Start: 7:40am

Finish: 3:00pm

Saddle time: 5:15

Ascent:  1,041 feet

Descent:  1,401 feet

Miles: 63

Total Miles: 617

Highlight:  Talking to the inn owner over breakfast.

Lowlight: Got into town early but getting things done took a long time.

Cyclemeter:  Follow this link to see the data I’m collecting with the cyclemeter app. You can see gps information, speed, elevation, distance, cadence and heart rate. Better viewed on a computer where it’s easier to play around with the graphs.

I used this morning as a test of how long it takes me to wake up, pack up, and be ready to roll.  I don’t have to cook breakfast this morning so all I have to do is pack up my bike and go over the the inn.  I am getting better with a pack up routine and I’m able to multitask that with making/consuming coffee and oatmeal but today was just pack up and go.  I got up at 5:10 which is 4:10 to my body after gaining an hour crossing into Montana yesterday. My routine is to pack up my sleeping stuff inside the tent before leaving then move to the outside and normally make coffee while taking down the tent. I didn’t have everything packed up, on the bike, and ready to go until 6:00. So there you go, part of the reason I hate camping. In addition to that I didn’t sleep well last night, really congested even with the Claritin.

Breakfast was great, better to get loaded up now because there’s not much chance for second breakfast on todays route. Had a great conversation with the husband over breakfast.  He was telling me how his family lived in this area for seven generations, some move away last generation including his immediate family, he lived in Seattle for a time.  He was telling me how the county is the size of Massachusetts with a population of 11,000 people, a median household income of $23,000 and many don’t have running water.  At the same time there are a lot of Amazon/Google/etc employees moving out here.  I wondered about the culture clash. He said it’s a big, the two stay far enough apart.  I did see my first “Fuck Biden” sign a ways down the road.  Another house had huge Trump display, how the election was stolen, the usual bullshit. 

He has cameras outside all over the place, a little creepy, actually.  He explained to me why he set them up.  When building the inn they had issues with what he called ecoterrorists, the kind that spike trees and such.  I guess their thought was no one should live here. They came in and vandalized the property so he setup cameras to help monitor the place which also enabled him to keep an eye on animal activity, like bears.  He checked his cameras from last night, no bears. Good.

He was telling me about a superfund site not too far from there, Libby, Montana. They used to mine vermiculite which produces asbestos or an asbestos like product, the town was essentially bathed in the stuff.  Over the years about 400 people died of mesothelioma so the mine was eventually shut down in 1990.  About 3,000 people suffered the effects.  This is a town with a current population of about 4,000. Holy shit! I told him I’m planning on camping there tonight.  He gave me a look of good luck. He thinks the town isn’t even safe to drive through, I’m hoping that’s an exaggeration.

My start was later than I wanted, I really need to get going early with the heat rolling in.  The scenery is great with mountains on two side, the Cabinet Mountains to the north and Bitterroot Mountains to the south. The first part of the ride was along the Cabinet Reservoir in the valley of the two ranges, then headed north toward Libby. Comfortably cool with little traffic. As the day went on the heat became more oppressive.  The ride wasn’t hard, about 60 miles with rolling hills, nothing steep but towards the end I was really looking forward to reaching town. 

Stopped at an RV park just outside town but couldn’t find anyone in the office.  I rolled on to a city park that has camping, the Volunteer Firefighters Memorial Park, only $10/night.  I found the last available site, was filling out my card when an RV owner came up asking if I was the manager, I couldn’t find him either.  I offered to give my site to her and camp in what looked like a tent area with just a couple picnic tables in a field.  It was right on the road so not ideal but just a place to sleep for the night.  The manager showed up a little while later and let me camp for free since I offered up my spot.  More nice people.

Headed over to the local brewery to celebrate another day with a couple beers. Brought my dirty clothes and shower gear with me because there’s no shower at the campground so I planned on going to a laundromat for a shower and laundry.  This started a long afternoon of everything taking too much time, maybe it was the two beers on an empty stomach and tired body.  I had to contact the laundromat owner to let me in the shower which took a while, then realized I forgot my clean clothes at camp, went to a restaurant that took forever, etc.  I expected to be back at camp by maybe 6:00 but it was more like 8:00 and it was still hot, over 90 degrees. Didn’t get comfortable until nearly midnight.

I’m getting more concerned about the heat.  It’s going to be 10 degrees hotter in a few days.  I can’t camp in that weather and I’ll be near Glacier NP where everything is really expensive and booked up in advance. Plus the holiday weekend is coming up. I need to figure this out.

Tried to work on some blog/instagram/photos but didn’t get much done.  Went to bed and started to feel congested again, I think some of the pollen must have carried over from last night. See why I hate camping?

For some reason Libby is City of Eagles. I didn’t see any.