Day 73 - Thursday, June 25th, 2009
- Start: Winnett, MT
- ATW: Mosby, Sand Springs
- End: Jordan, MT
- Day Miles: 75
Got riding just after sun up. Spent the day riding the hills. No place to get out of the sun and our snail’s pace really was a challenge. Made it to Sand Springs, or what is left of it. The town was booming in the later 1800’s to early 1900’s but the depression drove some people out. Not all. A church, school and store remain. For now. We talked with the owner of the store, an 85 year old lady who still runs to get the phone. She moved to the area at 8 years old. She and her husband bought the store in the 1950’s after a stint at ranching. Her husband passed away in the 90’s and she is ready to let the store go because there isn’t the traffic to keep it open. Our oasis for the day wouldn’t be there for much longer.
When we walked in we asked about buying ice cream. One of their fridge’s had thawed the day before and we were offered free previously melted ice cream bars. We weren’t picky. Heather had three, Dave had seven. Then we ate two refrozen pizzas that weren’t bad at all. Heather laid her head down on the table and managed to catch a 20 minute nap in the semi-cool air of the shop, right up till the phone rang and the clump clump clump of orthopedic shoes woke her.
Before leaving and finishing our attempt to get to Jordan we soaked ourselves completely. It started with a bandana on the head, then why not the shirt, heck why not put on another shirt and soak that one too? Pretty soon we were water logged and pedaling away up the next hill. It didn’t last long though. They heat and lack of humidity evaporated the water off of us before we were ready for it. A few more stops along the way saw us using up some of the water on the bike to cool off again.
20 miles or so out of Jordan the headwind shifted to a cross wind then died off. Heather looked in the side view mirror and noticed a growing darkness. The day had started to cool as a storm came up behind us. Heather looked off to the north into a field of grass standing completely still. The grass quickly bent flat as a blast of air rushed past knocking us off the road a little. Over head the clouds began to stretch out like fingers about to grab us. We’d always dreamed about a tail wind that could push us up hills little did we ever expect to get one, but we sailed the remaining miles into Jordan with the least amount of effort ever put forth to climb a hill. Luckily we made it to town before the rain and found the city park a welcoming sight.
Also in Jordan we found an awesome grocery store. We stocked up for a few days of goods and a couple of souvenir ball caps from Ed. The caps came in handy because we were now in bug season. It’d been too cold for mosquitoes until that night. We donned the new ball caps under our head nets and slept in comfort. Dave had a tickle in his throat but didn’t think too much of it. Must have been the dust we inhaled on the trip.
