode out to Lewis and Clark caverns. It was a fairly uneventful ride...we met another cyclist at the park who sat down for dinner with us. He was headed the opposite direction, so our visit was short and I hope he's doing well out there!

The next day we rode to Dillon...another nice easy ride. Dillon is a cute town, but unfortunately all the people we cam into contact with were kind of mean and we couldn't find anywhere under $30 to sleep. Laaame.

OK, the NEXT day we had not one, but 2 mountain passes to climb. I think we've been building up these passes in our heads, so they end up being easier than we expect. Obviously, it's still kind of hard, several miles up a very steep grade will be, but we made it to the other side without fault and felt invigorated at the top :) The mosquitos got worse and worse as the day went on, and in Wisdom where we slept you couldn't stand still without being compeletly enveloped in a swarm of them. We decided to eat at a restaurant to avoid them, and shared a sandwich and some soup to save money. We got chatted up by another tourer who wasn't touring at the moment, and he ended up buying our dinner for us! Niceness abound everywhere we turn in this state! We're on a section of the ride that intersects with the Transamerica route, so we've been seeing more bikers than usual, and that night there were 3 camping in the same park as us. One guy was travelling with his dog which I thought was way cool. Maybe next time I go I'll take Buckley :)

After that we had one more pass (where we crossed the continental divide) and lots of downhill all the way to Missoula. We met a couple cyclists from the Netherlands which was cool. Missoula is a really nice place...even more bikes than Bozeman, lots of vegan food and super bike friendly (not to mention quite flat). We visited the Adventure Cylcling office this morning where we got free ice cream and our picture put up on their wall o' bikers. We saw all the photos of people we've met along the way and talked to the folks that worked their. Heard a story about someone running into a bear on their bike (yikes). AND we found Curran, our backwards biking friend again!

So thats the short story, theres more stuff in between, and I could go on for pages and pages here but I'd run out of time on my computer. Everything is getting more and more beautiful (we're in the Bitteroot mountain valley now) and it's getting hotter and hotter out. We're starting to miss home a little bit. We've got about 500 miles to Portland which is a strange feeling.

Ok I have to go to the bathroom so I'm going to cut it short here...I love yous!