Christmas in June

June 15, 2023

Woke in the Bunkhouse Hotel Jackson Montana to the hum of a street cleaner cleaning the streets of a town with 36 residents, several closed businesses, and a fair amount of mud on the street shoulders/gutters. All it really do was spread the mud around a bit. The temperature was 33! This is June! Thank goodness it was not raining or snowing. Across the street was a hot springs. Which like everything else out here is closed and only open for brief hours on weekends. The springs were enclosed by a wooden fence with glass windows here and there. No roof so steam rose in the air to remind me how cold it really was. At home I don’t get the bike out if it isn’t at least 50. Got no choice here.

The goal today was 48 mikes over two passes to to town of Dillon. As there is absolutely nothing except huge ranches between the two towns I did have a banana and two cups of oatmeal before starting. Still bonked about 3/4 ths the way in. Had to stop as soon as I got to Dillon for a Dr. Pepper and gas station hot dog. DP always reminds me of my college roomyDoug, the DP addict.

Though the hills were not as bad today as in the past, I did walk a fair amount. The first downhill after Big Hole Gap was about 6-7 mikes long. I topped out at 39.2 MPH. I wore multiple layers under a puffy jacket which came off on the sweaty uphill and replaced on the freezing downhills.

Seems I am hoping (ha, more like crawling) from one valley to the next as I go over yet another series of mountains. Guess that’s why they call it Montana. The ranches here go in for miles and miles. I thought the farms in Iowa were large! Saw real cowboys on real horses driving real cattle down the road to a corral to be shipped out. Not like those modern dudes on four wheelers from the other day.

Tomorrow should be about the same…..cold, cloudy, and no services for about 50 miles. Headed to Virginia City. Not sure if this is the one from Bonanza or not as I think there are several out here.

Let’s see if I can get photos on here. Didn’t take many as there was only big valleys full of open ranch land.

This is Brad. He is in the Great Divid Mountain Bike Race which crossed our path today. There are three big races going on concurrently. The other two are Race Across America and TransAm Race

These guys ran with me for a while. Stopped by a fence.

Today's ride: 48 miles (77 km)
Total: 718 miles (1,156 km)

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Frank Sowa“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” Theodore Roosevelt
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