Wes Malinchock

I'm beginning to get into the swing of the bike trip. We got up at 6:30 am on a beautiful morning in Malta, Montana. I packed up my tent and gear faster than I had in the previous days as I slowly get my system for packing streamlined. After breakfast in a local coffee shop we headed out for our ride to Glasgow. The milage worked out perfectly today: 70 miles. This is just about the average daily mileage we needed to keep in order to complete our trip on time!

The terrain for today was more hilly than the last few out here on the plains. It was nothing like what we saw in the mountains, but we had some long climbs throughout the day. At the tops of the hills we climbed we got great views of the surrounding grassy pastures and rocky mesas. One thing that everyone kept warning us about in Malta were the mosquitos. We had some pretty vicious mosquitos the night before, but people warned us they would get worse as we followed the Milk River east. There were points in the day where you would ride through a swarm of them on the road and every car's bumper that we passed was practically covered with mosquitos. However, we were lucky enough to have some pretty strong winds that kept them away from us for the most part as we rode.

What was great about today was that it all felt very natural. It was what I would call an "average" day on the bike trip. For most of today I felt like I was just going through the motions of the day, like I was following a routine. I really enjoyed finally finding some stability in our trip even though we spend each night in a new place. Going into our third week out here tomorrow I am glad to say that I am beginning to feel at home on my bike.