July 18

Day 41

Waking up to numerous pillows and even a bible being thrown at me, it’s hard to believe that we finally achieved something we hadn’t done the whole trip. We totaled 100.1 miles from Williston to Wolf Point making today our first “century” day! Though we had to take a round about way to dinner in order to squeak out the last 2 miles. It’s amazing after only 14 days Mom managed to do something we weren’t able to do until day 41, many props to Mom for keeping up and not quitting! With only around 20 miles to the Montana border from our Hotel we were able to eat a filling breakfast and get there by 10:30, but because of the time zone changed we gained an hour putting the clock back to only 9:30. 20 Miles by 9:30, I think that’s a new record! Even though to cross the border we had to go through a bit of construction, the view the other side was worth it. Looking up to what seemed like an endless sky we knew we had entered Montana (Only three states left!). Another record soon followed because we squeezed in 45 miles until we stopped for Lunch at a local pizza place in Culbertson. Knowing we still had 55 miles to go we tried not to spend to much time relaxing in the air-conditioned restaurant. We even managed to replace a broken spoke on Zach’s bike while pizza was cooking. 20 miles later we came face to face with Brockton, a town we had been advised not to even slow down in because of the high crime rate in the area. After cruising through Brockton, we arrived again at a town we had been warned about, Poplar. Even though Mom and Dad stopped at the convenience store there, this was still a town we had been told to keep our heads up in. Dying of thirst, we stopped 15 miles later at a bar and grill to rehydrate on Pepsi’s and Mountain Dew’s. As we sat there drinking, a local at the bar informed us that the county we were in had the second highest crime rate in the country….awesome. He told us that Poplar had guns and Wolf Point has knifes (and the next town has bats), luckily we got to go through Poplar but had to stop in Wolf Point, I suppose knifes are better than guns. We got to enjoy a nice dinner at the Old Town Grill before we went back to our Motel and called it a night. We need a good night’s sleep in order to get back on our bikes tomorrow and head towards Glasgow.

– Jake

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