Day 80: Back to Route

Today was a travel day mostly. Well, I guess most of my days are technically travel days, but this one was by car, so that’s different.

After breakfast on the deck with Pam, I started packing up and getting ready to hit the road. I also caught up on some podcasts and the crossword once I was more or less ready. MJ arrived late morning and after she took a work call, we loaded up Bubba into her rental car and got on the road.

We stopped for snacks at a truck stop on the way out of Missoula then took a longer break in Big Fork. MJ had another work call (final hand offs of work for the next couple weeks) and I enjoyed lounging in the shade of a big tree. The next errand was at an outdoor gear store in Kalispell to round out MJ’s packing list and then the final stop was a grocery store to get snacks and a couple dinners for the road.

We got to the rental car return a bit after five and got to the business of re-assembling our bikes and gear. I only had to take my front wheel off and put away groceries, so a pretty easy task. MJ needed to install a rack, put on a front fender, and had more gear to wrangle. The rack in particular was not as straightforward as it seems it should have been. After a bathroom run in the airport we were rolling. In circles around the rental car lot for a few as google maps was trying to route us down roads that didn’t exist…

We biked the five miles to Tony’s house, which included a bit of a hill and some scenic views of the river and surrounding mountains. Tony is my mom’s friend’s goddaughter’s friend’s dad. One of his other daughters has done a lot of bike touring and he has as well, so they made excellent hosts.

We hung around chatting after getting settled a little. Getting notes on the roads out of town tomorrow and swapping stories from our trips. Claire has biked the Northern Tier before so knew the route ahead of us quite well. Katherine had made black currant ice cream with berries from their bushes and it was soooo good. A good pre-dinner treat

For dinner, we piled into the car and headed to Moose’s. Moose’s is a dive bar (sawdust on the floor and lots of carvings in the wood) with cheap beer and excellent pizza. We were able to nab a table near the back and scarfed down a pile of pizza. Best pizza I’ve had since leaving the east coast.

Tomorrow, MJ and I hit the road for real. The weather looks like it will be a bit of a break from the heat and not much wind, so that’s an auspicious start to this final phase of the trip.