Day 45

Another whopper. And I used to think 70 miles was pushing it...

Today my mileage surpassed the temperature, and it was frickin hot. 105 miles all told, if my calculations are correct. The high was 102 degrees.

Slept in by accident- if you can call 6:15 sleeping in... I decided not to lay out my pad but just sleep on the ground again. On these hot nights, it actually helps me stay cool. It might be harder to fall asleep, but once I do I find it's a much deeper sleep. I was rested, and rushed a little to get out early before the heat. I was on the road by 7:30.

I stopped in Wolf Point to get groceries. I was out of lunch food. Getting pretty tired of dried fruit and nuts, so I changed it up and got a whole block of cheese, some pepperoni and crackers. The cheese matched my shorts...

Wolf Point is a rough town. It's on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, which I rode through for about 30 miles on my way to Nashua. I didn't stop to take any photos. Felt wrong to pull over, whip out my smartphone, and point it at the decrepit trailer homes and rows of decaying automobiles.

On the road to Nashua I met another cyclist. He had been in Glasgow the night before and told me this story:

" I was setting up camp there in the city park and two little girls and their dog came up to talk. One of them says ' this is my dog s*** face' and a little surprised, I responded 'That's no name for a dog' and the little girl said 'well that's what Daddy calls him...'

The day was hot but I had a strong east Southeast wind. I rested in Nashua and then again in Glasgow without event. It seemed I would make my target, Hinsdale, without too much trouble.

Sitting in a park in Glasgow, I heard a shriek. I thought, man that kid sounds like a seagull. Turned around and there was no kid, but there was a seagull! You know man must have done something terribly wrong to make it so there's seagulls in the middle of Montana. He has. It's called the Fort Peck Resovoir. Another good-for-nothing evaporation pond that you can see from space, thanks to yours truly, the Department of Agriculture's Bureau of "Reclamation".

Even though I've been really booking it across this state, the sheer vastness of it really gets to me. To give you some sense of prospective, the distance from one end to Montana to the other is the same as from Chicago to New York.

At the city park in Hinsdale where I had intended to camp, I met a German couple who were heading east. They we're intending to go to Glasgow but had given up in the wind. I don't blame them, it was very strong.

Looking at the maps I decided I would head for Saco, and if I was really feeling it, perhaps all the way to Sleeping Buffalo. There was a hot springs there I had been recommended. I had already gone 80 miles to Hinsdale, and it would be another 25 to Sleeping Buffalo. But after the 114 day before yesterday, 105 didn't sound so bad.

So I did it, and the wind pushed me all the way there. In high 3rd gear, just trying to cruise on some smooth pavement. Followed the Milk River for most of the way, a river Lewis of the Corps of Discovery noted for its creamy consistency.

I knew I had made it when I saw this roadside altar:

While not in its original location, the shelter houses sleeping Buffalo Rock. I had read of it before. After the white man had hunted the Buffalo to extinction and destroyed the Plains Indians' way of life in doing so, many tribes prayed to this rock, which, when it was perched on its hill, resembled the shape of a Buffalo followed by several smaller Buffalo-looking rocks. Many were known to give offerings to the rock in hopes it would bring the buffalo back. They would put beads on its back, or cut off pieces of skin and place it on top. I tore off a piece of my chapped lip and put it there. I figured it was a piece of skin I could spare.

I was feeling shaky tired when I got to the town of Sleeping Buffalo. And of course, the last mile to my intended camp was gravel. The kind of washboarded pebbly gravel that's impossible to ride.

 It was so hot, I skipped the hot springs and went right for the resovoir. Un-natural as it was, it felt like a desert mirage. Put Breezey by a tree, tore off my clothes and ran in.

I took it easy setting up camp, and a while later, a good looking Vanagon pulled up. I waved. Got to talking to the guy. Name was Cody. From Idaho, but driving from Vancouver to Toronto for work (for work!). He had gone through Glacier and gave me some tips on where to go. Ate my supper of curried lentils and carrots in his company, with his dog Billie at my feet.

The clouds were creeping in as I washed up, and made ready for bed. Was just getting sleepy when it seemed a storm was brewing. Brushed my teeth and watched the lightening across the resovoir. Reminded me of eating ice cream on the beach snd watching summer lightening as a kid.

Suddenly the wind changed direction and started howling from the west. I've waited out a lot of storms just me in my tent, but this one was truly something. My tent was behind some cottonwoods, maybe 20 yards from the beach, and I was still getting sand-blasted, it being blown under the fly and through the bug net. I laid starfish-style trying to keep the tent from flying away with me in it. It felt like a real possibility. Cody came over to see how I was fairing, and said, "if it gets to be a real typhoon, you can come shelter in the van". Said OK! I didn't really know what a typhoon was like, and with all my stuff in the tent, I was probably gonna have to go down with the ship.

It subsided around 1am. Finally, quiet.