| 'twas cloudy this morning as we got our breakfast in the parking lot at our super 8 in hamilton. temp was 58 degrees....probably 20 degrees warmer than the morning before in jackson. |
| sari & i left town around 6:30. we had a tailwind most of the 22 miles to stevensville, site of today's pie. by the time sari & i arrived at the cafe sarah was already eating her belgian waffles topped with ice cream. others had their usual breakfast fare. sari & i asked the waitress which of the pies was the best & she raved about the caramel apple nut, so we ordered it. i'm not a big fan of apple pie, but this one was different, not too sweet, & had nuts. the caramel swirl on the top crust was a tasty addition. |
| a local fellow started talking with sari & me & before long he sat himself down at our booth. he's been ranching in montana for all but 5 of his 60-something years. he--like so many others that we encounter at cafes & elsewhere--asked about our route over the next few days. little did he realize that we usually don't know the route to that day's overnight town without stopping to check the route sheet every 10 miles or so.....let alone our routes tomorrow or 3 days from now. he extolled the beauties of the lochsa valley, which we'll be riding through tomorrow. like others, he tried to draw out for us the "best way" to get to the next stop on our route. folks never seem to realize that we're on a set path. plus they're often thinking of getting us there the fastest way; it doesn't occur to them that we don't want to ride on interstates or other heavily traveled roads. but i know they're just anxious to help. |
| the fellow also asked whether we'd seen the rainbow people at jackson. yes, we had....a few. they're hippies left over from the 60's. there's a big get-together of the rainbow family coming up soon; they'll be camping in the hills just outside of jackson. locals are expecting 10,000 of them....& they're not particularly happy about it, either. |
| because today was mostly cloudy, with an occasional light sprinkle, i again didn't take many pictures. furthermore, the landscape was very similar to yesterday afternoon. after all, we're still riding up the bitterroot valley. we hit some construction at mile 43 before getting to lolo. i figured you'd seen enough construction photos lately, so didn't take another one. actually, this time i couldn't have stopped to take a photo anyway. |
| claudine, today's sag driver, came up with a scheme to get us through an especially dangerous stretch of the construction zone. we were on US highway 12, so traffic was heavy. through one 2-mile stretch there really wasn't room for us bikers & the other vehicles---especially the huge trucks. claudine had us all go ahead of her in the subaru & she kept vehicles from going past us. sure made us feel lots safer. thanks, claudine. |
| after lolo we started up another narrow valley...again with a river running along the road & high hills on both sides covered with pine trees. for most of this last 20 miles we had gusty headwinds. we'd gotten very spoiled by the brisk tailwinds we enjoyed this morning. |
