One advantage to Jacinto's deciding to stay home was not having transportation issues to the beginning of the tour. He graciously offered to give me a ride to Great Falls. We had plenty of time to talk on the long, long drive. That helped boost my confidence of my cycling ability.

It was hard to say goodbye. Jacinto offered to take my place and let me go home. I think he was entirely serious. I would have forever felt like a failure if I didn't even try. Jacinto offered to come back and rescue me where ever I might be. I hoped I didn't feel a need to accept his safety net.

Several of us went to dinner together. Almost everyone was an experienced cycle tourist. We enjoyed trading lively stories over dinner.

We stayed at a new hostel in Great Falls, run by Todd, who had plenty of cycling experience. Todd had cycled the Southern Tier. Being the only solo female I rated a room to myself. There was one other woman on the tour, Peggy, with her SO, Jerry. The rest of the participants were men. Two people who had paid didn't show. One, a woman, didn't even call. The other, a man, had a last minute family emergency.

Guy Barel from ACA was there to give us the beginning instructions. The actual leader, Ryan Kaplan, was at a family wedding and would join us on day 2. We spent the evening going over introductions,group expectations, cooking schedules, safety rules, etc. We continued with our instruction in the morning before our short 13 mile shake down tour.

I would guess the average participant age to be 60ish. Most of the men were the lean, mean cycling machine types. The youngest person was Bob, a twentysomething teacher. Bob was quite candid in his surprise at the age of the rest of the group. He said due to the rigors of the road he had presumed that most of the participants would be his age.

All of our group gear was placed in a circle and we were instructed to keep taking things out of the pile until they were all gone. Three of us pulled trailers. There were two big soup pots and one large frying pan. Those bulky items went to us trailer people.

Ice cream pie was served (none for this good girl). Five of us walked over to the Sip and Dip bar. It was very, very crowded. The draw at the Sip and Dip was two mermaids swimming in the pool of the adjoining hotel. The bar was at floor level with the pool and had a window into the pool. We ended up seated outside where we could get a table and didn't stay long. We retired early to be prepared for our shake down ride.