Avg speed: 12.3

Weather: 38-45 degrees, cloudy morning, sunny afternoon
Terrain: rolling grassland
Wind: from the west to northwest

On Day 3 we hit a personal best and completed a 68-mile ride with fully loaded panniers, despite some inauspicious signs early in the day. We were underway at 09:30.  About 10 miles east of Cut Bank, the shoulder disappeared and the number of vehicles and semi-trucks increased. Being buffeted by huge, noisy trucks is about the only thing that makes me despair and want to get off the road. Each truck that passed left a strong destabilizing wake that made us grip our handlebars to keep our bikes pointing forward and upright. We had made no plans for lodging, preferring to decide on the fly whether to go 47 miles and stay in  Galata or go 68 miles to Chester.

We were in Shelby about noon. Temps were still below 40 so we stopped at a sandwich shop to get out of the cold wind. We realized why there was so much more traffic than the day before. Shelby sits on Interstate Highway 15 that connects points on a north-south axis, like Lethbridge, Canada with Great Falls, Montana. Many of the cars passing us were headed for bigger cities. 

By the time we finished lunch, sun was burning through the haze and taking the chill off. We pedaled out of town and traffic dropped off considerably. For the next 10 or 15 miles we we reclaimed that joy of losing ourselves in the blue sky above and golden grasslands all around us. 

One of the advantages of passing through on bikes, we can, and do, stop at every historical marker. We never took the time when we used to drive through. We rode by the marker for the “Piegan Massacre” of January 1870, when cavalry and mounted infantry commanded by Colonel Eugene Baker killed 200 or more Blackfeet, mostly women, children, and elderly encamped on the Marias River. The able bodied Blackfeet men were hunting in the Sweet Grass Hills a couple day’s ride away. Baker’s offensive was supposed to avenge the killing of a white rancher in Helena by a different band. The sign did not say so, but I had read a book about this incident. Baker was drunk and even when a scout told him he was attacking the wrong camp, Baker said it made no difference, they were all Piegans and he would kill them anyway. When Baker and his men rode in, Chief Heavy Runner, who was considered friendly and had been promised protection by the U.S. Government, ran out with a piece of paper and tried to explain his band should be spared. He was shot first. The massacre is sometimes described as the worst in Montana’s history and is still a bitter memory for the Blackfeet Nation. 

Heart

0

Comment

0

Link

Log in to comment or reply

After a few more miles, we came to a quarry west of Galata where huge trucks turned out ahead of us. They were going to an eight-mile-long construction zone where Highway 2 had been torn down to the gravel road bed. Flagmen were controlling the flow of cars in each direction, the speed limit was just 35. We liked the slower speed limit, but the trade-off was riding in the dust the gravel trucks kicked up carrying their loads to re-build the road bed. 

About midway into the construction zone we came to Galata, a wide spot in the road with a general store, motel, and RV park. Even though we would not overnight here, we took a break so Scott could get some coffee. (That’s a detail that will repeat almost every day of the ride. Scott loves coffee). My cell phone could pick up no cell signal, but the store manager let me use her phone to reserve a room at the Great Northern Bed & Breakfast where we decided to spend the night. A wispy bearded guy who looked like he was in his early 60s and reeked of reefer, issued a warning before he got in the passenger seat next to his wife: “You ain’t spring chickens, you know.” 

We steered into the dirt mess and came to another checkpoint when a flatbed truck pulled alongside us. The driver apologetically explained that he would have to give us and our bikes a lift through a mile long section to keep us from getting tangled up in the heavy equipment. We couldn’t get off our bikes and onto the flatbed fast enough, relieved to get out of the dirt.

Once safely on the other side of the heavy construction, we unloaded our bikes off the truck and pedaled off. Miraculously, the shoulder was six feet wide again, leaving ample space between us and the windy trucks. We assume the eight-mile stretch, when finished, will have a matching nice wide shoulder. It’s supposed to be finished mid-July, which will be a boon to other cyclists. With just 13 miles to go, we made a fateful stop at an abandoned grain elevator in Lothair for refreshment, then got back on the road.

We pulled into the Great Northern B&B about 18:00. What an oasis of comfort it was after a long day in the dirt and wind. Since it was the off season, we had the entire B&B to ourselves, for $132. We chose it through a long series of connections. The B&B is owned by pianist and composer Philip Aaberg, who recorded for Windham Hill. He was born in Havre, grew up in Chester, and got a BA in music from Harvard. Our neighbor in Ferndale was Aaberg’s university classmate and suggested we go to Aaberg’s concert in Whitefish in December 2018. Just two weeks ago when we flew to Missoula after visiting family, our Uber driver was playing Aaberg on his stereo, so we mentioned we had seen Aaberg in concert. The driver told us Aaberg had a B&B in Chester, which we would pass through on our ride. The Galata General Store manager also knew Aaberg, because she had taught his son at the elementary school in Chester. How many degrees of separation is that?

Heart

2

Comment

0

Link

Log in to comment or reply

When we were unpacking our panniers before leaving for dinner, I discovered my glasses were missing. I called the sandwich shop in Shelby and the Galata General Store, no one had found them. Scott asked our waitress at the Grand Bar if she knew anyone who could give us a ride to the grain elevator 13 miles back in Lothair where we had paused to take a break. The waitress somehow persuaded a nice woman named Charlotte to drive us. She left her own food to get cold so we could search the site before sundown. The case with my glasses was there, right where it had fallen out when I opened my handlebar bag. We compensated Charlotte well, since having to buy new glasses or get a spare pair from home would have been a huge hassle.

Although the B&B was outfitted like a home with excellent stereo and large screen TV, we were exhausted after the ride and were in bed by 22:00. We had a 60 mile ride into Havre the next day and needed the sleep to make sure we would be ready.