Friday, July 2, 2010

Libby, Montana to Clark Fork, Idaho - day 38








































































































































































Total miles biked today was 70 - rainy and cloudy all day

We had the alarm set for 5:30AM this morning because we knew we had 70 miles to bike with a lot of hills. When the alarm went off John got up and went to the bathroom and I sat up in bed and looked out the window and it was pouring. So we crawled back in bed and figured that we would wait until 7:00 to see if it would quit raining. We thought about just taking the day off but we had the next three days of hotels booked due to the 4th of July weekend. We waited until 8:30 and the rain had stopped but there were white clouds practically covering up the mountains in all directions. We put on our biking pants and long sleeve shirts, our fleece, and our rain gear and headed down the road to Clark Fork. First thing we had a gradual hill to climb out of the valley and so we were not 3 miles out of town when we stopped and took off our fleece because we warmed up quickly.








During the day it rained off and on and was cloudy and overcast a good share of the day with the clouds hanging low on the mountains. At about mile 15 we came across the beautiful river of Kootenai with rapids and decided to eat our breakfast - the rain had stopped for a short time and so we stood along the road enjoying the scenery and shared the sandwich that we had picked up the night before for breakfast.








Today was 70 miles of up and down the hills and we were very happy to get to Clark Forks.








Oh, I almost forgot - remember in yesterday's blog how I mentioned that we had finally gotten the tire problem rectified. Well today we crossed the road to stop at a little bar to use there restroom and just as we got in the driveway the front tire blew. How is that for luck! Here just before that we had been barreling up and down the hills - well not really barreling up the hills - thank goodness we had the flat when we did. So we ended up changing the tube and tire before we headed on our way.

We are also now in IDAHO - yeah, yeah, yeah! It took us 12 days of biking to get across the state of Montana. Although Montana is a beautiful state it seemed like it went on forever and ever. We have approx. 56 miles to bike to get across Idaho and then we will be in Washington. I am already getting excited and just the thought of dipping our tire in the ocean just seems like a dream. I know we will make it!








Happy trails!

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