Sunday, June 20, 2010

Poplar, Montana to Glasgow, Montana - day 28 of biking















Miles biked today was 73 miles with beautiful blue skies and no wind.
We now know what they mean when they say "Big Sky Country in Montana".

We stayed on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation last night at Poplar, Montana. Very poor conditions through out the entire town. We put our bike in the hotel room and pretty well stayed behind closed doors the entire evening. We got up this morning at 5:00AM Mountain standard time and was on the road by 5:37AM. We had picked up muffins for breakfast as we had decided the night before that we would be biking 22 miles before we sit and actually have our breakfast. Neither of us felt bad about leaving the little town of Poplar. We started out with our fleece on but not too many miles down the road we stopped and took them off.

We biked to Wolf Point for breakfast and both of us had an excellent breakfast. We had been surprised biking to Wolf Point because we had a number of police cars pass us. Apparently there was something going on in Wolf Point but we never did figure out why we had seen all the cop cars. Overall biking in North Dakota and into Montana we had not seen many police officers so this was surprising to us to see all of them on a Sunday morning.

We are biking through part of the Missouri River valley and along part of the Lewis & Clark trail. We are also biking along the side of the railroad that was built in the 1880's and was somewhat responsible for opening up the northwest to the rest of the country. My brother, Ron, would have loved to be here to see all the trains coming and going. One train would go by approx. every hour and one of them was 113 cars long with three engines. We have also seen Amtrak trains.
On our way to Nashua we stopped to visit with two bikers (husband and wife) that were biking from the coast of Oregon to Maine. We just visited with them for a few minutes because of the mosquito's. However, during our visit we found out that they had breakfast with Kate & Derrick (that is the couple biking that we had met in Page, North Dakota). We figured with our taking the week off they were way ahead of us. However, due to the weather and there spending a weekend with some friends we are right behind them. Maybe we will run into them again. We'll see!

We stopped in Nashua for some maple nut ice cream and spoke with one of the local ranchers and his wife. They were very nice and gave us an overview of the area. One of the things that they are growing very well in Montana is mosquito's. We don't dare stop a long the road too long because they come in swarms and don't seem to be phased by our mosquito spray (Deet).
One of the things that we noticed as soon as we arrived in Montana is that if there was a death on the highway the state of Montana puts a white cross where the death occurred. There are way to many of them along the way, especially on the Indian Reservation. Alcoholism appears to be a huge problem on the reservations and I would assume that has played a big part in all the crosses along the highway.

After a long gradual uphill we arrived in Glasgow about 2:00PM and got a hotel room at the first hotel we saw. It was getting quite warm so we were anxious to get checked in. Also as we approached Glasgow we saw a sign showing that if we take a right turn we would travel to Canada which was only 60 miles from Glasgow. There is a restaurant attached to the hotel so we will eat there this evening.

We will start biking early again tomorrow morning to beat the heat and the traffic. We are planning on biking approx. 74 miles to Malta tomorrow.

We are having such a great time!

Happy trails!






















2 comments:

  1. So the little Indian town is the only one so far, that you really felt uncomfortable. That is reaaly pretty good. Some of those little remote towns out there, you just never know who is hiding out for some reason or another!!!! You guys are doing just great and sounds like you have many miles planned for tomorrow also. I take it, you have not had to use any of the items you received at your going away party yet!!!!! Stay safe, we miss and love you guys!!!!!

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  2. John said that "thanks to our friends he has socks every day". lol

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