One Thousand Miles and Still Going

7/9 Often the reaction people had when I told them about this trip was a somewhat snide, "you know you're going to have to cross the Rockies." I always wanted to respond with an equally snide, "yes, I do have some basic knowledge of American geography," but I'm far too polite for that. But for all those who thought we'd meet our deaths in the mountains, I have to say that the Rockies have nothing on the hills we've been in the past few days. We keep hearing from various people that once we get past such-and-such location, the land will be flat and we'll be missing the days we met hill after hill. Well, we have yet to reach that place and I am beginning to believe the word "flat" does not actually exist when it comes to land. Hills are a fact of life for a cyclist; there's nothing you can do but face them. But for someone who is not on a bike, hills seem to be just a dip on the horizon, a cause to depress the gas pedal just a tad more, not something that reduces your speed to less than half and brings beads of sweat dripping down your face. In addition to hills, we've been handed heat and slight headwinds. It's amazing to look out at the fields of grass surrounding you and not even see a hint of movement, yet feel like every ounce of momentum placed by your feet is being met by an invisible force pushing back at you. 

These factors caused me to very nearly reach my breaking point as we peddaled from Geraldine to Lewistown. That morning I felt one of my front brake pads rubbing against my wheel, and despite my best efforts, I was unable to make a fix on the road. There was a bike shop in Lewistown, and thankfully Claire decided to call ahead to get the hours. The owner runs the shop as a hobby out of his garage and was planning on closing early that day. After Claire explained the situation, he agreed to stay open until we arrived. Now that we had a reason to reach town, I became easily discouraged at seeing uphill after uphill. At one point I nearly cried, and then kind of laughed at myself, because I knew crying wasn't going to change anything - it wasn't going to make the hills disappear, it wasn't going to make Lewistown any closer, and it wasn't going to fix my brake pad. So I sucked it up and kept going. And we got there when we said we would, and I got my bike fixed, and everything was ok again. 

Our surroundings have changed again. When we left Great Falls we still had some mountains. We also experienced the benefits of Big Sky Country, as we were able to see the several thunderstorms brewing on the horizon. We only had about 15 minutes of rain, and none of the hail that seems to be a part of a lot of storms here. By yesterday the mountains had disappeared, and the road became like a bridge in a sea of green grasses, with distant rocky-topped buttes looking like permanently cresting waves. 

Despite some of the hardships, we've been logging quite a few miles. We passed the 1000 mile mark on the way to Lewistown. Using the mileage from our maps, our journey is about 2400 miles, but this doesn't account for any changes we've made or extra miles added by going off route for camping or groceries. We should be in North Dakota early next week, and there we switch from the Lewis and Clark trail to the Northern Tier, which does not include an elevation profile. We had hoped to increase our mileage as we headed into flatter territory, but since I no longer believe in the word "flat," we will continue to take it day by day and keep our return to Milwaukee open-ended.