Day 22 - From Miles City to Forsyth

Okay… so back to Day 19 first:

My last blog entry was incomplete for Day 21 as it was written halfway through the day, so let’s rewind a bit.

Last you heard I had left Glendive and was headed southwest towards Miles City — 82 miles from my starting point. However when I wrote about my highly editorialized travels out of Glendive, that only included events up until I arrived in a small town called Terry, where I sheltered until 4:30pm to allow my bike to charge up as much as possible.

Leaving Terry at 4:30 meant braving the hottest part of the day: 93 degrees with blasting sunlight, but cooling by the minute.

The route I had to adhere to demanded more interstate miles, because seemingly every local highway in this part of Montana quickly peters out into a dirt road after only a few miles outside of any built up area, and the type of dirt roads that Montana boasts out here are rutted, with palm sized rocks that could easily rattle the teeth out of your head after a few miles.

Evenso I took as many rural highway miles as I could before jumping back onto the interstate.

This lead to some spectacular views of the surrounding farmlands out to the Buttes on either side of the Yellowstone floodplains.

In this region of the state, following the Yellowstone river track means going up a very slowly rising gradient, punctuated by having to surmount considerable amounts of rolling hills and the occasional 200-300ft Butte.

However following the low floodplains and the track of the old highway was largely saving me those gross ups and downs… for now.

For around eighteen miles I followed highway 10 until it abruptly ended in private ranch roads.

The entire time I worked my way along highway 10 I was monitoring my battery level closely and even though I had charged it up to 9 of 10 bars, it was quickly diminishing. When I reached the leg of road in which I needed to turn onto the interstate I found an outbuilding with exterior outlets and sat in the shade, harassed by biting flies while my bike charged from 6:30 to 7:30pm.

I had genuinely considered just stopping in Terry, having already done 44 miles, but my ego seemed to have gotten the better of me and now I was at a point of no return. To be frank, I was dog tired already and the day was late. I contemplated stealth camping near this shelter but decided it was best to forge ahead even though everything in my body was revolting at the idea.

The interstate miles were oppressively hot and it seemed as though the path the interstate took very intentionally increased the amount of vertical climbing necessary. The deep irony being that the railroad followed the floodplain and as a result was on fairly flat ground as I toiled up, and then rode down large hills and buttes.

The high latitude extends the time in which the sun takes to go from that amber state to true dusk, but eventually it became true dusk as I pressed forward.

The moon rose above the buttes to my left as the sun set to my right, which offered some interesting photos.

The last six miles were, frankly, agonizing. There was a 300ft Butte to surmount that completely burned out my legs.

Back at the shelter before the interstate I had arranged for lodging, knowing with the heat and fatigue I would almost immediately fall asleep. So when I arrived at Miles city I pulled into the motel, disembarked and didn’t even bother to take a shower. I simply piledrove my corpse into the bed and slept.

All day I had felt as if I was abnormally week, having noted I was starting to feel sick in Glendive. Well… I woke up to a swollen face and general malaise. That combined with me nursing a pretty bad saddle sore I can’t seem to get to heal, I really needed another rest day. Given that the 82 miles gained was twice my low estimate for pace (40 miles per day), I felt like it was reasonable.

So for an entire day I basically hung around the hotel except to walk around to get food. I made sure to stay off the bike entirely to give the saddle sore a chance to dry out and harden up. Even then I noticed my lower body was starting to ache — something that happens whenever I get sick after getting Covid for the first time in 2020. Yet another confirmation I’m not 100%

Apart from these concerns I planned the next leg of my journey to Forsyth, about 47 miles away. I planned two potential routes:

The first route being fully interstate miles, but it was another route of up and down toil with almost 2000ft of climbing. That and I wasn’t sure if the one single small community along the way would have any sort of charging options. So I planned the second route that followed a dirt track out of town, crossing a bridge that was not marked on Google maps, but was in my cycling map app. I knew this was risky, as if it’s not on Google maps that usually means it’s impossible for some reason. So I called the visitor center in town and asked about the bridge. The young woman on the other end seemed to agree that it was an active bridge and I could probably cross it…

The next day would be over 100 degrees with a heat index of 117, and an actual high of 107. So I planned to get up early to avoid heat as much as I could.

