QUICK STATS

This morning, we were eating our breakfast of oatmeal, coffee, cranberry juice, poptarts, bananas, and zucchini bread when the pastor walked in.  I was expecting a comment about our outrageously huge breakfast, but instead, he told us that his 5 yr old daughter really wanted to meet us.

Her name was Lucy, and she was on her way to Kindergarden.  She was really cute and had green pants on, because it was "green day" at school today. We all took a picture together, and after the pastor dropped her off at Kindergarden, he came back and said she was telling all her friends how she met "these cool bikers" this morning.  Haha - how cool!

Pastor David gave us some contacts for places to stay as we continued south, and then he got his camera out and took our picture by our bikes and then again as we were riding away from the church.  I love when people do that; it makes me feel special and loved.  :-)

Only a few interesting things happened today..mostly we just biked, and biked,and biked.

One of the cool things happened as we were entering a town called Twin Bridges.  We were riding, and I noticed something up in the air, and it was a Bald Eagle!!  It flew right over us only about 30 feet up!  It was so cool; I've never seen a real, wild Bald Eagle.

Then, after we got into Twin Bridges, we saw a building with a banner that said "Bike Camp".  It was a shelter with a grill, bathroom, sink, and some supplies just for bikers!  We haven't seen anything like that before.  We stopped to get a look, eat lunch, and take a picture.

O, and Nathan is finally coming over to the wild side.  We were stopped at a grocery store on the main street of some small town, and he put on shammy cream RIGHT OUT FRONT OF THE STORE!  I'll leave it up to you to find out what all that entails.

Hmm...we also talked about some cool business ideas.  Nathan is having most of the good ideas.  I'm mostly asking questions to help work out the kinks, but I haven't come up with any new ideas myself yet.  If you've ever read the book "Who Moved My Cheese", I'm a Sniff and Nathan's a Scurry.  I think this is why he's better at deciding on direction, and I'm better at taking a directive and running with it.  If you haven't read the book, you should - it's short and good.  We'll put up a list eventually of all the business ideas we're talking about so you can give us feedback.

Then, we finally made it to the base of today's big hill.  This hill was very big, almost as big as Big Hole Pass, but was not a real mountain pass, so it didn't have a name.  It was just a huge hill.

It was about 5 miles long, and definitely the steepest hill we've climbed yet.  We usually go 1 mile between rest stops on hills, but I couldn't even make it one mile!  The grade of the road wasn't posted anywhere, but it was definitely over 6%. 

After a lot of huffing and puffing, we made it to the top, and were rewarded with another gorgeous view.  We ate chicken and honey sandwiches and split a cheese stick on the top, then took pictures and headed down the other side.

As soon as we started down, a very strong wing hit us from the side.  It was a strong cross-breeze, and those are my lease favorite because the gusts tend to blow your bike across the roadway, so you really have to be careful or else you'll either blow off the road or into traffic.  Yuck!

So Nathan and I did the safest and most defensive thing we could think of - we rode down the middle of the lane, so that no one could pass us.

When we finally go to the bottom, we turned into the wind and battled the wind that was now a headwind the last few miles to the church we were staying at.

We had gotten in touch with Pastor David (another Pastor David!) at the Assemblies of God church in Ennis, MT.  Terry and Carl had given us his contact information back when we were in Hamilton.  Thanks Terry and David!

Pastor David let us stay inside the church (yipee!).  He also drove us to a really unique burger restaurant in town.  It's called the Roadside Grill, and it's nestled in the back of the Claim Jumper bar downtown.  All the booths in the Roadside Grill are made out of old cars, and there are trucks and hoods hanging over the top of the booths, so it feels like you're either in the trunck or in the engine compartment.  At the end of all the fenders of the cars are headlights or taillights, and they were all on, so it really gave the impression that all the cars worked and were parked in there.  It was really neat!

Pastor David had recommended their 1/2 lb burgers, so we each got one.  They were delicious.  And I'm sure the beef did us good after doing 4 mountain passes, 1 huge hill, and 210 miles in 3 days.

We walked back to the church, and set up our things in the nursery with the baby toys and rocking chairs.  The pastor had recommended this room because it had its own sink and attached bathroom. 

As we were changing, I looked in the mirror and realized that my legs are starting to look bigger.  After the first few weeks of the trip, I had started noticing that my legs were looking slimmer as my body fat was being trimmed away.  Now I think I am starting to gain muscle and enough of it to make my legs start to looks slightly fuller.  I don't know if it's enough of a change for anyone else to notice, but I noticed it.  I mentioned it to Nathan, and he said he has started to notice the same thing with his body.  Interesting, huh?

Now our tired bodies and full tummies are making us feel pretty sleepy, so goodnight all.  Thanks for reading and following our story!

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