Sun July 2 – Day 43 – Eureka, MT
Well, this was it. I was going to ride out early in the morning, but the Aussies had run into someone in the campground who had offered to make them breakfast. They said they would bring me along. Done.
We had bacon, eggs and sausage with some horse folks from Eureka. The guy’s name was Dick I think, and his wife’s name I forget. But they had the whole family up for the weekend, and we hung out and ate their food and chatted.
It’s funny to see the Aussies interact with those folks. I don’t know if it’s conscious or not, but they definitely use those accents to advantage. Because of the accents, everyone wants to talk to them, and they end up picking up all kinds of favors from folks who want to find out what they’re all about. Man those eggs were delicious.
The riding today wasn’t much – a short climb to the top, then a long down to the highway, partly on pavement. I saw another couple of riders camped out just over the top eating breakfast, not even close to rolling by 10. Rookies…
From the highway, it was 20 miles to Roosville, all on pavement, a couple of pictures at the border, and back to Eureka on the highway.
I don’t know how I feel about finishing, exactly. The fact is that yesterday was the true last day – last day in the mountains, last day on gravel, last day climbing, last day camping – so today is actually a bit anticlimactic. But thinking about it now I’m starting to realize just how stinking far I rode. Even though I just finished, if somebody told me to turn around and ride back to El Paso, I don’t know if I could do it. And if I had known at the beginning how hard it was going to be, I might never have gotten out of that rental car. The reason I was OK I think was that I tried to think only about the day ahead at the beginning of the day, and while I was riding I tried to think only about the next turnoff, or the top of the climb I was on. It was when I started looking ahead that I had my worst days. But that’s about all the wisdom I can come up with.
Day 43 stats:
50 miles (mostly pavement)
1000 feet up (or less)
We had bacon, eggs and sausage with some horse folks from Eureka. The guy’s name was Dick I think, and his wife’s name I forget. But they had the whole family up for the weekend, and we hung out and ate their food and chatted.
It’s funny to see the Aussies interact with those folks. I don’t know if it’s conscious or not, but they definitely use those accents to advantage. Because of the accents, everyone wants to talk to them, and they end up picking up all kinds of favors from folks who want to find out what they’re all about. Man those eggs were delicious.
The riding today wasn’t much – a short climb to the top, then a long down to the highway, partly on pavement. I saw another couple of riders camped out just over the top eating breakfast, not even close to rolling by 10. Rookies…
From the highway, it was 20 miles to Roosville, all on pavement, a couple of pictures at the border, and back to Eureka on the highway.
I don’t know how I feel about finishing, exactly. The fact is that yesterday was the true last day – last day in the mountains, last day on gravel, last day climbing, last day camping – so today is actually a bit anticlimactic. But thinking about it now I’m starting to realize just how stinking far I rode. Even though I just finished, if somebody told me to turn around and ride back to El Paso, I don’t know if I could do it. And if I had known at the beginning how hard it was going to be, I might never have gotten out of that rental car. The reason I was OK I think was that I tried to think only about the day ahead at the beginning of the day, and while I was riding I tried to think only about the next turnoff, or the top of the climb I was on. It was when I started looking ahead that I had my worst days. But that’s about all the wisdom I can come up with.
Day 43 stats:
50 miles (mostly pavement)
1000 feet up (or less)
posted by Mike at 10:42 AM
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