Day 20 - the trek to Forsyth:

Leaving Miles City it was immediately apparent that I was still not 100%. I was frequently looking back and checking my tire pressures because everything just felt like it was dragging. It was me that was dragging. I just couldn’t muster a pace on the flats that was above 14mph, when I usually hit 17-18. As the day progressed my pains increased. My butt and back as well as a growing headache. As a result of the bad mood that hills and these circumstances put me in, I wasn’t terribly inclined to take many photos.

This section of Montana is substantially drier than the areas I went through in the latter part of North Dakota. Gone are the many roadside marshy areas, and the hills have gone from a green to a mottled yellow brown, tracking with the arid nature of this zone. In fact even when it reached 100 it didn’t feel like the 100 degrees one might experience in my home of North Carolina, with its laden air. This air was as dry as the landscape suggests.

That isn’t to say there is no water. I was constantly surrounded by engineered culverts, pumping stations, and of course I was never more than a mile from the Yellowstone river. I passed over tributaries like the Tongue river, Moon Creek, Rosebud Creek, and others, whose deep cuts and wending paths exposed the deeply colored strata of the surrounding soils. I neglected to take a picture of one such cut that clearly showed a pronounced KT line: A dark ashy black band that interrupts the otherwise yellow and brown sediment, holding significant carbon deposits and irridium, indicating a huge dieoff of organic mater and a significant meteor strike, and likely the cause of the end of megafauna such as dinosaurs and the rise of the mammals.

The tops of the many buttes I surmounted were flat and fertile, many of these used for the cultivation of wheat in various stages of growth. This field is likely soon to be harvested.

The Yellowstone river runs like a meandering band, sometimes only a few inches deep but quite wide across the landscape between buttes about three miles apart, leaving a wide swath of fertile floodplains along its banks.

At around 11am I pulled into a postage stamp town named Rosebud, hoping that somewhere there would be an available outlet to gain a few bars of battery from, given that I currently had about 5 bars, and needed to go another 12 miles, I figured around 7 or 8 would be good. That meant about 45 minutes of charge.

As I pulled into Rosebud I noticed a shelter in a small park with some electrics and so I pulled in as a man trimmed the grass around the shelter and adjacent building. After conferring with him that it would be OK to charge I sat down, dazed, at one of the picnic tables. Eventually he engaged me in some friendly conversation.

Wayne and his wife Lane (sp?) own the local steakhouse in Rosebud, which unfortunately for me was not open that particular day. However as Lane arrived on a mower she brought him an ice cream sandwich and offered me the nutty buddy in her hand. I obliged, needing calories desperately.

We talked for some time and Wayne gave me advice on the best route for the next day and into Billings, suggesting I continue to follow highway 10 given that it will be asphalt all the way in from this point, and it follows the floodplains for the most part, whereas the interstate continues to climb up and down.

Eventually he wished me well and departed, and then shortly after I went my way as well.

At this point it had reached 100 degrees and the heat was physically oppressive, so I opted to step up my pedal assist level, battery be damned. I needed to make miles quickly, but even with that extra assistance I was still going painfully slow by comparison to previous days.

Shortly after passing the local airport where multiple cropduster planes were parked I made it to Forsyth and stopped for lunch at the local Dairy Queen.

After lunch I checked into a motel and launched myself into bed after a quick shower and slept from about 1pm to around 4:30pm, which is unusual for me, because in the odd times I do nap it’s generally for around an hour and a half. Just another indication I’m under the weather.

When I woke up I walked in the 100 degree heat to get some food and then returned back to the hotel with the most sesame chicken I’ve ever been given in a single meal. Half of it is still uneaten as I type this out.

Tomorrow will be cooler, but not by much. My intent is to make around 50 miles to a tiny town named Custer (likely for obvious reasons) which is about 52 miles from Billings.

At Billings I intend to take a rest day, get the bike looked at and my front chainring swapped out, and maybe go to a clinic. Certainly get some welbutrin as it should help with inflamation.

I’m tired y’all… Today was my “Lochsa River” day. That is to say a reprisal of a day I had when I went through a 60 mile stretch of wilderness while having flu like symptoms and aches. It was tough, and I have a feeling tomorrow will be similar. I feel like if I can get past this physical drain I’ll be in much better spirits… but that will take time.