We woke up early from our spot along the side of Route 12. It was only 6am, but it was bound to be another scorcher. We wanted to make it to the next town before our dripping sweat drained our scant water supply.
Silvery patches of sage interrupted the rippling hills, which looked somewhat like unstained leather. Vultures picked at the steaming piles of roadkill.
The landscape out here changes in the same way that time changes. If you watch a clockface, you can't really see the hands moving from one spot to the next...but then you look up to find that you are in a completely different hour.
And that's how it goes with biking. States come and go, the sun shifts its position in the sky, hills creep up and fade away.
I looked up to squint at a distant road sign, then looked down to see that I had almost hit a prairie dog! The little rascal quickly scurried away from my front wheel, about 12 inches from being maimed. Needless to say, I was relieved that I narrowly avoided producing more roadkill.
We pulled into the tiny town of Melstone to find some shade and wait for the cool part of the day. We enjoyed chatting with the locals in the town restaurant/cafe/bar/hangout spot, but we were foolish to think that there actually is a cool part of the day in central Montana in July. Nevertheless, we pushed another 35 miles into the town of Roundup and arrived just as dusk was beginning to set in.
As we pulled into town, a police officer asked us how far we had ridden that day. He then offered to show us a sweet (and free) camp site by the river. He drove down to the spot as we followed on our bicycles. There we met some other travellers from Santa Fe, and set up camp for a long night of sleep.
