Glasgow, Montana to Malta, Montana - day 29

79 miles biked today with sunny skies in the morning and cloudy in the afternoon. Although the sky looked threatening we never did get rained on. The wind was out of the southwest at 5-10 mph.

We got up at 5:00AM this morning and biked 2 miles to a restaurant for breakfast. From there we headed west again on hwy 2 out of Glasgow towards Hinsdale, Saco, and finally Malta Montana. Just a couple miles out of Glasgow we came across a display of sculptures on a hillside of life size prehistoric animals...dinosaurs, brontosaurus, etc. etc. it was really neat to see them in a natural setting.

The first half of our ride today was absolutely beautiful! We followed the Milk River Valley for about 25 miles where you could see both the north and south rims of the valley way off in the distance and the valley floor appeared to be good fertile farm land. As we climbed out of the valley and up onto the plateau we could see for probably 25 miles in any direction. The scenery was beautiful. The only sign of man's presence was the highway, not a single homestead in sight, but a lot of cattle in view that looked to be about the size of ants. Long rolling hills up on the plateau and eventually some challenging hills but nothing we couldn't handle.

Our first break of the day was at Hinsdale where we stopped for OJ & V8. A couple of locals filled us in on this year's mosquito crop and suggested we stock up on Deep Woods Off or Deet, so we did, and thank goodness, for the next 30 miles the mosquito's and gnats were out in full force! As long as we kept rolling we were fine, but as soon as you stopped they were on you and they were hungry!

There is a lot of interesting history in the area, we stopped at a number of historical markers today that were very interesting. One in particular I remember told of a boat coming up the Missouri river with trade goods that had an outbreak of small pox that was transmitted to the local Indians who had no resistance to European diseases. The epidemic went on to wipe out 94% of the local Indian population.

We are now starting to meet bikers that have started out on the west coast and heading to Bar Harbor, Maine. We came across a bike group of approx. 24 people that were bicycling from Neah Bay, Washington to Bar Harbor, Maine. 58 days of biking and the cost for each bicyclist is $16,000.00, yes sixteen thousand dollars! WOW WOW WOW! If by chance, you are interested and want to spend some of your hard earn cash you can find out about it online at Timberline Adventures.

We also came across a couple from Salem, Oregon that are on a Co-Motion tandem and pulling a Bob and headed to Bar Harbor, Maine. They stopped and we spent a few minutes visiting with them on the side of the road. They started the trip right out of there driveway in Salem and then headed out on the Lewis & Clark Trail and then met up with the Northern Tier in Havre, Montana. Not only did they have the Bob loaded they also had panniers on as they are camping on this trip. Once again this couple had met up with Kate & Derrick in Malta and they were told that we were coming on a recumbent tandem.

We were quite relieved to finally arrive in Malta at about 2:00pm as there was a storm brewing in the west. We checked into our hotel and are content to watch TV, update the blog, and relax. We have biked over 230 miles the last three days and it feels good to put up our feet and only switch channels using the remote.

Total miles biked in 29 days is 1800 miles (we actually biked 1-1/4 miles around Malta this evening so that we would hit 1800 miles today - sick huh)

Happy trails!