Montana 213 between Del Bonita and Cut Bank
[another one of my favorite pictures]
As promised I was up and out at the crack of dawn. When I left
at around 6:20, it was only 42 degrees (f). I used the customs building
restroom and left immediately on my 40 mile journey to Cut Bank for breakfast.
I didn't cook. There was nothing in sight to burn in my Sierra stove and
I didn't want to bother anybody, so I just ate another banana, more granola
bars, a couple of butter tarts and drank some water.
At 10:30 last night the wind was the strongest I'd ever experienced in my
tent. It subsided in the night but was back by the time I departed. It was
that same southwest wind that troubled me when I was going south or even
southeast yesterday.
The range was pretty in its own sort of way; stark desolation. The road
wasn't very good, but for the first couple of hours, nobody passed me. In
the whole 40 miles to Cut Bank only a dozen vehicles (mostly pickups) passed
me.
It took me 4 hours to ride the 40 miles to Cut Bank. I was exhausted
and starving. In response to a couple of small billboards, I headed toward
the Golden Harvest restaurant (because it sounded like a good name for a
breakfast choice) for breakfast. I had water (lots of it), coffee, eggs,
home fries and toast (2 orders) and managed to sit there from 10:20 til
almost noon. As I was collecting myself, a couple of bicyclists came in
who'd both ridden the Adventure Cycling route from Portland, Maine, but
hadn't met until the outskirts of Cut Bank. One was riding a Cannondale
T700, like mine. They were going their separate ways from Cut Bank: one
wanted to see Glacier National Park; the other was bypassing it.
From Cut Bank, I headed another 25 miles to Shelby, where I camped early
in the afternoon at the Shel-oole (City of Shelby,
Toole County, get it?) campground (tents: $7).
I suppose I could have gone further, but the headwinds and morning hunger
had demoralized me. At Shel-oole there was a shower--which I used immediately.
I talked to a couple from Salt Lake City and a man from Vermont (who'd been
traveling with his wife over much the same route as me--including Fairbanks,
the Alaska Hwy, the parks, etc) via motorhome.
I ate dinner at Pat's Diner--excellent liver and onions. I may be one of
only a handful of people on this planet who actually like liver and onions.
I probably eat the meal only about once or twice a year. My wife wouldn't
even consider eating liver and very few restaurants bother to serve liver
& onions anymore. I love spinach too.
After dinner, I did some computing in my tent, but somehow, I suppose assuming that a bicyclist would have no need for electricity, the motorhomers had appropriated the electrical outlet at my campsite, so I was operating on my battery which I'd depleted a bit last night. I didn't compute long and there was no phone access.
Note re data access:
In planning this trip, I opted away from using "acoustic couplers,"
those gadgets that fit over a telephone handset to allow data communication
through the earpiece and speaker. They are very slow; a maximum of 9,600
bps and usually only about 2,400 bps vs. my modem at 28,800 bps. Acoustic
modems are too slow for handling graphics. Loading pictures of every day's
adventure would be impractical with acoustic modems. I opted instead to
connect my modem to the telephone lines along the way via standard RJ-11
phone jacks (like you have on a standard home phone). Airport pay phones
often have RJ-11 data jacks, but I've never seen one anywhere else with
any ready means for me to connect. I was forced therefore though my entire
trip to seek out regular phones, in motels, offices, stores, etc.
68 miles.
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© Ed Noonan 1996, 1997