It was kind of a rough day for me.  When I started riding it was only about 45-degrees (F) and within minutes my fingers were painfully cold.  Rather than stopping to dig my gloves out of my pannier, I stubbornly and foolishly continued on.  I rode one-handed with the other hand in my pants pocket for a while, and then alternated when the exposed hand got  too cold.  I justified this behavior with the belief that the sun would soon be rising over the pine forest and then the temperature would quickly rise.  Well, it DID get instantly hot when the sun cleared the shade of the trees, but that didn't happen for nearly an hour.

Then there was the road construction which provided some rough riding over gravel.  Then there was the wrong turn I made which cost me time and miles.  Then there was some weird routing on the ACA map.  I sat at more than one intersection trying to figure out if I was still on-course.  Then there were some challenging climbs.  Then there was my sore ass.

Worst of all was the the forgotten helmet incident.  I had taken a break and removed my helmet while I shed a long-sleeved shirt.  I took a healthy drink of water and walked over to a wooded area to pee.  I enjoyed the break.  So far, so good, right?

Then I got back on my bike and rode about two miles before I realized I had left my helmet on a guardrail along Highway 63.  I was faced with a fairly momentous decision.  Should I ride back two miles to retrieve my helmet, or should I say "to hell with the helmet" and risk 14 more miles into Whitefish where I was reasonably certain I could buy a new one.  I chose the former, though I wasn't happy about it.

Then there were a couple of three or four mile sections in the final approach to Whitefish that made me forget the helmet incident.  They were some of the most treacherous miles of riding I have ever endured.  The shoulders were only inches wide, and some of that was crumbling away to nothing.  I could possibly have overlooked the tiny shoulders if it wasn't for the big trucks--specifically the logging trucks--barreling down the highway mercilessly.  I had been warned about the logging trucks, but you only tend to take such warnings seriously when one of them misses your left elbow by a couple of inches.  I was scared out of my gourd.  At times, when possible, I chose to ride in the brown grass to the right of the shoulder.  I sure was glad that I went back for my helmet.

In Whitefish I stopped for a new tube at Glacier Cyclery.  While there, I met a gal from Spain and a guy from France who were riding a tandem from Connecticut to Vancouver, British Columbia.  They were at Glacier Cyclery because, in the French guy's words, "our bike is sick."  They brought their patient to the right hospital, it seemed, because the service staff took it in and worked on it right away.

We talked for a while.  I wanted so badly to ask them if they were on their way to the Rainbow Festival.  They just had that look.

From Whitefish to West Glacier, a distance of about 30 miles, I estimated that about 75% of the local businesses had either "mountain," "glacier," or "grizzly" in its name.  Just a personal observation that you could probably verify on Google.

It was very hot in the afternoon and I was very tired when I reached the national park.  The Apgar Campground is easily the ugliest and most crowded campground of the trip.  But when you reach camp and are done riding for the day, all of your complaints are quickly forgotten.  In fact, I am sorry for wasting most of this page with all of my bitching.  I am now blissfully content.