eastern montana - july 1 - 5

We left Havre,MT on Wednesday, July 1, well rested and in good spirits only to meet 2 dreaded occurences: headwind (NE 10 mph)and mosquitos. The head wind from the get go, the mosquitos kind of snuck up on us. In the little town of Chinook, MT, we met Eleanor and Al - a sweet senior couple - shared a nice breakfast and conversation with them. Turns out they are from Chico, CA just a few hours from us and are members of the flock of our good friend Fr. Berg at St. John's church. Eleanor was on a mission. There is a business in town that has pictures of all the local veterans on the wall. Her family was originally from the area and she had 7 uncles - all brothers that fought in WWII. She brought picures of them all and was going to request they be hung up with the others. Eleanor,we pray that you were successful in your mission and we also pray for you, Al and your entire family.

As we approached Malta we learned about mosqitoes. After unsuccesfully dodging them while we were riding, we beat it into a motel hoping we didn't bring too many in with us. Well, the next day again with a headwind, we found the mosquitos could fly faster than we could pedal. We suffered through them for about 100 miles total through the town of Saco and into Glasgow. Any time we stopped, we were immediately donating blood to hundreds of the little creatures.

We woke up to a trashed tire and tube which had to be replaced - luckily we had a spare. Again to a very stiff headwind. Wolf Point was our next destination and one of the worst storms we had seen. We read the clouds right as we ate 1st supper and decided to motel it instead of camping. Good thing : it was a wicked scary purple black storm with high winds and a drop in temp of 20 degrees in as many minutes.

I wanted to be in a bigger city like Willston, ND for July 4th where there might be a good chance of some firework displays. However, with so many days of headwind impeding our progress, we didn't think we could make it. We arrived in the little town of Culbertson, MT about 4 pm, followed the steeple to a Catholic church to check out Mass time: it wasn't listed. We rode through town to check out the city park camping and decide if we should push on to Williston - another 48 miles - for fireworks and church. A man, Pete Olson, flagged us down and invited us to come into the VFW for free ice cream on account of the holiday. (Ice cream is always a winner.) While we were chatting another gentleman drove up and asked if we were camping in the park. He let us know we would have great seats for his families' big display. Since they were so knowlegable, I asked about Mass at St. Anthony's and Pete said 9 am see you then. So we cleaned up, met another cyclist, Fred, from Virginia, heading west across the country for his 70th birthday. So, we swapped stories and map info with Fred, ate a camp dinner and were joined by a couple on a camping/motorcycle trip: Brian and Ellie. Then the fireworks began: this was a big family gathering that went for the 4th of July in a big way. Based on the equipment they lined up, we estimate that this was 3 generations of developing both firework delivery systems and techniques. Wow what a show!

July 5: Culbertson to Williston ND
After a camp breakfast with Fred, Brian and Ellie - the most people we have been with yet - we went to a lovely Mass at St. Anthony's. One of the women had made fresh blueberry scones for their hospitality!! Another indication of our 'good call' to stay the night there. Made it into Williston in good time (4 pm) only to realize we had crossed another time zone so lost an hour. Everything was closed due to the holiday weekend so we couldn't make headway on city park camping/showers, prescription filling, spare tire replacement. We found an Arby's for the first time and could use our gift card (thanks M & C) and moteled it so our stuff would be safe while we ran a bunch of errans the next morning.