Day 14 - East Glacier to Shelby

Day 14 (17 Aug 09) East Glacier to Shelby 73 miles

Monday, Monday … We rode into the East with the sun in our eyes - clear skies for the first time since Republic Washington. With the wind at our backs and the mountains behind us we devoured the first 50 miles, saying goodbye to the mountains, goodbye to wide, swift rivers, goodbye to tumbling, joyously noisy creeks, goodbye to magnificent osprey and their young, and goodbye to the white-tailed deer, all too often the victim of our addiction to the internal combustion engine and the four-wheeled vehicles it propels. We say hello to a new ecosystem, broad grassy plains that once supported herds of bison so large you could see nothing else for miles, hello to the place that gives the Big Sky state its meaning, hello to infinite arrays of telephone poles that disappear in a line on the horizon as if reflected in facing mirrors, hello to a wide shoulder on the road and hello to a prevailing (for today anyway) westerly wind.

As we leave East Glacier and climb for the last time above 5000 feet we look in our rearview mirrors and see the mountains from a new perspective - a photo is mandatory. Shortly, we come upon a small herd of bison, the reminder of the herds of 170 years ago. The bison seem to see us and playfully begin to gallop along with us. We are riding uphill at 20 mph and coast down shallow inclines at 30! It may be good to be king, but a tailwind is even better when you’re on a bike. We see small, marshy ponds sporting a few ducks. The guys fixing ties on the railway by the road honk and wave. We see trains with coal-laden cars a mile long going to feed those huge power-generating plants that blow carbon dioxide into the atmosphere creating an unintended consequence, more for our children and grandchildren than for us. Yet, our leaders fail to lead and ignore the voices of the people. We see a large wind farm, a vision of the future that could be. A farmer in a huge tractor waits for us to ride by before pulling into the road to drive by and smile at us. We try to catch a draft, but don’t have quite enough juice. Everyone just seems a little more friendly out here.

We encounter Joe, a guy about our age on a mountain bike pulling a trailer. He’s running on knobbys (regular off-road mountain bike tires; talk about rolling resistance) - “13 dollar Kevlar K-Mart specials” we’re told. Len and I stand in awe. Joe’s riding into the headwind that keeps us flying. He started in Connecticut, is headed to Seattle via the Going-to-the-Sun Road, a route we bypassed to avoid an extra two days riding. From Seattle he heads to San Francisco and from there to Key West Florida where he plans to “f--- around” for a month before returning to Connecticut next April! No motor home for this intrepid traveler - he’s camping!

The 73 miles go by easily. I see my new grand daughter for the first time on Skype - she is beautiful.