Missoula!

Hello,

We’re feeling much better – we still have a few remnants of our colds, but for the most part, our legs are back to being our weakest link. Since our last post, we’ve ascended and descended two large passes. First, we climbed the White Bird Hill, in Idaho. It was rather tough. Lots and lots of switchbacks, and no shade! At the top, a couple in an rv gave us some water and told us all about the tandem recumbent.

In between, we rode through an awesome river valley, between Kooskia and Lolo Pass. It was full of big trees, and we followed the the river all day. We had our first cloud cover in three weeks. We also started running into a ton of other bike tourists. We hadn’t seen any for the whole trip, but in the last 3 days, we’ve probably run into at least 25-30, going in each direction – mostly because this is the confluence of two Adventure Cycling routes. There was one group of 5 guys who are on a 7900 mile epic ride – i think it’s portland->vancouver->eugene->St. Louis->Chicago->Maine->DC.
Next, we went over Lolo Pass, half in Idaho, half in Montana. It really wasn’t too bad. There’s an awesome visitor’s center at the pass, complete with free hot chocolate and coffee. We hung out there for a little bit and chatted with other bike tourists while sipping on our hot beverages. We decided it was time to get back on the road when it started pouring (our first rain in three weeks!) and there were rumors that it was going to hail! (It didn’t). So we booked it on into Missoula, where we are graciously being hosted by Rai’s friends, Juniper and Ryan.
We may take a day or a half day off today to run errands such as buying more soap and getting my headset tightened. We’re actually just about half way there. We just uploaded a bunch of photos, so you can check those out! See ya down the road!