White Sulphur Springs, MT → Ryegate, MT → Billings, MT

Our riding plans have been at the mercy of the weather these past two days. Both Thursday and Friday we were unable to reach our target destination. However, given the wonderful WarmShowers hosts we had the pleasure of meeting (both of whom took us in and even fed us with no notice) we wouldn't have it any other way.

Thursday started out innocently enough when we woke up in White Sulphur Springs. We had expected to finish winding through the foothills of the Rockies and then hit the flat plains of Eastern Montana in the second half of the day. The tent weathered its first thunderstorm with flying colors, and we started off for Lavina with bellies full of oatmeal, toast and fruit. We had heard there would be opportunity to pick up some lunch food about 32 miles down the road at a Huderite colony near Martinsdale, only to find that nothing was really open to the public. Thankfully, we had a breakfast burrito and a leftover pb & j sandwich to tide us over for another 24 miles to Harlowton.

As we neared town, the all-too-familiar thunderstorms started cropping up to our left, right and rear. Soon the only bright spot in the sky was down the road ahead of us. Given that we'd gone 56 miles without a real break, we pulled into a grocery store for a quick breather and to check the radar. The forecast was precarious--a line of severe thunderstorms was forming over the mountains to our southwest and moving quickly in our direction. It was a gamble on whether we could ride out far enough ahead to skirt the approaching grey clouds that we could already see off in the distance… the sky down the road looked so sunny and blue. In the end, prudence got the better of us and we opted to stay in town and let the storm roll through before continuing on. The damage was two hours off of our traveling time--would it be enough to get to Lavina another 47 miles down the road? We called a warm showers host a shorter distance away in Ryegate to see if they might have room if we needed it. David and his wife, Patti, said they certainly did.

Once back on the road, the forceful sidewind we encountered sealed the deal--Ryegate it was. We leaned our bikes to the left to balance against the gales and were relieved to arrive on the doorstep of David's and Patti's log cabin several hours later.

We had a lovely visit with Patti, who is the town mayor, over dinner and with David, a science and PE teacher currently on his summer break, over breakfast. Thank you so much guys!!!

Friday morning, we hit the road early (for us) and planned on a long 105 mile ride to Hardin by way of Billings, MT. What we didn't plan for was the 15mph+ headwind coming up from the south and southeast. We fought for about 8.5 hours to get 60 miles to Billings. And while no tears were shed, there may have been some (very loud) cursing. Mostly (okay, all) by me.

But we made it and were lucky enough to find another wonderful warm showers couple, Wanda and Lenny, to let us take shelter with them. Apparently their last guest that stayed two weeks ago, a Dutchman, was circumnavigating the globe on his bike wearing his wooden clogs. Suddenly we don't feel quite so crazy anymore. :-)