Evan Malinchock
Today was a very rough wake up, possibly the worst of the trip so far. After having a fairly sleepless night due to the extremely cramped quarters of the biker and hiker hostel behind Serrano's Mexican Restaurant, I woke up to a gray morning that visually looked cold. Before we even left the hostel the sky's began to open up with a freezing mist. After a half hour the drizzle turned to a full on snow, and I was unlucky enough to not have a pair of gloves.
Yes, that is snow. Yes, it is June.
I couldn't feel my hands, and I couldn't/didn't want to open my look directly ahead because the icy-rainy-snowy mix felt like needles when they hit my eyes. I coasted into the Blackfoot Nation and the small town of Browning looking like a human icycle. I couldn't squeeze my brakes so I overran Larry who was pointing out a grocery store where I could possibly purchase gloves that would save my now purple fingers.
Once I walked into the Teeples Market, I crumpled (subconsciously) next to a produce refrigerator, which made my chills even worse. After Brian pointed this out to me we migrated across the street to Taco John's where we would wait out the wintry mix for another two hours in the warm embrace of Taco John's.
After the warming experience we saddled up and rode to a hardware store to buy gloves and continue another 50 miles to Shelby Montana in the new warmer flats of Montana. On our way out Larry punctured his tire twice, really cementing this day as an all time worst. After we hopped back on our bikes we began to crank out miles like never before. The lack of climbing and presence of a tail wind was far more advantageous than I could ever imagine.
Larry fixes his second flat of the day.
After reaching Shelby we made a jump decision to split a motel room (that would be cheaper than any campground in the area). This was a well deserved reward after such a painful slog of a day.
Pretty accurate