Day 25 - from Billings to Columbus

I had every intention to wake up early and get out on the road by 8am to try to make good time so that I could push to Big Timber, 84 miles down the road. However, like many days there are things that conspire to frustrate your plans.

After packing things and loading them up I waited for a bit to talk with Amy one last time before heading out. When I walked out to the garage I noticed that the back tire was not just flat, but completely and profoundly flat. Let me explain — Most flats I get leave a bit of pressure still in the tube that lets the tire retain its shape on the rim for the most part. This was so flat that the tire itself had separated from the rim.

So while waiting for Amy I resolved to fix the issue. I pulled it off the bike and began the process of finding the reason, eventually finding and patching it. When I put the wheel back on to do my final pumping, I twisted the valve in such a way that it ripped, and I was greeted with the rushing sound of a completely dead innertube. Usually I hold on to the valve for this very reason, but I was maneuvering the bike to rotate the tire to a better position. It was a dumb mistake.

The only good part that came from me having to fully dismount the wheel again, remove the tire entirely, and install a new tube is that Amy got to watch this process and we talked a bit about that and other things like my plans for the day. Eventually the wheel and tire were replaced and I was good to go.

It was 9am by the time I left Amy’s house. I gave her a couple of sweaty Christian side hugs before leaving and letting her know I’d keep in touch. I pulled out onto the streets of Billings and was on my way.

Navigating Billings wasn’t hard, it was just a bit frustrating. The designated cycle infrastructure isn't set up extremely well at junctions with roads and roundabouts, leading to a lot of potential conflicts that caused me to have to proceed slowly. As a result the 8 miles out of town took over an hour to accomplish. As I was leaving I spotted what I thought were clouds… yet they weren't.

Finally I was seeing the front range of the Rockies, and those “clouds” were snow on the sides of different peaks. I genuinely couldn't say how far they were from my position — likely 40 or more miles away, but I was about to follow the river, and based off of the maps they would eventually be to either side of me as I pressed ever up the river’s meandering alluvial valley towards Livingston and Bozeman pass.

This reminded me of when I first sighted the front range outside of Pueblo, Colorado in 2011. At that point it took three days to actually get to the first serious climbs. Bozeman pass, and the first actual mountains I’ll have to surmount was still about 100 miles ahead.

I turned onto rural highways 10, the old friend I’ve been off and on since Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. Eventually it took me through a town that’s slowly being engulfed by Billings suburbs: Laurel.

From an outsider’s persective Laurel seems like it’s a railyard town. The parts I went through were largely dilapidated and industrial, so I can’t comment on the actual character of the town, because all towns have their less desirable parts.

Even so, Laurel flew by in a matter of minutes and Highway 10 became one of the many parallel tracks to the Interstate that gives access to ranches and farms.

Each passing mile had me getting closer to looming buttes and the front range seemed to be getting visibly larger.

The day itself was mild until around 11am and then I felt like I had many days before: A conduit for fluid to pass through, going out nearly as fast as it went in. The dry air and the 90 degree heat was less than pleasant, and my saddle sore had returned with a vengeance.

I didn’t focus on this in my last post, but one of the reasons I stopped in Billings was to allow this open sore to heal some. It is definitely closing, but it is not closed. I got some oversized hydrocolloidal bandages that I hoped would stabilize and protect the region, given how difficult of a place it is to appropriately cover. Unfortunately either I didn't apply it well or it just couldn’t handle being pulled and stretched and so over time it wadded up and was irritating my wound. At a gas station I simply ripped it off and rode on. But it was clear then that 80+ miles was not in the cards.

So I called my wife and let her know sooner rather than later. She had been in contact with a UMC district superintendent who hooked me up with Amy in Billings. So I asked if she could see if there were churches in Columbus, the bail out stopping point, which was 44 miles rather than 84. I kept riding.

The character of the Buttes and their geology seemingly is changing. Less and less was I seeing the smoothly carved sandstones miles back, and these buttes were taking on a more granitic look — actual hard rock, not just sediments compacted over millions of years.

In researching it more that’s indeed what we are seeing. Throughout the Yellowstone valley there are intrusions of granitic magma from below, where the magma is forced up through cracks and voids and eventually fills large sections and entire strata. These particular sections I was seeing were likely pushed up from below and cooled over 60 million years ago. This results in the chunky monzonites, feldspar and granite formations that can be seen throughout the valley. But it’s important to note that two buttes can be wildly different — one fully sedimentary rock, and another in the same vista containing a monzonite intrusion.

As I continued to ride on, I spotted gradually more and more of these large scale monzonite intrusions. Here we see a bluff with a sheer cliff created by the steady erosion of the softer sedimentary rock encasing it, leaving the harder rock to weather more slowly.

Let’s be clear that these are not formed the same way as the Rocky mountains seen in the background. Those are a result of crustal uplifting when two plates collide. The Rockies resulted from the Farallon plate and the North American plate colliding. However the Rockies are an interesting and unusual case. In most cases when an ocean plate like the Farallon plate collides with a continental plate (one with land on it) the denser ocean plate slides under and downward, melting and generating volcanic mountain ranges and a deep oceanic trench close to land. A great example of this is Mt St. Helens. It is a granitic volcano that was caused by the frictional forces of a plate sliding under the continent.

The Rockies however, are significantly inland. This is because their formation is as a result of the Farallon plate not diving down as many do, but rather sliding underneat the North American plate for hundreds of miles, slowly building a wide and deep mountain range.

After struggling against headwinds for about 15 more miles my wife let me know that there was a contact in Columbus that the DS had scared up. A church there was willing to help me out, I just needed to call a man named Maurie, which I resolved to do when I got to Columbus, still around 10 more miles ahead.

I can’t say much about those miles. I was more focused on my growing discomfort, the heat and headwinds blowing at me. So I rarely took pictures and just ground them out.

Eventually I got to Columbus and settled into a Subway, then called Maurie. He let me know that he wasn’t going to host me, but that he had someone who was working on my behalf. Honestly I just expected either to stay in the fellowship hall or in someone’s home. Rather what happened was that a woman named Amy Drain called me from the Congregational church.

I had biked past the Congregational church and spotted their rainbow banner and Immediately thought that I should contact someone there. Apparently others were doing that work on my behalf without my knowledge already.

Amy let me know that she had worked out a room at the super 8 hotel. I was flabbergasted. I felt, as I expressed in yesterday’s blog, the undeserved favor — the unfair blessing of God’s grace. I hadn’t asked for lodging in this way, but they had paid for me to stay somewhere. Through tears I thanked Amy and her church for being the hands and feet of Christ. This is apparently a ministry that she helps to run. I was and am humbled. It is another personal demonstration to me on how to be the unfair, undeserved blessing for others.

It made me think of me and my wife’s idea to get one of the prefab tiny-homes and subdivide our lot for the purposes of housing older teens in transition, or battered women.

I ended my day at the Super 8 where they got me situated. A turbulent vanilla sky hung over the distant mountains.