Heading out of Montana

After a night camping at the primitive, but "good-value," Circle, MT city park, I packed up and proceeded to Richey, MT and the following day to Sidney, MT. As I pushed towards Sidney, the hills were less punishing than the last few days, but as I look back to the west, the undulating road fades into the horizon like a forgotten dream. Riding those hills were real enough a day ago, best likened to climbing a series of walls, never knowing how many more lay before you.

The roadside creatures change as I proceed along my trip. In California, I would repeatedly see small (3-4") lizards scurrying away from their sunbathing spots on the side of the road as I bicycled along. In western Montana, I was inundated with dense patches of crickets that would part like the Red Sea as I rode along (except for those unfortunate times that there was a strong side wind, in which case the unfortunate half of locust-like throngs trying to escape into the wind would inevitably be blown back into me and I'd suffer the whacking of hundreds of crickets against my body). More charmingly, in eastern Montana, there have been clouds of small white and yellow butterflies flitting amongst the roadside fields. Each area seems to enjoy a very different slice of our national biodiversity.

Today's little adventure was the untimely disintegration of my tires, with the treads separating from the tires themselves. This was doubly frustrating, as when I was in the last bike shop a week or so ago, I asked the mechanic repeatedly whether I needed new tires. And with my best interests at heart, he repeatedly told me that it was not necessary and that I could easily make it a few more states on these tires. Alas, 60 miles from the nearest bike store, my tires gave out. Ample application of SuperGlue helped me make it the last ten miles and I hope will carry me to a shop in Williston, ND tomorrow.