Saturday, July 14th: Twin Bridges, MT …or up, down, up

Wew, what a grey clouds. It must have rained at night – a bit, since the road was wet. But at least it was dry now. I’m hoping I do not have to get into the bag…no – my woman tucks me in the front bag, where I can see everything. She tells me we are making a detour – but probably not as steep. We will never know. Around, means taking the Interstate 90 (still) to climb to Homestake Pass. We had an excellent view of the valley while climbing and since it was still overcast, the temperature was great. Not too hot, but not cold and most of all – no rain!
I’m amazed at how well she climbs… this isn’t as steep as she thought It would be! I heard a scream at the Continental Divide: great job! 

Now we can let Sweet Machine do the work for us. Before we start the downhill we read the guidelines for the truckers: fatal accidents along this road, a runaway truck ramp… 

We start and see, this is new: I hear a big bang! We both look up and see a truck in front of us (already on the downhill) getting a flat tire. A big piece of tire floats in the air. We are lucky this didn’t happen just next to us. A mile or two further down we finally see the truck standing on the shoulder – good thing no one got heart! Once down the area looks very barren: the grass is kind of olive green to yucky yellow.  The road rolls down all the way to Whitehall – a place where there are trees, homes, gas station and some fast food chains. My human fuels up with a sandwich with meat and cheese …(mmmmmm, I’d like some of that meat). Some guys get out of their car and ask her where she came from: it looks as if they are heading to Glacier Nat’l Park and north all the way to Jasper in Canada – on their bicycles which are now on top of their car. The wife will drive the luggage! The road to the junction of 41 is narrow (no shoulder). Hey what’s that … big rolls of hay are coming are way! As they pass us the dry hay just flies in the air and we have to stop so we can see again. Meanwhile the sun is out and also the headwind. 

My boss is suffering and fighting the headwinds… all the way to Silver Star – a small community with a great post office/ grocery shop/book shop/… 

Time to relax a bit before taking off to cross the Jefferson river. We are now definitely in Lewis and Clark country. 

They have canoed on this river. I believe my boss is reading a book written by Seaman, the dog that joined the expedition. The road surface is made from gravel and tar and it slows the Sweet Machine. It also gives me some trembling paws. No fun! My woman tells me the Jefferson is one of the three rivers which make up the Missouri river – yes, had we gone east in Whitehall we would have ended in Three Rivers, the headwaters of the Missouri. She names the Madison as the 2^nd, but not one hair on her head can think of the third one. She needed the boss of this place where we stay to remind her of the Gallatin river! The woman here tells us the Jefferson is also made from three rivers: the Ruby (as the mountains you will cycle next to tomorrow), the Beaverhead and the Big Hole rivers. Some of the names ring a bell from earlier traveling in this region. As we look on the map now for tomorrows ride we see some signs of ghost towns. She also tells me that tomorrow we’ll be “home” – on our route we have taken the last 4 years. I can feel her excitement. What a way to cycle: from the top of the map all the way down. I know my boss likes the stories about Lewis and Clark and their whole expedition in 1805!

By the way: the maps and the elevation charts make the  saving in my blog almost impossible... trying to find something