Dinosaurs on Wheels

  Saying goodbye to the suffer-fest I am heading out of Butte, going to the Bozeman airport, and heading home this morning. I’m ending my time on the Great Divide Trail, perhaps for a while, perhaps more likely, forever.  Bozeman Airport as I leave Montana What lead me to decide to end this trip for me?     Lots of reasons, most of which venture around one main thing: my heart was not in this ride, and this is a ride you must dedicate your heart, your lungs, your comfort, and humility to complete it. I wasn’t really doing so, so in turn this ride wasn’t really any fun for me.   I think I agreed to this trip a few years ago, when my world was completed different. We were delayed by Jerry’s health, and then Patty’s. I’ve spent almost the last two years taking care of her, only to lose her about 90 days ago. In that time I’ve pushed off work, home and family obligations. Right now was not a good time to push them off again in order for me to do something like this....

The block party last night in front of the stray bullet cafe We left the busy hub of Ovando (population about 50) after getting a hearty breakfast at the Stray Bullet Café, across from the Ovando Inn where we had spent the night. Other cyclists arriving yesterday stayed either at the Inn, or at the big teepee, or the covered wagon, or the hoosegow (old jail).  One of the places to stay in Ovando The breakfast was great and they made us a couple of sandwiches for the road, so it worked out great. Today’s goal was to make it to the Llama Farm (more on that later), a trip of almost 70 miles across two passes. Since we haven’t been able to do much more than 50/day through all the gravel and climbing, this might be a stretch. So the first thing we did on the way out of Ovando was to skip the first section of 7-8 miles by taking Montana 200 highway to cut this off. Our waitress at the Stray Bullet said this was going to be a terrible “washboarded road.” That was enough to convince us to...

Breaking camp at Holland Lake This morning we woke up at the Holland Lake campground with a brisk 48 degree temperature. Not horrible, but it got your attention, for sure. It was nice to dry the tent out overnight by keeping the fly (the rain cover) open. That certainly meant a cold tent last night, so the down sleeping bags certainly did their job. Up the mountain After packing up our stuff we bid Robert, our campsite-mate, good bye. We got on the road about 8:30, not early but not late. We knew we were in for some climbing this morning, and weren’t disappointed. We hit a 850 foot climb over about a mile and a half, so I thought we were through. About 3 miles later, we had another 2,000 foot climb in 6 miles. Just like at Ferndale, but this time it wasn’t raining. Like always, it starts out benign, then begins to tick upward, steeper and steeper. We stopped a number of times to catch our breaths as the mountain climbed higher and higher. Finall...

We left the Bougie confines of Whitefish, with its SUV traffic jams, for places south into the US Forest Service land to the south. We actually were pretty lucky, as this area had been under fire warnings up until the week before. We started the day at a local Cafe, so that I could try to get some work done. On this trip I need to do some work, so I needed to connect. We also stopped at a local bike shop to get a new copy of the Divide map that Jerry had lost the night before. So that took a while, so we didn’t start out very early. That’s okay, since we didn’t know where we would end up. The first half of the day was really through the southern areas of Whitefish, meaning a lot of new houses and “ranches” all along the way. Lots of new stuff everywhere, as it seems like the world is coming to Montana. At lunch, we stopped along a ranch and put up our camp chairs along a fence and got out our sandwiches. We were sitting there and Jerry’s bike fell over. We looked back a...

I did not post our travels from Fernie to what turned out to be Eureka, MT. I wrote one, and it was great. Probably a mix of Shakespeare and Hemingway, to be honest. Actually, if you’ve read my posts, you know I”m not being honest. So before updating the past few days, I’ll recall the trip from Fernie. But when I went to post the update to the blog page, it disappeared. Completely. I was a bit tired, angry that I didn’t copy the text before posting, and not ready to do this again with my finger-typing. So I’ll try to recreate this in much shorter prose. Fernie turned out to be a really great little town. An old mining town that now seems to be outdoor activity central for this part of BC. Patty’s HS friends took us into town where we found multiple bike shops, including one that had a part to an obscure water bladder that is only made in the UK. There were lots of outdoor options including cycling, hiking, and both types of skiing. Very cool. At the same time, it’s not (yet...

  Today was Saturday, apparently.  In only a few days I have already started to lose track of “real” time.  In my world it is simply “Leaving Elkford.” Leaving Elkford today, we realized another good move made, as last night we heard terrible thunder and rain crashing down on little Elkford.  We were dry and mostly comfortable in our little haven by the liquor store.  We did get going fairly early, and immediately scrambled for breakfast and something to pack for lunch.  We went to the convenient store at the local gas station to get sandwiches, and asked where we could get breakfast.  Mel’s Diner was located about a mile away, so we rode off, only to find Mel on holiday.  Back we went, another mile, to find micro-wavable breakfasts at the same convenience store, plus coffee.  I wish Mel would have posted his holiday on Google, or whatever. The top of a very early and long uphill first thing today Finally got going, a bit later than expected....

Today started out on am uncertain path. As I wrote yesterday, Jerry’s heart went into A-fib, casting a cloud of doubt over the entire enterprise. We wouldn’t know how we would proceed if he couldn’t rides. Specifically if he couldn’t climb, which is extremely difficult when your hearts only pumping at a fraction of its capacity.  We got an early test as we started the day with a bang. As we ascended the first big hills of the day we realized that no one was going to ride this one. My GPS said it was greater than 15%grade, meaning really steep. It was also nothing but loose rocks, a good combination for “let’s walk, carefully, up this hill. For the first miles all we did was climb, climb, climb. Eventually we came to a little gateway that I didn’t photograph, that announced we had crossed the Elk pass, the high point of this area before going into the Elk valley. Realize that there are a lot of elk in this area. Read my post from yesterday about the one walking down Banff avenue....

Thursday, August 3 We finally hit the road today, exiting the high life in Banff and heading down the trail towards, eventually, the Mexican border. What do they say, “a journey of 4,000km begins with a single step. Or in our case pedal stroke.   William Cornelius Van Horne wishes us Godspeed on our journey  We began the day at our favorite calorie factory, McDonalds, grabbing the highest calorie number breakfast I could find. That wasn’t a stretch there, so we got the nutrition situation under control. On our way there I saw an elk, walking across the street in Banff, wandering along like it belonged, which I’m sure it does. Not something I see every day in Ohio, but in rural Alberta I bet it’s a thing. We also headed to the local IGA for a little bit of something to carry with us to eat. I do say a little something because the sandwich I bought was about half of what I should have bought. Pesos I was full from Mickey D’s and should have thought with my head, not with my full...

​Well, the new cross country trip is starting out just like the last one did, with a”strategic retreat.”  Last trip we started out in Tillamook, OR with a 2 day hotel stay in Neskowin, OR on the coast. That time it was because of torrential rain, this time for torrential tardiness.  Jerry did catch the late flight to Calgary, eventually getting through customs about 2AM. He spent the night sleeping on a bench in the airport waiting on the first shuttle of the day at 10AM. That shuttle arrived in Banff about noon, and then it was time to put the bike back together. When Jerry takes his bike apart he really takes it apart. He was pouring his brakes back together, his aero bars back on, his derailleur, etc. It was a miracle putting it together that fast if you ask me. It would have taken me twice as long and a a whole lot more swears to put that thing together.  So now it’s after 2PM, we need to eat, and then get on the road. We decided to go back into Banff, find s restaura...