Saturday, August 18, 2007

Helena, MT

We made it to Helena this morning, Saturday August 18. Rickson will fly home from Helena and Jim and I will continue south. Interesting notes so far...

About 13 days of riding. We are all healthy and well, as are the bikes. One flat tire (4 inch nail in the tread and out the sidewall, ouch) and no other mechanical issues. The bikes are smooth as butter.

We came out of the smoke yesterday for the first time since we hit the Flathead river valley back in Whitefish quite a few days back. It is nice to see blue sky again.

We had our first serious rain yesterday afternoon - about an hour of a real downpour with a bit of hail, and later in the evening another hour of light rain. We still have not had any hot weather, and we are extremely happy about that.

We've been in some beautiful forests and valleys, but cows and logging take their toll, and much of what we have ridden through since leaving Whitefish is pretty worn out. It's still a ton of fun, but it's not "wild" in any sense of the word.

We've generally been going for 1.5 or 2 days between towns where we get hot meals and another load of groceries.

The ACA maps and route info have been great so far, we haven't missed any turns or gotten lost.

Now, we're off to find a bike shop for Rickson to ship his bike home, a motel for the night (first showers since Haydi's about a week ago), and a place to wash a load of laundry. We'll spend the rest of the day here in Helena.

If our motel offers internet access, I'll try to check mail again later in the day. If not, I'm not sure when our next post will be - I haven't studied the maps beyond Helena to know what happens next.

Amy, Rickson, Jim

3 comments:

Craig said...

Amy, sounds great. I'm enjoying being kept up to date.

Christine said...

Hi, Amy! I'm back from my trip to AZ and CA. Had a great time. Your trip sounds beautiful. I'm glad everything is going so smoothly. Love, Chris

Bill Cook said...

Amy and Jim, sounds like your trip is going very well. Keep up the messages. We all want to know how you are doing. Beware of the wild jackalopes ahead.

best, bill cook