Monday, July 8th: Bozeman, MT or … meeting all three of them.

Today is adventure day: we have never ever been on this route. Yes, my woman feels very nervously again (when will she learn to relax a bit?). We enjoy the early morning air temperature – it’s kind of cool! Our first 8 miles take us on the frontage road of the Interstate 90. We have to follow the signs to Lewis and Clark caverns, but before we reach those, we meet Jefferson again – still downstream. We are suddenly cycling in this awesome looking canyon – in the shade because the sun is not high enough to reach over the top of the mountains. The river turns and twists and we on the road have to do the same. Not one car passes us and my woman is on the lookout for wild animals. Here and at that time we get a sense of being alone and strange thoughts run through our minds… Once passed the caverns (I do not favor going under the ground, unless it’s for digging up bones), a few cars and RV’s join us. The scenery has completely changed to open country – especially after that climb where I had a vision of  my woman rolling under an upcoming RV as she had a difficult time slipping in the sand along the road and not being able to get her second foot from the peddle. But all went well. 

The promising downhill was actually a hard working rolling downhill – all the way into Three Forks (we had to cross Jefferson again). My woman felt okay and needed no stop – we kept cycling and very soon we crossed the Madison River (number two). 

A mile further a sign told us the State Park of the Headwaters of the Missouri was off route. No need to go there because very soon we met number three: Gallatin. It was strange: semis were not allowed on the Interstate which made this frontage road busy and dangerous. I keep wondering why they name a big truck a semi…To me they look more like doubles! Anyone out there who can help me? Finally we reached Manhattan (did we cycle all the way to the East coast?) – a small town with a lovely grocery store. Time for a noon break with an apple. Ten miles further – broken up by the road work we had to conquer – we were suddenly in Belgrade. It seems a Serb named this town! Here we walked into Albertson for dinner on the campground. By now, the sky had become black and my boss chose to sit in a café and enjoy a four cheese Panini while she waited for the big thunderstorm - with hail they predicted on the radio. But strangely it just rained a little bit – the storm was just a bit south of us. It rained lightly on and off and every mile we found a place to hide for a little time. This way we arrived with dry clothes and packs at the Bozeman KOA. After setting up and getting clean, my woman checked her email and learned that the father of her brother in law had suddenly died…She felt so sad and hoped that her family members were coping. Sometimes life doesn’t seem to make sense at all!