Great dinner

Tonight we're eating filet and trout, baked potatos, and lots of good salads. It's like our last supper.

Patty and Chuck

Patty and Chuck met 2 years ago on the Big Ride and have been together since. Patty joined us for just one week this year and heads home tomorrow. She's riding back to Billings alone. Be safe. We'll miss you Patty.

Billings to Hardin, MT

July 5th we leave Billings and have a short ride of 55 miles to Hardin. Since it's an easy day we didn't start until 7:30 and finished before noon. There's a lot of open land out here and for miles there wasn't even a cow. I think I saw only one tree along the way. We're very fortunate to have comfortable weather for riding. Two years ago the temperatures were much hotter. We have a great dinner tonight catered by Beyond Basil. They also catered our dinner in Billings. This is the best food of the whole Big Ride. Today's our last night in Montana as we head to Sheridan, WY tomorrow.

Here's some Montana trivia I read. Montana has more cows than people. 3 to 1 From Yaak, MT in the NW corner to Alzada in the SE corner, there are 774 miles, farther than Atlanta to Chicago. The state tree is the ponderosa pine and the state animal is the grizzly. Montana is the fourth largest state with 147000 sq miles but the country's sixth least populated state.

Hitchhiker at the KOA in Hardin, MT

Here's an older woman hitchhiking. She asked Tim and Izzy to carry her bags to the road. She's from Maine and who knows where she's heading. The funny thing is just up the highway at the I-90 ramp was an old man sitting in a chair with a shade umbrella hitchhiking to Billings. Could these two be related??? We will never know. By the way, she was picked up within a few minutes.

Farm equipment on the road

Mountains in the distance, Billings, MT and Yellowstone River

Alan working ony bike

Happy 4th of July. We're in Billings, MT for a rest day and one thing I did this morning was ride down to the Yellowstone River. Talking to a local I met on the path, this river is the only major river in the US that doesn't have a damn on it. I rode around the trail that goes over to an island and there I saw the white pelicans. I never knew pelicans live in this area but it's the second time I've seen them.

After that I returned to the dorm, had Alan put a new chain on my bike and we got the bike all cleaned up. I didn't realize how much there is to make a bike work properly. Good thing Alan is here to keep us all pedalling.

Being Sunday and July 4th, things are pretty quiet in town. One of the biggest challenges is to find an open restaurant that we can get to for dinner. I don't even think there's fireworks tonight.