Friday May 7^th , Kings Motel Twin Bridges, Montana

16.00

Yesterday

Woke up to snow again. A couple of inches and still falling. We had another big pass, Targhee Pass, to get through on the way to West Yellowstone and there were reports of snow and ice on the roads up there. We hung around the hotel for a couple of hours then I went up to the nearby garage with our now familiar little note asking for a lift. A man with a large towing truck heard me talking to the assistant. After calling his boss, he said he would take us to W.Yellowstone, our destination for the day, for $150 or to Ennis, the next day's destination for $250. The latter seemed the better option given the prevailing weather conditions. I t was a lucky break I suppose but many more lucky breaks like this will bankrupt us.

The driver, Andy, was a nice guy. His main job is to fix or tow away cars if there is an accident or breakdown. He had a lot of stories about cars hitting animals, often moose or elk. A full size moose can knock your engine through to the front seat. One wrecked lorry had a cargo of 150, 000 boxes of frozen onion rings and apparently, two years later these are still being eaten in and around the West Yellowstone area. There’s a film here; Onion Rings Galore.

The journey, mostly through Targhee National Park, was very enjoyable, Snow covered mountains, vast expanses of grazing land and a long stretch beside the Madison River. We passed Hegben Lake site of the August 1959 earthquake which hit 7.5 on the Richter Scale and killed 29 people. Elk, antelope and horses everywhere. It all looks so much more interesting from the back seat of a nice warm truck.

We reached Ennis at 12,30 and said good bye to Andy. Burgers and beer in the local pharmacy ( a proper old-fashioned drug store). The beer was Troutslayer, from a Montana microbrewery, and pretty good. A couple of men at the next table were taking salt with it, something you see quite a lot in the states. In a petrol station yesterday they were selling small bottles of lime and lemon flavoured salt especially for beer. I told the middle-aged woman behind the counter that I thought that salt was only used with tequila. She pulled a face and said. “I never drink tequila, it gives me pneumonia”. I must have looked puzzled and she explained.

“When I was younger, I drank tequila in some bar and the next thing I knew I was in the wet t-shirt competition. I woke up six hours later still wearing the goddam t-shirt. Took me two months to get over it. Came second though. It’s Bacardi and Coke for me these days.”

Our next day’s destination was Virginia City, just 15 miles away but over another 2000 foot pass. We could try and make it but it was risky We stopped at the Silvertips Motel and the owner, a cyclist himself made some phone calls to people in Virginia City. It turned out that it was snowing on the pass and, anyway, all the hotels in Virginia City were closed as the season (fishing and hunting) hadn’t started yet. We decided to stay in the motel and make for Twin Bridges, 29 miles beyond Virginia City, the next day.

In the evening we had a beer in the Long Branch Saloon (good) and pizzas in the Sportsman’s Bar (dull). Mike then toddled off home to watch the election results on the internet and I headed back to the Long Branch. It was strange, sitting there surrounded by cowboys, ruminating on previous election nights, often involving parties long into the night . Now, after years of nagging Marie and Julie about the importance of voting ( “people died getting you the right to vote” etc.), I was stuck in a bar in Montana, voteless, having left it too late to register for a postal or proxy vote. Shameful.

Troutslayer helped ease my guilt. By way of distraction, an elderly retired air hostess, quite drunk, was haranguing a couple of cowboys about how much better a poker player she was than them and she then proceeded to demonstrate her ability by losing $40 very quickly in a poker slot machine.

I got home, feeling no pain, to discover that Lord Snooty and his pals hadn’t quite got the keys to the kingdom, just yet. What larks!

Today

Up at six. Mike already up and glued to the computer screen. He is loving it all and is like a dog with two tails. He keeps asking me what I think will happen. I try and make each answer diametrically opposite from the last but it doesn’t seem to matter. He still says that I am completely wrong.

Today was overall not too bad a day (“great” according to Mike). The hill was hard work but only one in seven, which I can now manage reasonably easy. It was bitterly cold but dry and clear with little wind. We reached Virginia City at ten. It had a population of 10,000 in Gold Rush days but it is now down to about 50. Almost half the buildings are pre-1900 and many are being restored. We had coffee in the Pioneer Saloon, everyone was very friendly but I thought there was an air of self-conscious wackiness about them all (“We’re all crazy here”) that was tourist- orientated.. Mike said I was a miserable git and he’s probably right.

The next 20 miles were incredibly cold, minus ten or thereabouts but it warmed just up as we reached Twin Bridges (neither bridge seen yet). Lunch was in the Wagon Wheel, a really good diner. Good plain food at reasonable prices and very friendly staff. Soup, salad, meatloaf and a jacket potato followed by pear and blueberry pie with whipped cream. People were applauding loudly as I was winched back on to my bike.

The Kings Motel is a comfortable place at one end of town. We’ve actually been given a small two bedroom flat which is very comfortable. The only problem is that the internet is a bit flaky. It works fine while lying on my bed but nowhere else. Mike has gone over to the office in high dudgeon ( not a nearby town) to do his stuff there.

Because of the extra miles we put in today, tomorrow's trip to Dillon is just under 30 miles which hopefully will make for a nice easy day ( cue blizzards, earthquakes and punctures.).