Sunday May 9th , Nez Perce Motel, Wisdom, Montana

17.00

A hellish day today. 66 miles. Cold and very windy with two big climbs, 7360 and 6760 feet. It was the big dip in between that really killed me. Going up one huge hill and then down again, only to climb another seems the ultimate in futility.

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Nowhere to stop for something to eat so ended up shivering on the side road with a two- day old tuna sandwich and a one-day old Danish pastry, washed down with freezing Gatorade. Most of the day was spent travelling through the aptly named Big Hole Valley. A flat green basin surrounded by snow-capped mountains. At first sight in the morning this looked quite attractive. 7 hours later, when you are looking at exactly the same thing, the magic somehow goes.

A cup of coffee in a fine looking hotel in Jackson was the first contact we had with other human beings all day. We would have stayed there but needed to get on as tomorrow is also a longish day. Got to Nez Perce (named after a tribe of Indians) at 4.15. Now about to head out to the Antler Saloon for first aid so I will leave you with some statistics.

We’ve cycled 2516 mile so far and, according to the guide book, have 711 t o go. (annoyingly, Seattle is only 445 miles away as the crow flies)

We plan to do this in 12 more cycling days at an average of just under 60 miles a day. We have one more rest day planned and a couple in reserve for emergencies, so we hope to get to Seattle on May 23^rd or 24^th .

We have 2 more days in Montana, three in Idaho and 7 in Washington.

So far we estimate that we have driven or been driven for about 17% of the journey, either because of the bad weather or lack of accommodation. More than we would like but there you go. Hopefully this percentage will go down by the end of the trip, We perhaps could have avoided some of the bad weather by coming later, but we would have run the risks of a lot more traffic and difficulty in getting rooms, particularly in smaller places.

Mike is scrupulous about keeping statistics, mileage, speed and various others. These will be fascinating at the end of the trip. I wish now that I had kept some of my own. How many burgers, bowls of oatmeal and bottles of Gatorade were consumed. How many times we said . “London England......Washington DC......... Seattle”.

And how many times certain other words were used.