Helena was a nice relaxing rest day. We had a bomb breakfast at the No Sweat Cafe. Our motel was across from a homeless shelter and we met a really cool guy who traveled around the country doing odd jobs and referred to himself as a tramp, therefore we were "rubber tramps". We checked out the bike shops in town, The Garage was sweet and was only a repair shop filled with awesome dudes and served beer!
We set off towards Butte. We finally got some real mountain biking! The entire climb was rocky and covered in roots which pulled us back down the hill. Riding a steep hill covered in rocks and roots on a heavily loaded bike is kind of like riding a bicycle made out of glass. It's tough. Anyway the descent felt like home as we bounced and bumped down the hill. A bit later we met Matthew, Kaitlyn, and Fixie Dave. Dave was attempting to ride the divide on a fixed gear bicycle. This was his 6th try and while possibly insane he was a super nice guy! We got to Butte, home of the pasty, expecting delicious pasties for dinner. Unfortunately, every Past shop in Butte was magically closed and we resorted to cold Safeway Pasties for dinner. By the way, Butte is famous for the Berkley Pit, a toxic sludge hole a mile wide. We assume it got its name from all the hippies they throw in but apparently it's just toxic mining waste. We found a picnic area outside of town and passed out.
Our goal was to get to Wise River before the post office closed at 4:30. That didn't happen. First we took a wrong turn due to a downed sign and rode miles down a hill. We realized our mistake and once getting back on track promptly got lost again. We ended riding too far up a hill and while searching for the trail, got devoured by a cloud of Mosquitos. The trail, once found was not so much a trail but a nearly shear cliff. After falling sliding and avoiding certain disaster we made it to the bottom. Jasper did some magical zip tie repairs to Joshua's breaking pannier and we rolled into Wise River to find a closed town that was likely used as a mosquito breeding ground. We ventured back a ways to once again camp in a picnic area, quickly becoming our favorite place to sleep.
The next morning the town was a much more welcoming place. People were super friendly and we got cookies at the post office. Thanks Mama Marcum! We met a van of girls from Western Washington university on a 6 week class/field trip studying geology. We considered abandoning our trip and joining them but unfortunately their van was full. We rode for miles on a scenic byway stopping or lunch at a crystal digging park. After a long descent we got on dirt into what the map describes as 47 miles of very remote riding. After a huge dinner of mashed potatoes and chili we fell asleep to the sound of howling coyotes.
Today, June 30th was a super fast day. After a climb we flew down the long gradual descent. The open rolling lands suddenly changed to gorgeous canyon with rock walls. Entertainment for lunch was a hawk chasing a group of swallows. We got to our reapply Dell early and decided in honor of the 100 mile mountain bike race Jasper haas done a few times on July 1 we would ride our first century of the trip. We rode hard and despite the last 25 miles being either molasses like sand or brain rattling washboard bumps we made it t to 100 miles tired but happy. Animal sightings today: eagle, pronghorn, badger, and wolf!
After hammering for the first bunch of miles we crossed the continental divide and a state line. We had lunch on the border of Idaho and Montana. Idaho sucked. We rode through Island Park recreation area which put us onto an old rail bed atv trail covered in sandy devastatingly slow soil. After barely making it through that section we made it onto pavement and with the setting sun illuminating our first views of the Grand Tetons, we rolled into the Targhee National Forest, made camp and slept like logs.
Our day started with a learning experience. We discovered the difference between evaporated and condensed milk. While condensed milk, when expanded with water works with cereal we will be sticking to revaporating evaporated milk, almond milk, or powdered milk. Today was also the day scoutmasters show up for Camp Loll, a Boy Scout camp from scouts in Utah. We chatted with the staff members who were stationed at the start of the road to welcome incoming scouters and they promised to try to get the scoutmasters to slow down and not cover us in dust as they pass. After crossing into Wyoming, we met 3 Cal Poly alums today! One at Flagg Ranch and two, Anna and Sierra, who graduated in 03, at a photo stop. They like most people were really excited about our trip and had a bunch of questions to ask and pictures to take. We had a light snack in Colter Bay Village where we reapplied of ice cream, chocolate milk, and cheesecake. We turned off trail to try to find the Blackrock bicycle campground. We asked a construction worker at around 8:30pm and he assured us it was just at the bottom of the hill. After 5 miles and a few million feet of descending we made it to the bottom of the hill to find a campground but no bike campground. Forlorn at our wasted potential energy we scarfed down dinner. As we were cleaning up dinner the campsite next door yelled to us to come over. With the promise of beer, we ventured forth and were greeted with not just Fat Tire beer but also Buffalo Trace Whiskey. Sheena, Brent, Joey, and Elaine were excellent hosts. They are from Detriot and are a few years older than us. We chatted, drank, and played music. Brent's guitar playing was only overshadowed by Sheena's vocal inebriation. After some awesome songs including a raucous Yellow Submarine we turned in for an amazing nights sleep.
We awoke dreading our climb back up the mountain we had descended. We made breakfast burritos to fuel our ascent with terrible packaged hash browns we burnt and delicious scrambled eggs. We said goodbye to our friends from the night before and started up. The bike gods were smiling on us that day and after a couple miles of climbing we came to a construction zone. They told us we couldn't ride and loaded us and our bikes into the back of a pickup along with Frank, an older man from Vermont riding the trans-America from west to east. After a lovely 3.5 mile ride they dropped us off and we continued up the climb. A little later Frank spotted some friends he was meeting on the road and they generously invited us over for some soda and chocolate. After chatting for a while we all said goodbye and we climbed the rest of Togwotee pass to 9600 feet. The rest of the short ride into Dubois was easy and downhill. We chatted some with America by Bike folks, a fully supported ride from West to East coast. We stopped in at the Chamber of Commerce and found out about camping and 4th of July festivities (fireworks were cancelled due to fire danger...) We went to the KOA in town, got a spot and took showers. Afterwords we had one of the least pleasant experiences of our trip. A man in a bright yellow KOA shirt came over and in his boots, crumpled cowboy angry mustache, and gruff voice asked us who had given us permission to charge our phones at the RV site where we had plugged in. We tried to explain that the site was empty, we had been given permission to charge in the bathroom and figured it made little difference where we charged etc. the KOA cowboy was having none of it. He repeated himself about how we were stealing his electricity, how he was the owner of the place and if he had rented that site we would have been in the way (despite our vigilant observation of our electronics to avoid them being stolen) and how "People like you are the only complaints we get, always knocking on doors of RVs and bothering people." Clearly we were not wanted at this establishment. We asked if we could get a refund of our site and find another place to stay. Cowboy agreed continuing that if we continued talking to him and wasting his time he was going to kick us out. Clearly we chose the refund. At the front desk the receptionist asked what RV we had lit on fire to make her husband so mad. Upon hearing the story she shook her head and apologized wishing us luck at our next campground. At least we got a free shower! We rolled the 3 miles out of town to the Longhorn Ranch RV and Campground and found things to be much more our pace. The place was lively, the staff was friendly, and best of all the front desk lady apologized that we couldn't charge at an RV site as she normally had campers do since all sites were full with the 4th being the next day but we could leave them with her and she would watch them for us! We took her advice for dinner and had an incredible meal at the Cowboy Cafe of a bacon burger, fries, and a huge delicious piece of pie with ice cream. The choice of their 12 different pies was tough but Jasper had cherry almond crunch and Joshua had peach caramel. Both amazing! After finding all liquor stores closed at 9pm we were directed to the local bar where we picked up a 6 pack at normal price, not the excessive markup we expected. We rode back into camp and sipped on our local Snake River Brewing Companies' Pako's IPA until bed.
