PowerCycle

05/07 I couldn’t have asked for a nicer day. Perfect weather, very little traffic and amazing scenery. Back up to 50+ miles days and even with some big climbs I still had plenty of energy left.

Had a bit of a scare this morning. A fairly intense thunderstorm rolled through around 5am and the siren in town sounded for about 2-3 seconds. Not sure what that was about. I would think with a tornado warning it would be going off for much longer. Since I was in a tent about all I could do was pull the sleeping bag up a little higher and secure my gummi bear stash (just kidding– I ate that massive bag in one sitting last night so I had no more).

Most of the riding today was along 2-lane roads with almost no traffic. Lot’s of uphills but only one of them ended up being really steep. At the top of the hills I was treated to some great views of the valleys. I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get to see an Indian Treaty Memorial that was on my map but the only place that might have been it looked more like someone’s rundown house. Next up was a town called Marty which was seemingly built up around some schools and nothing else. No stores/businesses of any kind. It ended up being 47 miles from the time I left this morning before I found a place that had water. I had plenty so I wasn’t worried about it. If it was hot out it might have been a different story. I’m pretty sure today was my first time riding over a dam. The map said to watch out for extremely strong crosswinds and they had a sign right before crossing the dam, but riding across was painless.

Staying at the Randall Creek Recreation Area tonight ($14). It looks like all state-run campgrounds are going electric only with wifi so that’s why they don’t have primitive sites for less money. No one else here from what I can tell. Shower was nice. Took a picture of me hanging out under a tree typing this.

Tomorrow my destination is the town of Burke which means I’m on my own until West Yellowstone. No more ACA maps to help me along. I had to navigate on my own from Statesboro, GA to St. Louis, MS to I’m not too worried about it. I’ll just have to plan the water fill ups a little better. The ACA maps were nice in that they showed what services are (usually) available in towns. I’ll definitely miss that.

I’m feeling a little cut off with no internet but mostly because my cell hasn’t had signal in 2 days so I can’t call anyone. I miss talking to my family/friends whenever I want.

GPX Track