T1 Day 22 (Keelin)

 Day 22: 6/28/2023


We woke up at the “Little Montana Truck Stop”, which I think we’ve decided was not our favorite sleeping location. Something about being in the back of the gas station doesn’t feel quite right I don’t think. Liz went to the bathroom and was immediately stared at by all of the cowboys that were drinking their morning coffee in the diner connected to the convenient store. We were clearly out of place. As we were getting ready, we realized it was going to be a scorcher so we loaded up on sunscreen and got after it. It started off as a nice smooth slow ride and then our biker friend Ron (refer to Kayla’s post yesterday for details) appeared again, chatted our ear off for a few minutes, before again deciding we biked too slow and sped off. Ride continued on pretty uneventful for the next few hours - these hours were filled with Big Bootie remixes…. 4 of them to be exact !!! We all rode behind Kayla and sang along to the hour long mash ups, it honestly made the time fly!!!! Unfortunately, we then looked up and saw the classic afternoon thunderstorms brewing behind us AND in front of us. We stopped at a rest area that had a shelter for lunch and tried to check the radar to assess the situation. I created one of my most unique sandwiches yet- amish bread (fabulous) with peanut butter and dried cranberries (this part isn’t a new thing for me this trip) with white cheddar cheez-its (this was a genius addition of a crunchy element and I’m very proud of it). We ended up bringing our bikes inside and maybe that was a mistake because just about everyone that entered made some comment or asked some string of a million questions. We were a little tired and frustrated with the weather so we were the perfect social butterflies I will admit. Some nice woman did give us oatmeal cream pies though, that was very nice of her. We decided that if we wanted to beat the storm we needed to head out ASAP. As we are pedaling the last 20 miles to Sand Spring, MT (pretty sure it’s a population of about 12.. no exaggeration) we see lighting strikes ahead of us and to our right. Far enough off that we keep going, but eventually they got a little too close for comfort. We waited it out for a bit but eventually got to our destination barely wet with rain- we timed it perfectly. We drank some soda, ate some pizza, talked with the nice woman who stayed open waiting for us, and most importantly took a hot shower with great water pressure. Before we got in our tents we sat outside the rest stop and stared off into the plains. We admired the vast open fields and lack of civilization (this may be the farthest out from big towns we have been this trip!). Now, we are currently in our tents in an odd dome shaped greenhouse that has more grasshoppers than anyone could imagine. We thought about sleeping outside but there’s even more grasshoppers out there!!! I did relocate a few of the mating grasshoppers to a more private location to do their business (aka I tossed them out the door). Hopefully none bother me in my sleep.

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