Dual-duty Day

Saturday, September 2. Ennis, MT, to Sheridan, MT.

We knew that the first thing we would have to do today (on our bikes, at least) was climb the 10 miles to the pass between Ennis and Virginia City, and we were a little anxious about it. We didn't know yet whether we were going to stay in Virginia City or go on to somewhere down the road, so the climb might be just the first thing we did or it might be all we did. So to get ready for the task, we sat down to a hearty breakfast at Yesterday's Cafe.

We also decided to take care of a minor issue with our car back in Lawrenceville, which for Mary's sake I will not go into here; suffice to say that we had to send a fax identifying ourselves as the owner and authorizing Dan to retrieve the car. Simple, just send a fax with the proper information and a written letter explicitly identifying Dan as the one to give it to, right?

The drugstore's fax machine is set up so that it blocks it's ID from caller ID systems on receiving fax machines; the place where we had to send the fax will not accept faxes from places that block their ID. We had to fax it somewhere else; so we called Mary Beth (who's in Canandaigua, but gave us her fax number at home where Andrea could retrieve it), and sent it there. That worked, and hopefully that's the end of it.

All this took time, and by the time it was all over we were leaving Ennis around 11. We didn't even need our jackets anymore, and soon we were hot from the effort of climbing, and wanted to shed even more layers. We only stopped twice on the way up, once at the scenic overlook so we could look down into the Madison River Valley.

At the overlook there was an informational display about the importance of maintaining the land for the wildlife, and that the most dire threat to the wildlife now was the ongoing subdivision of ranchland for the purposes of development into homes. There was also a small engraved marker down the hill a little, memorializing a woman as a "loving mother"; clearly, her children had come here, to this overlook, which might have been one of her favorite places, to place a marker to remember her. There were some small red flowers carefully placed next to the engraved stone. We didn't know this woman, but her kids had taken the effort of placing the memorial, so we paid our silent respects.

From the top of the pass we commenced a screaming 5-mile downhill to Virginia City. As we approached town, I could see the speed limit signs and realized I was speeding, and not by just a little; the speed limit abruptly changed to 25 and I was moving at over 40. I wasn't anxious to get a ticket, but a small part of me wanted one just so I could frame it later. No such luck.

It's odd; whenever we reach a new town, one of the first things we always manage to find is the ice cream shop, if one exists (and don't you just pity the towns that don't have one?). Arriving in Virginia City, true to form, we immediately found the ice cream shop (with a small motor operating out front, connected by pulleys to two old-fashioned wooden ice cream buckets, constituting their manufacturing center). We met Kim while having real handmade ice cream in the seating area by the sidewalk; she had seen our bikes and spotted us right away (very few other people were wearing spandex).

Kim is riding across the country West to East, having started in Seattle, and is hoping to be in Connecticut by the first part of November. She has been through Glacier National Park, and had forged her own path down to Missoula and onto the TransAmerica Route; she is pretty pragmatic about the possibility of snow later on, indicating that she'll get there some other way if necessary (she had to attend a wedding the first part of August, which is why she left so late).

We exchanged information about our respective experiences, what to expect and so on, what other cyclists we had encountered (she had met the Fab Four and had heard about us already from them), and advice about places to stay and places to avoid. Kim has a blog, but her sister is the one who updates it most of the time; the URL is becycle.blogspot.com.

We had a nice long chat, long enough that by the time she left, we were hungry for lunch, so we ate at the Virginia City cafe, something quick and light, expecting to essentially roll the rest of the way into Sheridan (we decided to go there over lunch). The profile on our map shows it as a pretty steady downhill. Yeah, right.

Before we left Virginia City, we met a family from Billings; the woman told us that her father had cycled from Chicago to their new home there. They told us they had just bought a piece of land in Ennis, subdivided from a much larger ranch. We guessed they hadn't stopped at the scenic overlook, or if they had they didn't read the sign; whatever the case, we smiled politely and edged away.

We left Virginia City around 3:30 for Sheridan, and immediately found the headwind we had been expecting. While it is generally downhill to Sheridan, the profile omits the fact that there are two mile-long climbs along the way, features that seem large enough to have found their way onto the profile map; but, as we have noted before, the profiles provided on these maps are woeful and generally tell us what NOT to expect on the way. We now refer to them as "poorly estimated elevation profiles", or PEEPs. We THINK we're getting good info, but we're not.

On the way between Alder and Sheridan, we met Luke, another cyclist Kim had told us about. He is a recent High School graduate taking a year off to tour the country by bike before going to college. He has a blog, too: www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/alongstrangejourney. He said he does try to update it as often as he can, but sometimes that means a week or so.

To the title of this entry: we were amused to see campaign signs for someone running for Sheriff AND Coronor, and got a picture of it. In rural areas like this, many times people have to pull double duty (and so do PLACES, like the Post Office/convenience store/saloon/cafe/RV Park in Cameron, which we passed on the way). In Sheridan, it is the IGA and Ace Hardware where Nancy ultimately went to get us dinner.

All three hotels in Sheridan were full because of the county fair in Dillon; as a result, we ended up camping at the town park, which itself pulls double duty as a ballfield and tent campground. At first, as Nancy went off to the store, I scoped out places to put the tent near the small river that wound through the park; but then, I thought I would see if I could open one of the bathrooms near the ballfield. One was locked, but the other one was open, so I didn't even have to try to break in. I realized that putting the tent nearer this small brick building accomplished two things; one, it was near the bathroom, and two, it shielded us from the road and most of the streetlights there (and the prying eyes of passing drivers). In the field next to us there were three horses; beyond the trees next to the river we could hear cows bawling at each other. To cover those sounds, I brought out my XM radio, but found that to receive a signal I had to hold the small antenna up above the picnic table. If only I had something rigid to attach it to, I thought, looking around for something suitable - then I saw the flagpole on the back of my trailer. Wedging that pole into a small hole on the end of one bench, and attaching the antenna to the top, created what Nancy called XM "on a stick". We had a good jazz accompaniment with our camp dinner.

Nancy discovered, while at the store, that the town has free wi-fi on Main Street; that would have been useful if we were actually ON Main Street, but it was still impressive.

Overrnight, it got very cold next to the creek. Now that we're sharing a large human stuff-sack, Nancy's staying a lot warmer on these cold-camp nights. However, in her efforts to absorb some of the warmth I radiate at night, she pushed me to the brink of the air matress in the middle of the night. The only thing holding me on it was the sleeping bag; I hung precariously over the edge. After a few adjustments, we were comfortable again, but the dangers of the combined sleeping bag remain.

We're going to Dillon tomorrow, and expect to have to camp again, with the fair still going on; but at least there is a KOA there, which means real showers and real laundry. Maybe we'll go to the rodeo for Jess' sake. We'll also be going to the Patagonia outlet store, which ships things for free if you are a touring cyclist, opening up all kinds of purchase possibilities. We'll just see if they have anything left in our size; this weekend is their big Labor Day sale, half off everything. I can't wait to see what they have.