Day 13 – White Sulphur Springs to Roundup, Montana

Today was long – 128 miles long – but I got through it successfully despite a very mixed bag of weather. The morning was grey and drizzly again. It was only light enough to set out about 6.30am and it was a case of wearing all my waterproof clothes, putting my head down, and getting the miles behind me. It was pretty empty in every sense. This first part was the hilliest; but after a couple of hours and 750 feet of ascent, I peaked at 5,752 feet and began a long, gradual descent that basically continued all day, on and off, ending 128 miles later at about 3,200 feet. Which certainly helped. Somehow I managed an average speed over all that distance on a loaded bike of 13.7 mph. That’s not too shabby.

I left the grey mountains behind and set out across a more prairie-like landscape, with very few trees and low, grassy bluffs either side. This carried on for 59 miles until, eventually, I reached the small town of Harlowton, which promised much and delivered little. It seemed a bit stuck in the past, trying to cling onto a way of life that’s no longer sustainable. It had a historic Main Street but many of the buildings stood empty, or had even fallen down. It was a sad sight and must once have looked very different. I struggled to find anywhere to get brunch, even after all this distance, and settled in the end for a pizza and a hot chocolate in a gas station / casino on the edge of town. The people I saw mostly looked pretty downtrodden. Harlowton did have a nice open air swimming pool, which had people swimming in it despite the rain. And an impressive school football field in a natural bowl. But those were about the only rays of sunshine I noticed.

Speaking of which, around noon it became dry and – a couple of hours later – even a bit sunny. I peeled off my waterproof trousers, gloves and jacket as soon as they were dry and enjoyed the rest of the day in relative warmth and, at times, genuine sunshine. It was another thirty miles to the next small settlement of note, Ryegate. It was so small, I almost missed it. But here there was a cafe! A handwritten sign in the window said it would be closing at 2pm. It was currently 1.45pm and the place was empty. Yikes! Inside, however, I found that all was well. A 3-part meal then unfolded with soup and a sandwich, followed by the most delicious huckleberry smoothie. And that made the prospect of the final 37 miles to Roundup, along more long, very straight roads, seem alright.

I was expected there by my second Warm Showers host around 6pm. I thought I would beat that by half an hour, even allowing time for a root beer stop at the lonely gas station on the corner of a road junction another 17 miles away. Out here, you don’t miss out on any such opportunity. The man inside was busy swatting flies. He said they have been bad this year because it has been unusually damp, a sentiment as heard from several different people today.

Almost all of the traffic, which seemed to have increased since Harlowton, turned off route 12 at this point, which was lucky because the broad shoulder I had been using out of an abundance of caution, also disappeared. I was enjoying the empty highway when suddenly, and for no apparent reason, my back tyre went flat. It was my first puncture in over a thousand miles of cycling in the USA, and I had no choice but to pull over onto the grass verge to fix it. This proved quite an exercise because, after removing my bags and the back wheel, I found it close to impossible to remove the tyre from the wheel rims. The tyres were newly fitted by the kind people at Alpkit before my bike was shipped over to America; but were the same kind that came with the bike. I wondered if this was something to with pressure from flying in the aircraft hold. Who knows. Anyway, with a lot of patience, strength and a little ingenuity, I got the job done and was able to resume my journey. And barely a car passed me the whole time.

All of which meant that I was on time, rather than early, for my Warm Showers appointment. Sabrina, my host, outdid herself and cooked dinner for us both, which I was not expecting. And now as I sit on her back porch at 9pm, the weather is putting on quite a show. There is a beautiful, bright, thin crescent moon away to the west, where the sky is not quite dark. To my right are large, heavy clouds and we just had the most enormous clap of thunder very near by. It is raining gently. I hope by tomorrow that will be gone.

Sabrina (an ex-marine with a past working in disaster zones) seems now to have one paid and several other voluntary jobs. She typically rises at 4am and leaves the house for work by 6.30am latest. I have promised to be ready to leave the house, too. I suppose it’s a good thing, given that I have another 101 miles of empty space to cross. But my internal clock has other thoughts.