Blessed and almost blown over by the Wind Gods

9/4 77 miles from Circle Mt to Wibaux Mt

Today’s adventure began in the rather remote town of Circle, Montana, a metropolis that promotes itself as being big on agriculture–with hunting and fishing possibilities. Kevin’s pretty sure there wasn’t a whole lot in the promotional budget. 
In keeping with one of the important themes of the journey, I discovered that Loretta, the convenience store clerk, is from Minnesota. It’s a wonder that there’s anyone left in Minnesota seeing as how Montana seems to have been peopled by Minnesotans.
The star of today’s show once again was the wind, barreling out of the northwest and gusting to 25 mph or more. Like yesterday, my first day on the road with Kevin, we managed to ride at a giddy pace that got us into Wibaux, Montana by 1:15 pm! Our rapid transit was aided by a miscalculation about the distance, so an expected 88 mile leg turned out to be a mere 77. I’ll take it.

Photo above: John asking questions of a local Glendive resident about open restaurants on Labor Day.

The relative ease of the day did not keep us from missing our departed support team of Sarah Shriver, Charlie and Jacie Hurd and Peter Brown. Peter completed the mountainous leg of the journey–and now has the legs to prove it. Despite needing to get home so he could spend a brief moment with his spouse before heading off on a business trip, Peter enthusiastically cheered us on, bought us breakfast, appeared with the rest of the team at the Vida post office to provide us with a party in the middle of nowhere, and even offered up a bunch of his riding stuff. 

Oh yeah, and this after having ridden his bike over 1200 miles–with Kevin Shriver!
Today’s photos are intended to 1) demonstrate Kevin’s undeniable visibility against the backdrop of the Montana countryside 2) show you part of a seven mile segment of westbound I-94 that was closed to traffic and which we had all to ourselves. Looks Badlandy, no? There was no sign of any actual construction. 3) laundry day in Wibaux. In this wind, our stuff should be dry in an hour. Remember, you can never pack too many bungee cords–and dumpsters have multiple uses, too!

JF