The "best rides" seem to be coming thick and fast, don't they? They
are; we're in a beautiful part of the country to ride a bike in. This
one started inauspiciously, though:
(a) The live music at the Lodge on Friday night went on late. "We're
gonna take a little break, but don't worry -- we'll be here all
night!" I heard the band announce at one point. [Gaaack! Nooooo!] "All
night" turned out to be only (!) 11:30 or so, but still everybody was
a little sleep-deprived in the morning.
(b) Since no one was assigned dinner prep duty for Friday (we ate at
the Lodge), we "forgot" to shop for the next day's breakfast and lunch
fixin's while we were in some place approximating civilization.
Fortunately, Dawn and I happened to meet at the van in the afternoon,
both of us hungry and scrounging for snacks. We realized the food
problem, and got Steve on the case. He cleaned out the local store,
but we were still without some critical breakfast (fruit cups, yogurt)
and lunch (tomatoes, bananas) supplies(*). And, of course, we had no
coffee or tea, because firing up the stoves was verboten.
(c) It was cold -- bright, shiny, clear blue sky (once the sun rose),
but k-o-l-l-d-e cold; maybe the coldest morning we've had yet. And
wet. A very heavy dew had -- fallen? risen? what's the right verb?
what does dew do to make itself appear? -- settled in overnight,
almost as if it had rained, to aid and abet the bone-chillingness of
the early morning.
Bottom line: We were a tired, cold, damp, caffeine-less bunch who, on
top of all that, were a little grumpy (justifiably) about the food
situation.
BUT... We knew that the route for the day, although longish, was
almost all downhill. Over the 75-mile ride we faced about 5 noticeably
uphill miles, of which only about 2 were steeply uphill, over Chief
Joseph Pass. AND, even more encouraging, the forecast for the day
called for "light and variable" winds -- a very *very* welcome change
from the winds we've experienced lately. AND, better still, the actual
wind, as we yawned and shivered and stumbled our way around the
inadequately-stocked food tables, was from the south. And we were
headed mostly north! Woo-hoo! A tailwind! [Thanks, Brigit! You finally
got the magic to work!]
So, bolstered by hope more than food, off we went, into the morning
chill. Once again, I was wearing just about every ounce of bike garb I
packed, and it was barely enough. But the morning sun on the mountains
was stunning, the light winds were pushing in the direction I wanted
to go for a change, and Jackson's elevation was about 500' higher than
our first target, the little town of Wisdom (pop 114), 18 miles away.
My more specific target was a cup of coffee at Wisdom's only cafe,
Fetty's, and I got there in almost no time flat. "Would you like some
coffee?" the owner/waitress asked, after I'd seated myself at John and
Dawn's table. "I will pay you $10,000 for a cup of coffee," I replied.
Immediately a guy at a nearby table grabbed his wife's cup and tried
to hand it to me; I declined in favor of a fresh one. Now, as everyone
knows, coffee is, at its heart, a social beverage -- it's ok with
being consumed alone, but is happiest if there's accompanying food.
For the coffee's sake I also had a slice of blueberry pie, and for the
pie's sake a healthy dollop of ice cream. (What? I should accommodate
the coffee but not the pie? How do you think the pie would feel about
that?!? What else could I do?) The cafe lady presented me with a bill
for just a little over $10,000, but I negotiated it down a tad. Pie-
powered, off I went into the now noticeably-warmer morning.
10 miles on down the road was Big Hole Battlefield National Monument,
the site of an infamous confrontation in 1877 between US troops and a
relatively small band of Nez Perce Indians, one of whose leaders was
the famous Chief Joseph. Saw some of the historical items on display,
saw a video which summarized the sad, sad story leading up to the
battle, and the horrors of the battle itself. I always find the
history of the native people in this country deeply depressing to
contemplate, and this monument certainly had that same effect -- "Your
land? Uh, no; not any more. We want it. You move someplace else."
I was at the monument for an hour or so, and then took off down the
road again. The rest of the perfect, not-a-cloud-in-the-sky summer day
was pretty much just riding, downhill, through the forests and along
the streams of the beautiful Bitterroot Valley. The exception to that
summary was the climb up to Chief Joseph Pass (7241', about 1000'
above Wisdom), which was steep up for about 2 miles, and then steep
down for about 10. Even the steep ride up the pass was beautiful,
though, and the way was greatly eased due to the brand new, smooth as
glass road surface. It's amazing what a difference that makes! #1,
your body isn't jarred and shaken, but also, because you don't have to
be studying the road surface to pick out a good path, you can actually
take in the world around you. Which, in this case, was well worth
taking in.(**)
Our home in Darby was the Bitterroot Hideaway RV Park and Campground,
which was not, in any real sense of the words, hidden away. Unless by
"hidden away" you mean the mere fact that it was located in Darby MT.
There's some merit in that logic, but basically it was situated pretty
much right on the highway heading into town. It was ok, actually --
not bad at all. Especially since we were sharing the grounds with a
bunch of the other flavor of bikers, the ones with engines attached to
the wheels. And, completely independently, right across the road was
some sort of major gathering of off-road motorcyclists. I expected the
roar of engines deep into the night. Nothing; not a peep, mechanically
-- just some nice, neighborly interactions and occasional
conversation. In fact, one of our co-campers -- big, burly, tatoo'd
guy, travelling with his big, burly, tatoo'd wife/girlfriend -- had
the classic, by now fairly familiar, open-mouthed reaction when he
heard where we'd biked from, and where we were going: "You're doing
WHAT?!? Holy shit!" I also had a long conversation with Jerry, a
lawyer from Phoenix, who was moto-touring with his brother. He was
himself a veteran of some long-dx bicycle rides. (He was looking for
our Jerry, because he wanted to talk about recumbants.) "All that time
on the road -- don't you miss your wife?" I told him about the 40th
anniversary celebration in Carbondale, and our rendezvous in
Breckenridge, but that's not enough -- I do miss my wife.
----------
(*) I faced an interesting moral dilemma having to do with the
inadequate food supply. At the map meeting the night before we had
decided that whoever got up first should set out the breakfast and
lunch food. Fine; I got there at about 5:45 and opened up the van and
started to set things out; Hugh soon joined me. That's when I noticed
we had maybe 4 or 5 fruit cups, and about the same number of yogurts
and bananas. (Just for reference, we typically go through 2 dozen
bananas in the morning food scrum, and everyone, just about, has a
yogurt.) So... Do I take advantage of my position at the front of the
line -- pre-line, actually -- and grab the rare, precious items? On
the one hand, it would be my prerogative, wouldn't it, for getting up
early and doing the food set-out work? On the other, wouldn't it be
kind of a sneaky, jump-the-gun way to hog the not-enough-for-everyone
food? I opted to just leave the scene, and go and pack my tent and
luggage. When I got back to the food table 10 minutes later I had no
problem grabbing one of the two bananas and a yogurt. The fruit cups?
Gone.
(**) Too bad the smooth pavement didn't extend to the downhill side,
which was pretty rough and scraggly and rock-strewn -- one of those
"Beware of fallen rock" zones that really meant it. I tried to stay on
the shoulder, like a good boy, but an intense encounter with a small,
stationary rock while the bike and I were at high speed left me
convinced that I was safer out in the road. Fortunately, there wasn't
a lot of traffic.
(Sent from my iPhone)
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