We're Heading East

Here is a picture of the entire group. From left to right it's Tom, me, my hubby Jim, Bob and John. And in the front row is Beau and Eli. We met Eli along the way. He was riding with another guy who decided this wasn't the thing for him after 7 miles. So we have been meeting up with Eli at rest stops along the way. We took this picture outside our motel in Missoula.

On our trip to Adventure Cycling we looked over the maps and decided to take a more direct route east and end the ride in Virginia instead of Maine. That meant that we would have to go solo and leave the group. Which was very sad as we really liked traveling with them. But it also meant that we would get home sooner and we also might be able to get another visit in with the kids in Ohio. And I have been getting very homesick. I miss my house, my bed and the beach. And mostly I miss my Florida kids. I haven't seen them since April. So we made the hard decision and decided to go for it. Do I have a great hubby or what? I know he altered his route for me but I'm taking it while he still wants to do it.

So when we left Missoula we went east and ended up in Lincoln. It was a cute little town. We stayed in this little cabin. It was set back off the road and surrounded with lots of pine trees. Very cute. And all the amenities including internet. Yipee. Then we had dinner at Ponderose's. We had a yummy dinner and the atmosphere was great. Wood carvings everywhere and super friendly people that love to tell us about their little neck of the woods. And Jim asked the waitress if she knew where he could get a little American flag for the back of his bike and she gave him one off the top of the bar left over from the 4th of July.

Today we headed out again and made it to Great Falls. On the way here we stopped in Fort Shaw for lunch. It was a tiny place with only 3 tables in it. An older gentleman came in after we were there and said he saw our Florida plates on the van. From there we struck up a conversation. He had lived his whole life in that neck of the woods on a dairy farm milking cows. He said he doesn't milk them anymore. Now it's just him and his dogs. He was a right friendly guy and when he was leaving he even paid for our lunch. He said it was his contribution to our adventure. You don't run into people like that everyday.

On Jim's ride today he went over the continental divide. That was quite a ride up in the van. And the ride down was spectacular and twisty. Glad I wasn't on a bike.

So tomorrow we leave Great Falls and are off to Geraldine. It should be a flatter day. There were a lot of rolling hills today and some were steep too.