Day 21 miles: 49
Total miles: 1103
By Bike:
Our hotel at the Rundle Suites was more or less kooky. Random microwaves in the hallways, ill-lit rooms, odd design. It was time to bounce.
While it forecasted rain (and it did), I still had great tailwinds from Glasgow to Wolf Point. I was a little sore from the day before and biked at a more mild pace.
But wait! Another flat!
Biking through the Fort Peck Reservation is dangerous as I’ve heard. There have been abductions, there are drunk drivers, and the shoulders are narrow. It was in these conditions, as well as the downpour and mosquitoes (YES they still came out) I decided to get a flat.
The culprit
Instead of freaking out, which I felt like doing, I just laughed and yelled “BRING IT ON” while I changed the flat. Instead of getting right back on my bike, with my over 400 mosquito bites I decided to take a sexy pose and send it to Lauren.
It got me through the last 18 miles to Fort Peck. I got back on my bike and yelled “YEAH!!!” a couple times until the second time a mosquito went to the back of my throat. I hacked it up onto my left sleeve and kept going.
I made it to Wolf Point only to have a stopped train between me and our lodging. There were 2 train cars blocking our path.
No way we were camping in this town. Lauren met up with me and we went downroad to a tunnel that took us to our AirBnB.
The AirBnB itself smelled like wet kibbles and bits, but due to a large rodeo event coming up it was our only option.
By car
Matthew described last night’s lodging as “kooky,” but I say it has its own unique charm to it. It’s a historic building in Glasgow that has been remodeled.
We didn’t get a chance to see any of the deluxe remodeled rooms, which looked pretty freakin’ exquisite on the website!
One unique (or kooky) oddity about this old building is how the elevator works. Matthew had his bike and gear to take up to the 3rd floor. We were told that we could load our stuff up on the elevator on the 1st floor, but it would only take us to the 2nd floor, unless someone was on the 3rd floor and called the elevator up from there.
Thus, I stood in the tiny elevator with Matthew’s bike partially propped up along the wall while he ran up to the 3rd floor to bring me up.
My day today was quiet as I organized materials and downloaded programs for a video conference I have tonight with a group of Speech Pathologists in various parts of the country. Because of this conference call, we needed to plan on being somewhere with WiFi, so camping was out. Camping wasn’t an option, anyway, as we’ve now had five people advise against camping in Wolf Point.
One cyclist expressed to following to me:
“We heard from many people to avoid camping/overnight in Wolf Point. One westbound cyclotourist we met had camped in the city park and said at nighttime it was like Night of the Drunken Zombies- he said it was quite scary, and he lived in downtown Chicago. He was comfortable with urban areas at night, but Wolf Point was something else!”
About a half mile from our lodging, my path was blocked by a train. I had a food scavenger come up to my passenger window and start digging around for a snack.
Wolf Point sits in Roosevelt County and is also the largest community in the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. Unfortunately, Wolf Point has really seen a rise in drug and alcohol abuse. If you’re curious to learn more, here’s an eye opening article published back in 2017:
We happened to find the only AirBnb in the area. I had to make my video conference call, so Matthew was tasked with unloading the car. He was approached by one panhandler offering him numerous salutes in exchange for money. The panhandler quickly moved down the sidewalk to salute other onlookers, however.
We had made a detailed itinerary for this trip back in June and were falling behind due to Matthew’s earlier knee pain. After today, however, we are finally caught up! Tomorrow’s plan is to reach Glendive and take a rest day.
Glendive holds a special treat for us. Matthew has family there that he’s never met. His father’s cousin, Carl, lives on a large plot of land in Glendive. He doesn’t use a cell phone and rarely answers his house phone. The directions we had didn’t include a home address, rather it had descriptions like “keep right at the fork,” and “turn left when you see cow patty on the fence.”
We had no idea what to expect, but it brought more than we could have ever imagined…
No Jobs, No Home, No Worries. A Shared Journey by Bike and Support SUV Across the U.S. 