The Ten Lined June Beetle and Other Tales

It’s a “no services” kind of day. We were supposed to stay at a town called Mosby, Montana, but Mosby no longer exists. Fortunately, we found a Rest Area nearby, so we pitched a tent for the boys, Pat is sleeping in the car, and I’m sleeping under a picnic table, since the 30% rain chance turned into 100% before we even had dinner on the table.

Mosby is about 60 miles east of Lewistown. That 60 miles includes perhaps six houses, lots of hay bales, lots of cows, lots of sage brush, and at least six deer who were startled to see a handful of bicyclists wearing bright yellow wind breakers. That’s right…we had to dress warmly, and had to pull out all of our cold weather gear after an arctic front blew through Montana overnight. Instead of 100 degree days, we are hoping the thermometer stays above 50 tonight. Tomorrow’s ride is a short 53 miles, so we can get away from the rest area and get to a real town by around noon tomorrow. 

“Real town” means Jordan, Montana, which has about 350 people, a café / lounge, and a gas station / general store. In other words, we are heading across some fairly desolate countryside for a few days.

I mentioned our breakfast menu in another blog post. Although we occasionally eat out, we try to do as many of our meals as we can by ourselves. For lunch, we usually have bread, bagels or tortillas, filled with veggies, turkey or ham slices, cheeses, etc., some fruit, and snacks of various kinds. Then for dinner, we have a salad and pasta of some variety, or couscous … basically anything that can cooked as a one-pot meal. During the day, while we are riding, we drink Gatorade or water and energy fizz powders, and we eat fruit, granola bars, Cliff bars, GU or Hammer Gel … it depends on each individual. Pat drives our support vehicle, leapfrogging us and stopping as often as she thinks we might need a break. This morning, when it was fairly cool outside, we breezed past her 15 mile intervals, opting for breaks about every 30 miles instead. We use hand signals when she passes us … thumbs up means we’re good to go and don’t need a break yet. A hand on the head means stop at a good breaking point, we need support.

Regardless, I seem to have lost a few pounds on the road. It’s cold enough to need jeans tonight, and I found out that my trusty jeans don’t work without a good belt … otherwise, they go straight down to my knees. My love handles have disappeared. Guess I’ll just have to learn to eat more! Trouble is, I have to be quick … I’m competing for food against three hungry boys.

Monday, July 6 … Jordan, Montana

Somebody asked a question this morning … how far have we gotten into our trip so far. The answer: 1083.1 miles out of 3521.3. That means that we are nearly 1/3 of the way there already, after 2 and half weeks on the road.

I mentioned the trouble we had finding Mosby. This afternoon I went to the Jordan museum – 13 out of the 27 Tyrannosaurus Rex skeletons found were from around Jordan, according to one local. I mentioned Mosby to the docent (the dinosaurs are in the Senior Center … is that appropriate?) and she said she had lived around here for 75 years, and there never was more than a Post Office at Mosby, but that garnered it a dot on the map. So we live and learn. There is no more Post Office, so will somebody please tell the cartographers to get out their erasers? Anyway, we slept at the rest stop, then gladly got on the road early, and rolled over hill and dale into Jordan. Over lots of hills, and about half as many dales. It’s not supposed to work that way, is it?

Pat saw some antelope, I saw a bull on the wrong side of the fence trying to figure out how to get back across the cattle guard so he could visit his lady friends, and I saw about my 10^th squished rattlesnake, along with a stuffed triceratops and another dino skeleton. Other than that, Pat’s picture, taken from somewhere along today’s route, pretty much sums up the countryside. And the Ten Lined June Beetle, new to all of us, taught Pat how to fly … she went about 10 feet vertical when she found this on her shoulder.