T1 Day 25 (Keelin)

Day 25: 7/1/2023


Today we left Montana and entered North Dakota !!!!!! We had some big feelings leaving Montana and most of them were super positive. If you couldn’t tell we had grown tired of the eastern Montana roads that we felt we were making no progress on. This was a nice reminder that we are powerful women moving our bicycles through space and each mile is counting!! Our first stop was at a cafe we thought was a coffee shop. At 11am we got seated, felt bad and panic ordered ice cream, french fries, and bread pudding…. I have no explanation for this but we definitely got some strange looks. Outside the cafe, we decided we wanted to stay in a town tonight after seeing none for miles on end. We had our hearts set in Medora, ND until we called and were told it would be $114. In fact, Kayla on the phone responded with “Oh, okay. $114? Yeah we can’t afford that” and hung up. Dreams crushed.  But at lunch, i’m the visitors center in Beach, ND, something tingled inside me and I thought let’s give this another go- when I called back I got a different attendant that sold me the spot for $38! I didn’t ask questions… read my credit card information as fast as I could! We then happily took an amazing frontage road all the way to Medora from the border of ND. We got to the campground, paid $4 to take a dip in the city pool nearby (best $4 I ever spent), ate dinner at the local bar, got ice cream at the gas station, and tucked ourselves into our tents. Success. 


Montana Review:


Favorite Campground:

Liz and Keelin: St. Mary’s Campground- Glacier (For the people, we met some cool through hikers)

Kayla: McGillvilary (Western Montana)


Best Night Sleep:

Liz sleeps well in tent (trains don’t bother her that much)

Kayla can’t remember - sleeps better when it’s dark and she’s not in an RV park (no trains) so the more remote the area the better

Keelin sleeps well when she’s warmer outside so better sleep east of glacier


Favorite meal:

Liz: Whitefish dinner at Bonsai Brewery

Kayla: Bagel sandwiches in Glacier (rest day) 

Keelin: Amish grocery store lunch sandwiches


Favorite snack:

Liz: Amish yogurt covered pretzels 

Kayla: bread from amish bakery (she ate it as a snack)

Keelin: Barebells proteins bars 


Scenery:

Western Montana- 

Liz: 9.5/10

Kayla: 9.5/10

Keelin: 10/10


Eastern Montana- 

Liz: 5/10

Kayla: 4/10

Keelin: 5.5/10


Worst Biking Section:

Liz: Construction in eastern montana on Route 200 heading to flowing wells rest stop (she got a flat)

Kayla: 93 into Whitefish (almost cried) 

Keelin: The day we went into Sand Springs because I was getting sensory overload from persistent bugs chasing me and biting my legs 


Favorite biking:

Going-To-The-Sun Road In Glacier National Park for all of us


Piece of advice when biking across Montana:

Liz: download podcasts (she says they kept her sane when she didn’t think she could be sane)

Kayla: don’t take 200 or 93 (this was basically our whole route across Montana lol) 

Keelin: don’t think that because the rocky mountains are gone, there won’t be climbs. Rolling hills will persist!!!!


Favorite Piece of Gear in Montana: 

Liz: The hood on her sunshirt 

Kayla: Aero bars and new flowy pants 

Keelin: Sleeping bag liner and the new puffy I had to buy from the second hand store in Whitefish (glacier got cold !!!!)


Favorite Town:

Liz and Kayla: Eureka because of fun apothecary, diner breakfast, see-saw at the museum, and deer in the park

Keelin: Whitefish, amazing farmers market with food trucks - one of the bigger towns we were in 

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