Day 20 - SA-WEET RIDE!

This was a SWEET ride today! We were blessed with terrific tailwinds all day long which boosted us along quite nicely for....126 miles!

Day 21 MILES CITY, MT TO BOWMAN, ND

Our average the other day going into the wind was just over 12 mph, today it was 17.8. Believe me, most of that is due to the wind!

We were told that there was only about 15-20 miles of hills going out of Miles City. Let's just say that we were still going up and down, up and down at mile 36. Then, it finally started to "flatten" out (that's a relative term). It's a lot prettier out here than I thought it would be. I guess I thought it was going to be barren and forsaken, but there are lots of trees, grass and hills. We talked with a man at a rest area who said he's been driving this road for 30 years and has never seen it this green before.

Mile after mile passed by, rolling up and down.. the higher, starker hills changed into rolling hills, then flatter farmland, then the oil fields.

We rolled into Baker at 1:00, and seeing that the wind was still as strong as ever, we decided to push on the next 45 miles to Bowman. We left town at 1:25 and got to Bowman at 3:40. Besides the wind at our back, the threat of rain behind us was an extra motivation to pedal hard! (I told Tim at the Chronicle that this isn't a race, but we sure seem to be racing the rain a lot in Montana!)

I looked back at Bob once and laughed at what I saw: his flag was pointing straight AT US! That says something about the tailwind, for us to be riding as fast as we were and have the flag pointing forward.

At one point we had to stop to pull a stinger out of Gerry's leg; we ran right through a mini-swarm of bees or hornets. We had a nice dinner with our friend, Don Dyk, who is kind enough to let us stay for the night.
Tomorrow, we start our trek across North Dakota. Hopefully, there will be wind..! ;o)

Windblown,

Pat
Oh, the other thing....the click is gone!
We had times that we were cruising at 25 mph and Bob’s flag was blowing TOWARDS us – that’s how hard the wind was blowing.

This is my conversation with Bob today:
Me: do you think you could help us a little more on the uphills? You’re pretty heavy, you know.
Bob: Hey, I do plenty to help you on the downhills. In fact, you even have to brake to hold me back. Besides, I’m carrying all YOUR stuff; that’s enough work in itself.