DAYS 23 AND 24

DAY 23
Monday, July 12, 2010
Glasgow to Wolf Point, MT
53.4 miles minus the 40 miles I “bumped”

This wasn't a good day. Three miles into the day, I collided with a bike in front of me and was thrown from my bike. While the bike remained on the shoulder of the road, once my shoes released from the pedals, I landed in the grass, hitting the ground elbows first. Both of my elbows were scraped, and my right thumb was sore and tingly. But checking to see how my collision-mate fared proved to be pretty scary, since the other woman Barbara (the oldest in the group at 71, riding on a recumbent bike) was thrown and just lay there, face down, for what seemed like an awfully long time. You know how, when you watch football on TV and a player is injured and just lies there? It was like that. She made no response to people’s voices calling her name. Her breathing sounded sort of gurgly. By then there were a lot of us around her. Finally, she blinked an eye, moaned, and then said she just wanted to get up. It felt like all this took about four minutes, though it was probably half of that or less. Her lip was cut badly and bloody, but many who have biked with her on other tours said, "She's a tough old bird, and she's fallen a lot on other trips, too."


(This is Barbara on her recumbent, before the collision).

The whole thing freaked me out, though, and I thought for a few moments that I'd killed her! Once I knew Barbara was okay, I had a weepy meltdown, biked another 10 miles, sniffling and blowing my nose all the way, until the two women I was biking with said, "We're going to stay with you here until the van comes by. You are not safe biking. You're slower than usual, your head is down, you're not looking around, and your shoulders are slumped."

"NooooOOOOO!" I wailed. "I'm fine. I know I'm slower, but I'm staying on the shoulder, and I’m not wobbling. I just need to stop for a couple of minutes!" Fortunately, they prevailed, and they were right. I was exhausted after the adrenalin rush faded from the collision. So I hitched a ride in the van to the motel (I bumped, as they call it), and slept for two hours. Felt much better, once I got over the fact that there are now 40 miles on this bike ride that I didn't ride. And I took a lot of comfort in a bunch of hugs at dinner, with reassurances that they'd had to bump now and then, too.


DAY 24
Wednesday, July 13, 2010
Wolf Point to Culbertson, MT
57.2 miles
With a west wind at our backs!

What a contrast today was, compared to yesterday! The temperatures were in the 70’s, and the wind was at our back the entire way. Here are all the bikes, leaning against the motel as we had breakfast, pumped tires, etc. I left Wolf Point at 7:40 am, and got to Culbertson about 12:10, after a sag stop, a pit stop, and a break for coffee in Poplar. Zoom! Amazing how competent the wind can make you feel.

When I stopped in Poplar, the only restaurant was a bar/restaurant, and at 9am, there were already people at the bar. I sat in the restaurant area, and the waitress said the bar opened at 8 am. She’s from Iowa, and she said it’s not like that back home. I told her it wasn’t like that in Massachusetts, either.

Leaving Poplar, there was glass by the side of the road, and a stray dog growled and chased after me, both dismaying signs of the quality of life on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation land where I was. Later, in Culbertson, I spoke with a cop who policed both Wolf Point and Poplar, and he said there are frequent murders in these "res" towns, the most recent being a young soldier about to be deployed to Afghanistan. He’d been stabbed twenty-six times in Poplar, and they buried him last weekend.

We came upon this church as we biked along, and it was a good place for a break. Just behind it was a sign pointing to a place where Lewis and Clark had landed while traveling on the Missouri River in 1805. There was a cemetery, too, with small wooden crosses marking graves rather than tombstones. And many were also marked with bouquets of plastic flowers.




In Culbertson, Montana, we went to the town’s all-purpose store, where you can get furniture, large and small appliances, hardware, toys, candles, Huffy bicycles, cross-bows, saddles, guns and ammo, mixing bowls, and my personal favorite: a clam and oyster knife! (Why??)