Start: 7:01 AM

Finish: 1:30 PM

Saddle Time: 4:41

Ascent: 685 feet

Descent:  804 feet

Miles: 66 miles

Total Miles: 987

Highlight: Finding a festival going on outside my motel when I arrived.

Lowlight: The last 10 miles into Great Falls had a lot more traffic, and heat.

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.

Another great day of riding, cool morning, rolling hills, very little climbing.  I seem to be stringing together good days since I got out of the Glacier area, away from the crowds and a lot of the heat.  It’s still getting hot today with 97 predicted for this evening in Great Falls, still a good excuse to not camp.  I managed to find another $60 room in downtown so maybe I can explore a bit.

I started a little earlier than yesterday knowing I had another 10 miles to ride and I want to avoid the bulk of the heat.  Nights cool down here into the sixties so morning riding is comfortable.  Most of my ride today will be south along Frontage Road following Interstate 15.  The road runs either right next to the highway or in some places veers out about a half mile away.  Either way was fine, traffic on the road was almost none existent.  I had only about a dozen cars pass me in the first 50 miles!  Traffic on the highway was also light, definitely not a steady stream of roaring traffic so the ride was pleasant.

The scenery was largely the same as yesterday but my expectation is for that to continue for about the next thousand miles but for now it’s still new to me so interesting.  Everything is about wheat farming, fields of wheat and the mechanics of farming wheat like grain elevators, silos, and tractors.  Houses are separated by a good mile or so and have the only trees you can see on the horizon.

I realized since the scenery will be the same for a long while I should explore the towns a little more, look at the little things rather than the big landscape scenes.  After about an hour of riding while taking pictures of a deserted small town I saw the first car of the day coming towards me from the highway. I thought they will be disappointed if looking for food or gas, nothing is open around here.  I continue on my way when the car pulls up to me and the driver says “Hey John from Connecticut!”. It was Bill and Liam, the father and son team for last week.  I had wondered how their tour was making out, was hoping I would bump into them again.  Unfortunately not well, Liam developed an injury so they had to abort.  They were driving around before heading back to Seattle.  They can be proud to have complete almost a thousand miles of the toughest part on arguably the hardest cross country bike route.

My odometer crossed 1,000 miles today but it’s overstated by about 50 miles.  It’s been wigging out at times, showing me going 60mph which isn’t happening.  I think it doesn’t like the high heat of the afternoon, neither do I.  I’ll cross the 1,000 mile mark tomorrow.

Oddly enough I crossed the 1,000 mile mark right in from of the Cenex station I planned on stopping to top off my water and maybe get something for second breakfast but it was closed.  It’s now 9:30, not early, I don’t understand why a gas station by the highway would be closed, even on a holiday. All the shops and restaurants in town were also closed.  Maybe this is how it should be but not what I’m used to.  I have plenty of Cliff Bars and my water supply was good.  On to the next town.

Most of the late morning was just making time along the highway. I finally stopped at an Exxon station about 15 miles out of Great Falls for a snack and Gatorade.  The last 15 miles was the worse riding of the day with the temperature rising and much more traffic than I had all morning, not terrible by any means, just the worst part of a good day.

Made it too my motel to find streets blocked off in the area.  They were having some kind of July 4th festival.  They called it a Hootenanny, seriously!  My hotel wouldn’t let me check in early, seems to be thing here in Montana with name brand hotels, so I wandered through the festival.  I bought a tiny $4 slice of pizza and had a couple beers.  Drinking beer while tired, dehydrated and on an almost empty stomach had a strong impact.  A few bands played, headlined by Lanco.  I arrived about 1:30 and walked around for the next 3 hours.  It was a nice thing to stumble upon.  I had been hoping for a rodeo somewhere but haven’t seen any signs.

Strangely, everything in town was closed.  All the shops and restaurants, everything, well almost everything, the brewery was open at the festival.  You would think local stores would want to capitalize on the downtown crowds and stay open, nope, not around here.  Again, maybe this is how it should be, just different from back home.

Went out later to the supermarket to get something for dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow. I think I prefer this way of eating to restaurants.  Maybe I’ll start mixing them up so I don’t get bored of one or the other.

The next days will be dictated by distances between towns.  I will likely ride about 60 mile days which is better for me anyway.  I think my body prefers it to the over 80 miles days.  If I get a good tailwind I may be able to turn a day or two into century rides but no reason to push myself and perhaps end up injured or simply unhappy.