T1 Day 18 (Kayla)

Today we said our farewells to Glacier National Park and headed off into the plains of eastern Montana. The day started in our quaint little cabin with a breakfast of yogurt, bagels (half each), and naked brand smoothies after which we all still felt hungry! I guess our metabolisms are picking up after being conditioned to all of the output we have been engaged in. As we were finishing getting our bikes ready for the day a fellow camper walked to up Liz and keelin and asked if we were packin’, to which sweet liberal Liz responded with “yes, these are our packs”. He followed up with a gun hand gesture to better indicate his point and Keelin got the idea and told him we weren’t. So anyway he’s going to keep us in his prayers. Not more than 10 minutes later after we had set off biking we were treated to the inputs of another passerby who aggressively shouted out their window “y’all be safe out there”. With all of this morning encouragement we were ready to start our day in our favorite fashion, biking up hill for 6 miles towards the wind and the rain! A great way to get the legs warm and get super jazzed to be on the bike again after a serene rest day. Luckily the weather didn’t end up being as bad as it looked liked it might be based on the clouds and we managed to stay dry. We also got to enjoy some stunning final views of the Rocky Mountains, since our road followed the eastern edge of glacier National park to our right with the Blackfoot reservation (and plains) to the left. The sharp contrast in landscapes was almost impossible to comprehend, and so captivatingly beautiful. Soon enough we were done with our main climb of the day and started descending down to Browning, the headquarters for the Blackfoot Indian tribe. Not long into our descent I hear “uh oh” and another strange noise behind me. I look back to see keelin on the ground laughing. Liz and I walk back to check on her and her bike and learn that her chain had fallen off the chain ring and gotten stuck, causing her to be unable to pedal! When she realized her predicament she tried to unclip from her pedals and stop, but since we were moving slowly at the time she didn’t have time to unclip both feet and had toppled over. Luckily she wasn’t injured, but we were concerned to find that her handle bar was pointing in an entirely incorrect direction! Thankfully a quick call to our on-call bike mechanic Graham had the problem fixed in no time (just required a forceful shove) and we were back to pedaling away! By the time we reached Browning we were all ready for lunch, having just built up an appetite pedaling away from a pack of dogs that had broken though a gap in their fence to chase us. We found a nice spot on some shaded park benches to make our PB and Nutella (a new and exciting addition to our food selection!) wraps. As we were finishing up we were approached by 2 friendly older men, who introduced themselves as Blackfoot, and their sweet dog coca-cola. They were eager to chat and hear about what we were doing. After hearing of our journey they decided they would call us “bikes far women”, a apt title, and they cautioned us to be safe. They also said they would say Indian prayers for us. I’m still not sure why everyone in this state feels the need to caution us when all people have done is show us kindness and offer to pray for us, but I appreciate the thought. The rest of our ride from browning to our destination of cut bank was incredibly flat. All there was to see in 3 directions was grassland, with the mountains growing smaller and smaller to our backs. While I can see how riding in the flat plains may get boring after some time today we were all relishing in the ease of riding and our dramatically increased pace. When we arrived in cut bank we made a stop at the grocery store for more food then headed over to the RV park. The park is run by a very friendly (and chatty!) woman who wove us each leather bracelets while we sat in the laundry room eating dinner and drinking the box wine. We set up our tents in a protected area of grass behind the bathrooms and all got an amazing night of sleep after our eventful day!

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