Eagle Jams, Bear Jams, Buffalo Jams, Chipmunk Jams and lots of car watching!

Since we last posted in Missoula, we have traversed across the fine mountainous state of Montana (whose name is based on a terrible adaptation of the spanish word monta~na), and are now about to enter Yellowstone National Park and Wyoming, our fourth state!

Missoula-Florence
We spent almost all of July 2nd in Missoula, biking up and down the strip malls on the west side of town to get to REI, and Bob Wards another outdoor store to get all the random finnicky gear things we needed. Amie and Claire, meanwhile, went and got their bottom brackets checked out by a soft spoken bike mechanic named Arthur and we all met at the Adventure Cycling headquarters in the city's center (the association that markets most of the touring routes around the US).

At Adventure Cycling we had our photographs taken with the boys, who rolled in after consuming the 'Fuddrucker's Challenge'- a pound burger each. They got cute hats.
We finally rolled out of town at 5pm and made it 20 miles down the road to Florence where we made acquaintance with a family that invited us to their bonfire. The night was relaxed, we burned a couch and talked and ate and played with frenetic dogs that refused to stay indoors.

Florence-Sula
On the third we rode to the base of a large pass. It was mostly uphill all day, and the first day we would call 'blah'.

Sula turned out to be a general store with excellent chocolate chip cookies and terrible mosquitoes. We camped there and battled the fiendish vampire bugs- some of us choosing to scale a nearby ridge and the rest of us taking shelter in the tents. That night, a boy just turned seven came over and gifted us a bag of the biggest marshmallows known to man...and glow bracelets. They had to be roasted on extra thick sticks and slowly like steaks, otherwise the middles wouldn't cook. For real. Then we had stomachaches.

Sula-Jackson
in Sula we woke up and had excellent egg breakfasts at the general store and then applied red white and blue hair gel to our noggins to be properly attired for the day of independence. The pass had a reasonable grade, and everyone's legs felt strong. We passed the time singing the Beatles' and old 80s tunes until the elevation got so that mostly we just puffed them out. We had the lunch at the top of the first pass and then climbed another 200ft to the top of Chief Joseph Pass, where we crossed the Continental Divide!

The descent was lovely and brought us to Big Hole Battlefield, a turning point in the Nez Perce Campaign of 1877 (basically the massacre of the Nez Perce and their retreat/exodus from the area). There we encountered exponentially greater amounts of mosquitoes from the night before and Dan's rack took the opportunity to break cleanly off her bike. So we spent some time doing bike repairs (hammering her hanger back into shape on the concrete) and Mcgivered her bike back into shape enough to ride to Jackson. Jackson, other than having a hot springs, was filled with superficially friendly but entirely unaccomodating people who refused to take the multiple hints given that we would like to be included in their 4th of July celebration. It must have been population 70. We camped in a friendly farmer's field just outside the town, with a beautiful view of the Bitterroot Mountains and yellowspotted fields on the valley floor.

Jackson-Twin Bridges
The morning of the fifth we woke up to encounter Walter Voebel, the Mormon farmer who was hosting us, along with ten of his cows, staring blankly at our orange domed tent in their pasture.

'Do y'all need anything? Like do you want to take a dump or something? Sorry to be rude but that's how it goes! Head down to our house".

After using his facilities, Walter regaled us with stories of the Rainbow people, a hippie cult that stationed itself in the valley ten years before and ran the local Salvation Army out of food while doing LSD and "running naked through the trees." We later discovered Walt is an Olympic trapshooter and his son holds state titles in archery. It also turned out that the neighbor's bull got loose in their field the night before, which explained the excessive mooing going on through the night.

From Jackson we biked a fast 48 miles to Dillon, the largest town we came across (other than Missoula), in Montana. It has a population around 3,000 and hosts Western Montana University. Claire got her knee checked out by a very friendly Tery Hursh, who gave us lemonade and contacted the local bike guru who opened his shop for us to fix Dan's bike. He got 12 or so gears back for Dan, and bent my (Lucia's!) hangar back into place.

From Dillon we went on to Twin Bridges, "The Small Town that Cares", featuring a cute water tower with a red tin roof and a free facility with showers and bathrooms for bikers! There we met James, a recumbent bicyclist who is doing part of the TransAm and did 140 miles solo the day before! Oy! And the boys shot off all their fireworks.

Twin-Bridges- Madison River Campground

We started the day biking ten miles into Sheridan where we had giant excellent blueberry almond and raspberry cream cheese scones at Lil' Joy's Bakery and Deli. We also learned how to pan for garnet stones at a roadside stand and witnessed a Tiger Ruby valued at $2400.

We had lunch in Virginia City, an 'olde tyme' western town with trolley tours, homemade pies and the 'Vigilante Cafe', right next to the hangman's building where they hung outlaws. We had homemade huckleberry ice cream and met two Newfoundlands named Zoe and Zeb. We had a fairly large climb out of Virginia City, ascending from the Ruby Valley, but the view at the top of the Madison River Valley was breathtaking. The descent was a little unfortunate however, as we were buffeted by multiple crosswinds but we're master bikers now, so it was not a big deal. We stocked up on food in Ennis and Claire bought herself a new extendable spoon. On our way out of town we met two guys who were doing the trans am east to west and were on day 63 of their journey. As we talked with the first, the second guy biked straight past us with only a small wave at his compatriot. 'He's a little focused on the end of the day', explained his friend.

The last 22 miles were long, even with a tailwind. But we came into the Madison River Campground and did free laundry and played with the neighboring RV's 6 month old dog Molly.

Today we are in West Yellowstone after conquering a pancake breakfast- made for champions- that gave us an indoor inappropriate sugar high- meaning that we lost all concept of 'indoor voices', and the waitress pointed us out to other patrons as an example of 'people who eat too much sugar.' Oops. However we made sure to eat the citrus orange garnish so we could feel healthy.

On to Yellowstone! We will be meandering through the geysers and 'hot pots' for the next three days, and will have limited service. Ta-ta- check the gps.