The 90

Thursday, June 19th. We awoke to some pounding as the man's property we were staying on woke us up bright and early at 6:30. I was tired, but we did ask him to give us a wake up call. I crawl out of the trailer first and head over to the house where the man greets me, asking if I was interested in some coffee. I don't even drink coffee but fuck yes I want some coffee! I step into his GORGEOUS house and we talk and drink a bit. He asked me if Josh was Jewish, which I found a bit humorous. I suppose I could see it. He just didn't want to give him non-kosher ham. After all, he had decided he was making us a huge breakfast!

The man, who's name is Gary, and his wife, who I can't recall the name of (sorry Mrs. Hill!) joined us. She had recently had some surgery so was a bit less mobile. They made us ham, toast, eggs and tons of coffee. We stuffed our faces. Afterwards Gary insisted we go for a ride. There's a bison preserve right across the street from his house, and we spent about 30 minutes driving through it seeing mainly deer and the first few buffalo of our trip. Pretty cool!

Afterwards we packed up our gear and showed them our bikes and hit the road! Frankly, I was so full I was having trouble cycling. But after about an hour of 8-10 mph I was feeling awesome and was making great time! That was until the headwind started... we were heading up a slight incline and the wind was just enough to be really annoying. I was pissed. But we hit mile 600. Very annoying mile 600.

Milestone 6 of 35ish

We eventually made it through the wind and hell and made it to our destination- Missoula. The city had a nice feel to it, I was kinda liking the idea of spending an early night there. There were a couple things to see (Adventure Cycling Headquarters! http://www.adventurecycling.org/) But it was only 5:30 and Josh was feeling like moving on. See, there's one thing Josh does a lot that kinda peeves me. I ask him his opinion to which he replies "Well, whatever you want." Then I tell him what I want, and he say "well, I think..." or "Well I want..." Maddening. So I was like "Josh, you make the decision. I'm done for the day. We ate McDonald's and headed out. After looking over my maps briefly I had discovered I-90 was a much quicker route to get to Butte than my previous route. Honestly though, I was a bit concerned about taking I-90. Oh also, huge pet peeve. Why do people call it "The 90"? I hate it. You could say "The Interstate" I suppose... but who says the followed by a proper noun? At least I think it's a proper noun? One could say, "I'm walking the dog" but not "I'm walking The Sparky." Josh does it all the time. Maddening. As does EVERYONE out here. Stab me please.

Anyway, we ended up taking I-90. I really had a bad feeling about it, and thought it was a bad idea, but I had let Josh decide and he decided to do it. Honestly- it wasn't so bad. Really wide shoulders, wide enough for the two of us side by side, although we went single file. Not too much traffic, and not much faster than any other road we were on. Frankly, I-90 might had been safer. We pushed on another 25 miles to a nice campsite. I saw my first bald eagle soaring over head while we pulled in too!

It was a nice site. Like 25 bucks and we got showers, the campsite and access to the laundromat. Sweet. Clean bodies, clean clothes. Happy campers. All in all I suppose a bit of a uneventful day. Suppose one can't complain with that too often.

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 61.88
Total mileage- 646.79