Monday May 10th , Mountain Spirit Inn, Darby, Montana

18.00

Yesterday

What a tumultuous night ! I will never forget the final scene in the Antler Saloon. Mike pounding away at the piano. Myself standing on the bar, conducting, and about fifty tough old weather-beaten cowboys belting out chorus after chorus of “Happy Birthday Tom ‘n Lid-ya, happy birthday to yew!”. Glasses were raised, Stetsons thrown in the air. Several shots were fired into the ceiling . Unfortunately, a woman from Nebraska, descending the staircase, was hit by one of these, but, when the reason was explained for the jollity, she dismissed it as “just a flesh wound” and bought another round for everybody. Hurrah!

At the end Mike and I were carried, shoulder-high back to the motel, to the strains of “They’ll be coming round the mountain when they come”. A wonderful occasion.

Today

What a difference a day makes! Today was really enjoyable. Cool sunshine, the wind behind us most of the way and a beautiful ride through pine forests and winding mountainous paths.

Lunch in the Rocky Knob Café, 15 miles from Darby. Started in the 1890s by a woman nicknamed Ptomaine Joe, possibly because she got through 9 husbands. She got the place built by paying the workers in food , drink, and other “favours”. Very much a local heroine according the info on the menu.

A nice bowl of chilli and, when I asked what beer they had, the waitress said there was a special offer on “Arrogant Bastard”. Mike seem to think this most appropriate. It was good too, dark, and very bitter.

We arrived in Darby at four and are staying at the Mountain Spirit Inn. It’s very basic but run by a really nice young couple. Darby is another one-street, log cabin, western town. It looks nothing much but apparently get really busy in the summer which is when the little antique places must make their money. Most of them aren’t even open yet. Dinner will be in the Little Blue restaurant, just down the street and recommended by mine host, and there are two bars opposite so we will probably try both.

Limited internet access at present but it looks like the UK is collapsing. Americans talking more and more about Roy Hodgson being new Prime Minister and Clint Dempsey as Foreign Secretary. I try to calm things down but it’s difficult.

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.

.

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.

Saturday May 8th^th , Best Western Paradise Inn , Dillon Montana

21.45

A beautiful sunny evening yesterday in Twin Bridges. Nothing much to do but enjoy the scenery. As far as entertainment went, Chuck’s Bar was full of tattooed women holding a shouting competition and the Blue Anchor had four customers: one asleep, one talking to herself and a young couple trying to eat each other. I retired to my room to press the wild flowers I had collected during the day.

Today was a really good cycling day. 28 miles of flat road in cold bright sunshine with hardly any wind. If you hadn’t been cycling for the past nine weeks you would have loved it Even if you had it was still pretty good.

We got to Dillon at 10.30. Not much of a place. The town would have died long ago if it wasn’t for the fact that there was a junction with Interstate 51. We checked in to the Best Western and I was really disappointed that the we’d just missed out on the previous nights College Graduation Special when the motel had been full of celebrating teenagers. Both Mike and I felt that their noisy exuberance in the wee small hours would have added greatly to our enjoyment.

We had lunch in Grandma’s’ Kitchen next door. I still fall for this every time. The words Grandma, and Kitchen (see also Mum, Ma, Home, Finger lickin’ and anything that would be difficult to pin down in a court of law) should act as a red light. We had meatless chilli con carne and semi-raw potatoes, and slunk out, dejectedly.

We strolled downtown and had a beer in the Hotel Medlen which must once have been a fine old hotel but was now just a shell, with a sad roomy bar where a couple of old men were playing pool. In the gents there was a w.c, and a large zinc bath, half-full of ice. I’m still trying to work that out. In the afternoon I did my laundry while Mike had a kip. Mike and I agree that I’m turning into Howard Hughes with my obsessive washing but it is part of my desperate clawing on to some sort of civilised life .

Dinner was in the Lion’s Den, a pretty decent lounge (that means bar) and restaurant, just up the road. A sort of very large Berni Inn. A pint of Fat Tire and one of Moose Drool (a brown ale that is not as nice as it sounds) while watching TV poker, which I could easily get addicted to. Spaghetti and red wine and one last pint of Moose Drool. Home, eager for the long day ahead.

Tomorrow (today in England) is my grandson Tom’s first birthday and I am very sad that I will not be at his party in Walton. It’s also my niece Lydia’s birthday so-

Happy Birthday Tom and Lydia!!!!!!!!!XXXXXXXX!!!!!!!!!!

I will hopefully raise a glass to both of you in either Jackson or Wisdom tomorrow.

(Drinking in wisdom, that would make a change)

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.).

Wednesday May 4^th Ashton Motel, Ashton, Idaho.

22.00

We had breakfast in the same steak house this morning, where the waitress briefly raised our hopes by saying that the local bus service went over the Teton pass and it took bicycles. She offered to ring the bus company who confirmed this but the bus only ran in the late afternoon and we would still have a long way to go after that so it didn’t really work. Still, like the sheriff yesterday it was another unprompted act of kindness.

As things turned out the sheriff was right. The path was clear and we got through safely. It took us an hour and 40 minutes to climb the five miles to the top, a rise of couple of thousand feet and certainly the steepest climb so far. I gave up and started walking as soon as my speed dropped to 3.3 mph, as my gears aren't up to it after that. Mike has extra cogs, which he swears make the difference, but I'm not sure they're a great improvement on walking. To me it seems like an awful lot of pedalling for minimal reward. I know a lot of this is psychological.

