Day 61: Big Sky, Small Town Charm

You can see forever out here. The land is vast and the sky is even bigger. There aren’t a lot of towns along the road, but so far the ones that exist are very friendly and it seems like everyone knows each other.

I woke up on the early side to get biking before it got too windy and hot. Noel nicely also got up for a bit and had breakfast with me and said goodbye (though she ended up passing me on the road a while later 😅). It was stunning riding out of the badlands with the morning sun highlighting the ridges.

There was only one tiny town to stop at today and so I did. I got a Powerade and refilled my water at a gas/auto/snack/farm shop in Lindsay. There was a comfy bench in the shade where I rested and snacked.

The riding today was slow going for the first two thirds. It was gradually uphill with an increasing headwind and hot. The scenery was very bucolic and not too many cars though. The last fifteen miles were rolling downhill into Circle.

I got lunch and a treat at the lunchbox. It seemed like everyone in town went there for lunch and everyone knew each other. When I called the sheriff’s office to check in for camping in the park, the dispatcher had seen me at the lunch box.

I then went to the library to hide out all afternoon. I caught up on post cards, read, chatted with locals (some of whom had seen me at the lunch box), and may have nodded off a bit. At one point there were four people in the building and we were all named Mary!

I was getting hungry and closing time for the library was nearing, so I headed to the park to get settled for the night. In this part of the country, city parks often allow tent camping (at least for cyclists). Tomorrow is even hotter, so I’ll be up and out even earlier to try to avoid the worst of it.