In Natures Realm

Mike and myself hit the road on Wednesday after getting our shit together in Colton, Washington. It didn't look too promising that morning with 1/4" size hail falling and clouds moving in; Mike was even considering screwing the whole "let's bike together!" thing and just driving me as far east as he could but I stood my ground and before long we were crossing into Idaho (on bicycles). After a fast start and a 15 minute descent we headed east along the river with the weather starting to look up.

It was great to have some company along for the ride. Although Mike couldn't keep up with my high stamina and built up leg muscles I had no problem with waiting for him every few miles. We chatted about why I haven't been enjoying the ride recently and about how everything is ultimately up to you to decide. I realized once again how thankful I should be that I'm out here doing what I truly love. I also realized that if I do another extended bike tour I need to find someone to drag out with me.

Our goal was to get to Orofino, ID and camp out somewhere. Well we got to Orofino, but as soon as Mike saw the billboard "Best Western Hotel- Hot tub & full breakfast" camping was out of the question. We headed out for dinner around 9 only to have every restaurant door close right in front of us. The only place open had the shittiest pizza I have ever had in my life. The long (1/4 mile) walk back to the hotel proved to be too much for Mike so he tried paying one of the waiters to drive us back. It didn't work but we managed to make it back just fine.

It was a rather sad goodbye in the morning (Mike quoted some song from probably the 40's on his blog, brokenspoken.com ), but as we parted ways I just hoped that we will get a chance to meet up again in the future someday. Everyday is a good day.

Riding along the river that day was really spectacular. I got into Clearwater Nat. Forest and camped out right on the bank. A classical "In Natures Realm" played on the radio and I started to feel at peace once again.

I woke up that night to see about 10 cricket-looking bugs stuck on my tent with their bellies eaten/ emptied out. A huge yellow & black bug was deemed to be the culprit. Not wanting to have my belly eaten out I stayed in my tent.

It rained most of the next day yet I managed to get over Lolo Pass (5,200') and camped in a closed Nat. Forest campground after crossing into Montana. I tried making a fire to dry out my clothes but all the wood was soaked (by "making" I mean I put a whole bunch of twigs, logs & leaves into the fire pit, doused it with gasoline from my fuel bottle and lit it on fire) and after a few bursts of flame I gave up. Falling asleep I found myself amused by the whole situation.

It warmed up the next day and after hitting Lolo I went south in the valley. After biking for 50 miles I started to get really tired. I stopped at an outdoor "resort" that had a store, cabins, tent sites and a hot tub. When I walked into the store the lady behind the counter smirked "aren't you a little too early?". Her attitude made me think she was going to kick me out and tell me to come back in 2 months. I refilled by water bottles and bought some hot coco. I was going to ask her the price of a tent site but other customers came in. I sat outside drinking my chocolate and upon closing she passed me and said "next time do this in the summer." It was almost as if she was appalled that I would event try to bike there in late march. "Hey bitch, I said, I was going to rent a cabin here and spend a shit load of money at your diner but with that attitude of yours fughettaboutit." I didn't actually say that, but the whole scene made me think back to a postsecret card I read once, it went something along the lines of: " today I was going to kill myself so I called the suicide hotline. The operator was so rude that I filed a complaint instead".

With that I threw out my half- full cup of hot chocolate and a new sense of independence emerged. I felt really confident until I realized I left my water bottles back at the store.

Chief Joseph pass (7400') followed the next day and then into yet another valley (Big Hole) I descended. I camped at 7300' atop Big Hole pass, made pasta with salt for dinner and rice with sugar for breakfast. It got down to around -5° F that night.

On Tuesday I made my way to Dillon where Joe (the bike shop owner) came by just for me (as the shop was closed) and regressed my front hub as it was scaring all the cows away.

I went to Safeway and bought good bread, ham, lettuce, butter, candy, peanut butter and chocolate. It was sandwich time. That night I had the best meal in the long time. I even considered sending my stove back home and living off of ham- lettuce sandwiches for the next month.

Going through Nevada and Virginia city was pretty cool as they both had buildings that dated back to the Montana gold rush. Unfortunately everything was still closed "for the season". It's April silly people!

I descended into yet another valley in which I had to do 10 miles north and 60 miles south as that's how the *only* road went. I knew I was in for a ride when I didn't have to pedal to get to Ennis, instead the southern wind pushed me with quite some force. Well when I turned at Ennis and headed South (into a 30 mph headwind) it ended up taking me 6 hours to do 28 miles. Make no bones about it though, it wasn't raining, I was in shorts, and my lunch ham- lettuce sandwich tasted incredible once again!

It snowed that night as I camped at a BLM campground (for free! and legally as they don't start collecting fees until Mayday) though in the morning the wind shifted and I sailed south into West Yellowstone. My nose is so sunburnt I cant sneeze in fear of it falling of, my face is beet red from all the windburn and constant temperature change, my hands itch with sweat bubbles, and my ear is sunburnt to the point of not being able to sleep on my left side.

I'm off to Yellowstone! It's supposed to snow a foot but all is alright (: