What a Difference a Day Makes!!!

Day 27: Glasgow to Poplar, MT--73 miles

First of all, thanks so much for all your good wishes for my birthday and our trip! I received emails, e-cards, voice mails, and blogs to help me celebrate, and each one made me feel great! Thanks so much! And I checked the Tomsride site on Bikes Not Bombs, and we have raised $1200 so far. Not bad, but I really want to step that up to $10000 by the end of our adventure.

Today, really WAS my birthday ride! Maybe David arranged with God to save the tailwind to extend my birthday celebration??? I wouldn't put it past him! We had a strong tailwind and great overcast conditions! Perfect for riding, and we took advantage of it. We finished our 73 miles in 4 hours. In case you don't remember, we did 72 miles in over 7 hours on my birthday, so we "shaved" 3 entire HOURS off our time! It was amazing! Two days ago (my birthday), we spent the entire day in our smallest chain ring on the front, and today we spent the entire day in our largest chain ring--a big difference for those who aren't cyclists!

We polished the first 30 miles off in 1 1/2 hours-- and stopped for a little break in Frazer, MT. It reminded me of home, but in name only. We actually had thought of sending our cold weather gear home, but decided against it and used it today. The wind was strong and there were lots of clouds so it was pretty cold. This was the aftermath of the worst hail storm they have had in MT history--and Glasgow was the epicenter of the worst of it. How "lucky" that we stayed there! Anyway, we saw lots of flooded fields, and many fields, trees, and flowers that had been just demolished by the hail. It was really sad because the farmers had been very optimistic about the wheat crop this summer due to the high amount of rain they have had. That's the problem with farming I guess--dependent on the weather for success.

The roads were very good today, even though we traveled over much of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. No glass! We had spent two days in the motel the railroad engineers use when they're in Glasgow. What a nice, hardworking group of people! Well, they were all men, but they were still great! As we were traveling, we saw a train and waved. He gave an extra "toot" on the whistle and I'm just sure it was one of our buddies from the hotel!

Our lunch stop was at a place called "Espresso Madness" in Wolf Point. How could you NOT stop there? It was at the 51 mile mark of our ride. We had considered staying in Wolf Point, but decided we had 22 miles left in our legs and decided to head on to Poplar, where we heard there was a hotel from some other cyclists.

The last 22 miles went pretty well. We stopped at the hotel the people had mentioned only to find that it had closed down! There didn't appear to be any place to camp, so we headed to the one other hotel in town--the Poplar Motel. There, we met Delaine, the owner. She is awesome! But her hotel was full. We chatted for awhile and talked about our options. The only real other option was to head for Culbertson, which was 33 more miles away. That would make a 106-mile day, and we just weren't sure we wanted to tackle that. Delaine said we could always just camp in her yard if we didn't want to head to Culbertson. After a little discussion, we decided to take her up on it! What wonderful hospitality!

We went to the Buckhorn Bar for a drink and dinner. David was checking out the beer selection and noticed that everything was in cans. He asked for a bottled beer and was told that bottles were banned from Poplar, MT. Too many fights--the bartender said. Well, it is a Wild West Town! We figured that might have contributed to the lack of glass on the roads, and we definitely appreciated a canned beer that night! We also noticed that all the businesses in Poplar had chain link on the windows AND doors--not sure whether that was to keep the windows from breaking from the outside or the inside...

Regardless of the "rough" feel of the town, everyone we met was very nice and friendly. Delaine and her sister Sharon gave us the lay of the land and were great to chat with. It felt a lot like camping in our own back yard! We think the bottle ban may have saved us from some flat tires, too!

We really enjoyed our time in Poplar and felt like we got a taste of the Wild West before heading to our next state...