Day 23: Wasn’t this supposed to be a rest day?

I woke up once again gasping for water… I reached over for my phone and saw that it was 1:30 am… luckily I had the foresight to buy a poweraid earlier in the night and chugged the whole thing (more like a happy accident but nevertheless the best way to prevent a hangover). All this because instead of a rest day today we made yesterday evening our rest day and polished off 40 beers between the 5 of us - college. Anyway, shortly after chugging the poweraid, I heard some scratching outside the tent - so naturally I panicked - took the safety off my bear spray (what a thrill) and proceeded to look up current grizzly territory in Montana (knowing full well we weren’t in it anymore, but hey paranoia is bitch). Finally, after worrying about being on the edge of grizzly territory where there hasn’t been a sighting in 20+ years for 2 hours I fell back asleep till 7. 

So we all slowly got up and tried to get some breakfast at the truck stop that we were staying behind because the clerk last night excitedly told us they do breakfast now and they open at 6am. We walked in at 8 and the morning clerk walks in as we are sitting at a table reading the small town newspaper and tells us they don’t open till 9 so that was a disappointment… especially because some NPC came in and told us his wife was the best cook he’s ever seen and that Grass Range used to be something. I don’t know - I just bought some donettes and a pop tart and called it a breakfast. 

We headed out for the day at 9 am with the choice of doing 100 miles today or 100 miles tomorrow due to the fact that towns are so far apart that it’s impossible to get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time (on a bike anyway). So to keep the illusion of having a choice we decided to do the 100 miles today instead of being forced to do it tomorrow and let me tell you… that… was… a… mistake… wasn’t this supposed to be a rest day? We had a good first 30 miles or so when all of a sudden we stopped at a rest stop with the shortest urinals of all time:

After that stop we came upon a hill that never stopped. Every time we got to the crest of the hill a new hill appeared, and that went on for about 6 miles. It was so bad that Julia cried, but we had to do it. We finally got to the only town between our start point and end point and stopped at the gas station where we found a book signed by all the travelers that stopped in - we found June and Alex’s entry from last year and of course entered our own which the quote of the day, “it’s all down hill from here” trying to repeatedly lie to ourself just to keep some semblance of morale. I also bought and ate a metric ton of food - at this point in the trip I’m eating the amount of calories a normal person would eat in a whole day at every meal - anabolic. At this point my legs and butt have actually gotten bigger - so much so that one of my two pairs of bike shorts doesn’t fit anymore - so you could say I’m becoming a heartthrob, but also I smell because I’ve been wearing the same dirty bike shorts for a week and haven’t showered in 4 days… Maybe the two cancel each other out - who knows? 

Anyway, after the stop at the gas station we did the last 33 miles REALLY quick (2ish hours) and got to Jordan, MT population 343 and proceeded to pitch our tents and discuss how all these tiny towns are just part of the simulation that we’re all in (I mean have you ever seen your neighbor bring in groceries? Yeah, didn’t think so). So all in all, these two young guns Pat and Leo somehow convinced us to ride 100 miles over the worst terrain imaginable instead of taking a rest day - but it was a fun day in the end and we are happy to still be riding with them - next stop getting out of Montana and getting through North Dakota and two days - catch us tomorrow for another 70 mile day instead of rest. Oh by the way this was Dustin if you couldn’t tell - catch you later!

P.S. sorry for the lack of pictures - all we’ve seen the last 5 days is the windows XP desktop background: