West. Day 22.

June 30, 2016

Wibaux to Circle, Montana

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Sometime after dark last night, a car pulled in. Soft voices mumbled unintelligible words, tent stakes pounded as quietly as anyone could followed by zippers zipping. Then all became still.

In the morning my new neighbors were tucked tight in a tent not much bigger than mine. The car was a dirt-encrusted Jeep. I hoped my breakfast-making and morning bike check reflected their same level of hushed respect.

Good catch. Both rack bolts were loose. No surprise because of the last-minute change in racks I made before leaving home. There's something to be said about preventative habits. I removed the rear wheel to tighten them. The tires looked worn, but sound. I topped off the rear to 90 psi (rated to 80, the strong rim can handle a bit higher), the front to 100. A slow backpedal to drip T-9 lube on each chain link and the excess wiped off with a shop rag. Pedal clip mechanisms got lubed, as well as derailleur, brake, and shifter pivots.

Good to go.

A zip from next door and two young men and a woman, all with long, wild hair and colorful clothing, emerged like hippies from a clown car. I nodded good morning. They answered with a heavy accent and set about their own morning rituals, stretching and chatting in a language I could not identify

One of the men headed to the bathroom building with a change of clothes and a towel. It appeared I might miss my chance before hitting the road. The lone shower, sink, and toilet was housed inside the front door of what might have been a living room, although the abandoned fixtures to a washer and dryer hung from the far wall. The rest of the house was blocked off.

I doubted I could wait for him to shower. Intercepting him, I asked if I could use the bathroom first. He motioned me in. Relief. Now he could take all the time in the world. I felt for the woman who passed me on my way back to my bike. She found the door locked, ran to their campsite, grabbed a roll of toilet paper, and headed across the otherwise empty campground. Not much to hide behind except a rusty piece of farm equipment overgrown with weeds.

That would have been me.

My original Facebook post:

POSTCARD FROM THE ROAD June 30, 2016, posted July 1, 2016

Finally. A tailwind. A STRONG tailwind. A fellow cyclist named Charlie pushing east flagged me down, eager for a break. He was riding from Washington state to Maine. “Are the winds always from the east here?” he asked.

I laughed. “Nope!”

Decided to take advantage, so flew 80 miles into Circle, MT.

You’ll have to forgive a short entry, I’m very sleepy.

Photo of me taken by west-to-east cyclist Charles Brun.

[Click here to read Charlie's blog post about meeting me. He only had a few facts wrong!]

SO glad I decided to push beyond Glendive. What a tailwind I had! The last, mostly downhill miles helped me arrive in Circle by 4:00. Camping for cyclists was in the city park next to the city pool. I might have been a little bonky; I had trouble deciding where to set up my tent. An open pavilion gave no shelter from the wind. Two cement-walled picnic shelters did offer a windbreak, but they were close to the road. I walked my bike from one to the next. Should I clean up the trash in one of the graffiti-covered shelters, or take my chances with the wind in the pavilion? Screw it, I stayed near the graffiti shelter.

"I should have stopped at the grocery store while I was in town," I grumbled. On the way to the store, four teenagers sitting in the bed of a rusty pickup truck parked on the side of the road pointed and laughed. "Why do you need a windshield on a bike?" they jeered. I ignored them when I returned.

The wind raged. A truck rumbled around and around the park, its muffler, or lack thereof, was an abrasive intrusion. Was it those same kids, bored in this town of 600? The truck stopped, close, and coughed into an idle. I unzipped the tent to peek. Too close.

I programmed the sheriff's phone number from the ACA map into my phone, not frightened, just not excited to deal with a group of annoying kids. Ten long minutes later the truck left and never returned.

The wind did not let up. I hoped the tent stakes would hold and that my dwindling weight would be enough to keep it from blowing away if they didn't. An old memory bobbed up. Tiny me, playing the corpse in a high school performance of the play Arsenic and Old Lace, thought myself dead-weight-heavy so the actors could not pick me up.

Did it work? I can't remember.