Don't know if Roy commented about meeting Mike and Laurie after dinner. They had just pulled in, having come from Missoula. Laurie is a librarian from Chicago who quit her job to do the TransAm, starting from Yorktown, Va. She has not deviated from the route. She is looking for a place to relocate and thinks she found it in Missoula.
Mike was working in a bike hostel in Kansas. When he met Laurie, he decided to quit his job and follow her. He just got a job in a bike shop in Missoula and starts on Monday. So he and Laurie will be heading in different directions tomorrow--Mike back to Missoula; Laurie to finish the TransAm and then back to Missoula with hopes of getting a job at the ACA. We thought theirs was a romantic story and we hope everything works out for them.
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While in Augusta, Montana, Mel's Diner had this advertisement from the January 1927 edition of The Ladies' Home Journal: Here's the large type version. Read and learn: Advertising in the 1920's and 1930's also included Lucky Strike's "20,679 Physicians say 'Luckies are less irritating'" and RJ Reynolds' "More Doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette". Maybe it's best to not trust advertising for health and nutrition advice, but instead rely on your own experience. None of the pictures came through with Marie's Day 58 post so I'll attempt to add them now. Our first 24 miles we finishing the downhill run in the canyon next to the Lochsa River and then the Clearwater River. That's when we ran into the cancer-fundraising group, whose support drivers were kind enough to pump up our tires. Here's the famous "lady at the grocery store in Stites". She said she's ready to retire and would like to sell the store. We each had 2 ice creams to fortify ourselves for the climb. She loves talking to the cyclists passing through. She had one cyclist who expected to be recognized because he came through every year for 18 years. (What person would do the same ride every year for 18 years?). Inventory was pretty thin. When we headed out of town and up the climb, the skies got threatening. That's rain falling, but not on us. Yet. Hmm. Seems to be headed our way. Time for rain suits. I didn't take pictures of the deluge. We just sat in the ditch getting pelted with rain and then hail. We were only 1/4 mile from a barn but walking up a steep grade would have taken a while. Get soaked walking, get soaked huddling together; we were safer off the road. Eventually it stopped and we resumed walking/riding. All around we could see spectacular weather going on. About 12 miles from town it started really coming down. On of these pieces dropped into my hand while I was taking the picture. With our helmets and rain suits, the hail was not painful- it was like hard rain. Obviously, had there been any shelter out there in the wheat fields, we would have taken it. We regretted passing up a barn maybe 1/2 mile before the hail started. It's hard to anticipate what the weather is likely to do, and we're always optimistic. At one point we sheltered in anticipation of getting wet but that rain passed us by. We arrived at the award-winning Super 8 in Grangeville about 5:30. It was a long day even though we only went 47 miles. We hope you weren't as frustrated as we were by the fact there is no cell service and little wifi from Lolo Pass until Kooskia. Today, after experiencing a little bit of every kind or terrain and every kind of weather, we finally arrived in Grangeville. There is cell service and wifi here. Tomorrow is a rest day and we will make plans for the next 10 days or so. We breakfasted at the Ryan's Wilderness Inn and Cafe in Lowell. There were two cyclists eating breakfast. One was wearing a jersey that said Biking Viking dot net. We haven't had a chance to check it out yet. But we overheard him say he had done multiple cross country tours. As we were sitting there, several other cyclists arrived. They were wearing jerseys indicating that they were cycling from Baltimore to Portland to raise money to fight cancer. A few miles after Kooskia, we came to Stites. There is a famous grocery store where for years the proprietress has been sending ACA riders on a hilly shortcut to Grangeville. The virtue of her route is that there is little traffic. About 2 years ago, the ACA put her route on their maps. It was hilly! I like hills and there were stretches where we got off and walked. Storms rolled in. We got hailed on 3 times. The first time we sheltered from the wind, but not the rain and hail, by huddling below the road cut. The second and third times we just rode through it. We were happy to get to Grangeville. We saw a spectacular sunset, one of the few we have stayed up for in recent days. day 57 - (july 26th) Lochsa Lodge to Lowell 13.6 average speed. 65.6 miles mostly downhill7/27/2015 (IT Deparment note: sorry for the delay - both cyclists and webmaster had interwebs problems yesterday July 26th. Photos to come soon!) We saw a number of these bridges and they reminded us of hikes in New Zealand. Lowell. We caught up with Laurie in the cafe. She was finishing dinner as we came in. We talked for awhile and then she left to find a campsite. Laurie's bike and Laurie in the window of the cafe. We did not stay here, but this place is within walking distance of where we stayed and they have wifi, which we did not. |
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August 2015
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