July 20

Day 43:

It is seriously day 43.. wow. So we are all hunkered into our $45 a night motel in Saco, Montana and we just discovered there is wifi!! Do you realize how important that is?! The very second we found out the password Dad whips out his iphone and connects, Jake jumps on my ipod touch, and Maggie and I open up the macbooks.

Today was pretty exhausting… and frustrating. The day started off with a nice cheap breakfast in the Casino / Restaurant (everywhere around here seems to call itself a casino) and headed West. About 20 miles deep into the day we arrived at the Bar / Cafe in Hinsdale, Montana. We were 10 minutes late and the cafe was closed. 😦 However, Jennifer took care of us by heating up a few pizzas, filling all our water bottles up, and even offered to drive us all the way to Malta. We denied that amazing offer because that would be cheating. When someone decides to actually take that shortcut I’ll let them know in Seattle that they didn’t actually bike across the country. bahahaha !!

Anyway – We only made 43 miles today after leaving Gasgow. 43 miles seems like nothing compared some of the long days we’ve put in on flat land but today we were combating 30 mile per hour head winds. This is extremely frustrating because you work so hard only to move 5-9 mph. Even on hills we had to down shift. Dad is still working out the mileage for tomorrow as the winds should be a little less intense. Apparently we are in “mosquito valley” where the mosquitoes can turn a white horse black. Wish us luck!

Shout out to Kenny for looking up the weather and wind conditions for us as we all had very limited cell service. Dad’s got AT&T which apparently has no service anywhere out west so far, and we all have verizon which is pretty reliable. Just enough for a phone call! Thanks Kenny!

PEACE
Zach

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