Avg speed: 10.8 mph

Weather: 34-40 degrees, overcast
Wind: from the east

The spring storm dropped a couple inches of wet snow overnight and lingered until about 10:00. By the time we were on the road at 11:00, the easterly breeze had dried the pavement, and the light dusting gradually disappeared as we rode toward Chinook. It was hard to get just the right combination of cold weather coverups without being bundled up like the Michelin Man. The first few miles were slightly uphill so we had to stop and ditch some layers in the first hour. Then we took a second break for a cream cheese-toasted English muffin on the side of the road. (Riding in the cold burns a lot of calories). Our happy cycle buzz flowed and ebbed with the changes in the shoulder, from eight feet to four feet. Traffic was moderate, but not all cars moved over to pass us. 

We rolled in to Chinook at 14:00 for burgers at the “Chinook Bar and Grill.” The place was weirdly decorated with blurry photocopies of food images from magazines, few of which were offered not on the menu. We were the only customers, maybe that’s to be expected in a small town, off season, outside the usual lunch hour. The cheeseburgers and fries were okay for hungry cyclists. With no other customers, it was nice and quiet for making phone calls to nail down lodging for the night.

We had planned on camping at an RV park in Ft. Belknap, a reservation for the A'aninin and the Nakoda tribes. For a couple days we tried the various numbers listed, no one picked up or apparently listened to the voicemail messages we left. We even called the casino and nearby restaurant, but no one had any information. 

With temps expected to drop to the low 30s overnight and no certainty about whether the RV park in Ft. Belknap was even open, we took a room at the Bear Paw Motel in Chinook. We felt a little slacker-like for making only 24 miles when we had aimed for 48, but hey. We can make it up later.

 Good choice! For $65 plus tax, we got a spacious room in a motel built several decades ago before efficiency experts learned how to cram the maximum number of rooms and amenities into the minimum footprint. The room was freshly painted and had ample space for our bikes, the most important benefit for us. The wall-mounted TV was tiny and hard to see across the room from the bed. That didn’t matter, since the WiFi signal was decent and we could read the news. Scott set up “camp” on the desk for our coffee, tea, and breakfast the next morning. Lights were out at 21:45. 

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