Day 10: Missoula Rest Day Recap

The past 9 days of cycling has been very enjoyable and has lived up to my expectations - except for the very unexpected crash on Day 2.  I feel very fortunate to be "in the arena" attempting to do this cross-county ride and very lucky to have not had it end abruptly with my crash.  We've now covered 718 miles and done 31,100 feet of climbing.  It's been particularly interesting traveling through a part of the country which is unfamiliar to me.  Seeing it unfold slowly on a bicycle is so much better than whizzing by in a car.  It was also fun spending some time with my friend Craig Kipp who, unfortunately, had to leave the trip a few days before his planned ending in Missoula. And, of course, seeing Deb, Tim, and Sarah at Whitman College in Walla Walla was a special treat.

It doesn't get any better than Day 8 when I soloed along side the beautiful Lochsa river.  That's when the reason I'm doing another cross-county ride "clicked" into place in my mind.  Yes, I enjoy the physical challenge - but what I enjoy most is the serenity of mind and sense of calmness that comes over me as I pedal through nature and the small towns of America.  Bicycling forces me to stay in the moment and to stay present - something that's very hard to do in today's connected world where it seems that everybody is always electronically somewhere else instead of where they actually are. As on my last cross-country trip, this calmness carries over after I get off the bike each day - I have not turned on the TV and don't have any desire to do so the remainder of the trip.  My mind simply does not want to be cluttered with what I might see or hear. I do check email and news each morning online (when there is an "online") but it is with passing interest - and my many emails are easily dealt with by the delete button. What I do look at intently online each morning is the weather forecast for the area - particularly the wind direction.

Sorry for the philosphy discourse, but one of the key reasons I keep this blog is to record not only what I'm doing, but why I'm doing it, and what I'm thinking about when I'm doing it. Most of us know what our ancestors did, but few of us know why they did it, and even fewer know what was going on in their ancestors' minds when they did it.   I'm trying to record all 3 dimensions so that my kids, grandkids, and their kids will have some idea as to why their dad, grandpa, great grandpa, etc. was crazy enough to pedal across the country two times at ages 67 and 70. Of course for future generations, it may be quite normal to do such things at the "middle-age" of 70.

Seven riders left us here in Missoula so we are down to the 20 of us who will continue across the country.  Now I only have to work at remembering 20 names and faces - something I didn't even attempt when there were 27 of us.  It's a nice bunch of very interesting people so I look forward to getting to know each of them in the coming days.  I have not yet found a small subset of the group that I am comfortable riding in a paceline with so, for now at least, I will mostly be soloing unless (until) we encounter strong headwinds.

Today, I closely followed the rest day advice of one of our guides - "don't stand when you can sit, and don't sit when you can lay down".  I took a short walk to a nearby laundromat where I encountered several others from the group - as laundromats go it was quite nice.  On the way back I stopped at a pharmacy to get some cyclist essentials - ibuprofen, bandaids, and an ice pack.  Then it was back to the hotel to get caught up on my blog posts followed by a huge early afternoon lunch on the deck at the back of the hotel - it started with a giant plate of outstanding fried calamari.  It was a picture perfect day and the setting was great - looking across the Clark River to the University of Montana campus with the big white M on the side of the mountain while watching several guys fly fish below me and a paddle boarder go up and down the river. 

Missoula is really a neat place! I'm going to suggest that my outdoor adventure oriented grandsons, Aidan and Oliver, put the University of Montanta on their list of future potential colleges.

Lunch was followed by a nice nap and a little more work on my blog.  After my huge lunch there is no need for dinner and anyway my 8pm bedtime is rapidly approaching.  Tomorrow is a big day - 125 miles to Helena with 6,100 feet of climbing.  Let's hope for another tailwind!

Steve