A very long downhill run after that. A new land speed record for me. 36.7 mph, though this was wind assisted, in more ways than one, The first 3 miles very scary as usual but the rest really enjoyable. In fact it was pretty much flat or downhill all the way after that; some of the most enjoyable cycling of the trip.

At 20 miles we stopped at Victor for a cup of coffee and a cake as we were both freezing. The lady in the shop treated us to the coffee as she said we deserved it for climbing the path (unprompted kindness no 3) Then on the way to Driggs, the next town, a motorist coming in the other direction slowed down to tell us about a cycle path that would make the journey much safer (unprompted kindness no 4). I wish now I had kidnapped that old bat in Jeffrey City and stuck her on the back of my bike, so that each time something like this happened I could dig her in the ribs and say “See, this is what nice people do”. Not that I'm one to harbour grudges, you understand.

Actually guiding us on to the cycling path turned out to be a mixed blessing because it was here that I picked up my first puncture, riding over a twig with a half-inch thorn sticking out. At first I thought I had got away with it but a mile down the road the tyre went flat. I’ve got Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres which mean punctures are extremely rare but the downside is the tyres are almost impossible to get on and off the wheels . Mike, heroically, did most of the heavy stuff, removing the old tube and fitting the new ones. It would have taken me three times as long. I have agreed to listen to his in-depth analysis of the early elections results tomorrow as a small thank you.

The easy cycling was slightly compromised by snow-filled skies and some very bleak scenery in the afternoon. We had crossed into Idaho just after Teton Pass and, this is potato country. Huge ploughed fields, the biggest I had ever seen , and, apart from passing cars, not a soul to be seen for miles. Really unsettling and not a place I would want to stay too long in. Still we had the wind behind us all day, something that happens very rarely, and it makes a huge difference.

We reached Ashton at 4. Another 70 mile day. It’s too long really but you have to go to where the accommodation is. The Ashton Motel is a very friendly, comfortable place but the only restaurant is a burger bar next door. The nearest decent place is a couple of miles away. Too far to walk. The manager offered to lend us his car to drive there (unprompted kindness no 5). but we were too tired to do even do that. So burgers it was. Big Jud’s turned out to be ok with very cheerful young staff. We ordered double burgers which turned out to be a mistake as the singles are huge. They were each about six inches high. The two young chefs were peering around the kitchen door laughing gleefully as they were served. As it turned out they were excellent and we had no trouble finishing them. Couldn’t manage the fries though. The waitress told us of people who had eaten triple and quadruple burgers and there was even one quintuple burger eater (his picture is on the wall, well, spread over two walls actually) .

Big Jud’s only served soft drinks but in the little store next door Mike found bottles of Chardonnay on sale for a suspiciously cheap $6.99. Purely to help us sleep, of course.

More snow forecast tomorrow. We shall see.

Tuesday May 4^th Antler Inn, Jackson . Wyoming

21.30

The weather is continuing to make life very difficult for us.

We left Lander yesterday morning at 7.35 and the first 30 miles, on a flattish road in cool sunshine were fine. We reached Crowheart, at about 11.00. It’s called Crowheart because, near here, Chief Washakie, of the Shoshones, fought the Chief of the Crow tribe, killed him and ate his heart. It makes you wonder about Cockfosters.

Just as we got there, a north wind suddenly blew up at over 20 mph and we had to ride into this for the next five and a half hours. Absolute hell and definitely the worst day’s cycling so far.

We were riding on winding roads but whichever direction we turned we could not escape the wind as it was being funnelled through the hills . At one point my speed was down to 3.4 mph. (You can walk quite comfortably at 3 mph.) We reached Dubois (it rhymes with “toys”) at six o’ clock after doing 75 miles and climbing 1600 feet. We decided then that we would stay a day there as we were both completely knackered and the next day’s ride entailed a climb of another couple of thousand feet with more snow predicted.

Dubois is surrounded by a number of dude ranches where rich city people come to pretend to be cowboys. It is basically one street full of log cabin shops and bars. I quite liked it as it’s a bit rough and ready and not so obviously fake as Breckenridge. We had a beer in the Rustic Pine Tavern and a meal next door in the Cowboy Cafe. Mike retired at this point but, as we had already decided that the next day was a rest day, I thought I’d explore the town a bit further.

A little further down the street, just past our motel, I found the Whisky Creek Saloon. For Archers fans, if the Rustic Pine Tavern was The Bull, the Whisky Creek Saloon was definitely The Cat and Fiddle. Much seedier and much more fun. No tabs, you paid cash for every drink

I met a nice guy called Chris at the bar. A real cowboy, he looked like a boozier version of Kris Kristofferson. An ex-Vietnam veteran , married 4 times, very amiable and with a sharp sense of humour. When I asked him to recommend a drink , he pointed to his bottle, drawled “Alaskan Amber” and insisted on buying me one. Chris was very keen on the English language. He wanted to know what "blokes" were (“Are they like ‘hands’”?) and found my glottal stops hilarious (I'd asked for a "another bo' lle of beer"). He introduced me to another younger man who was a full Shoshone Indian (I don’t do any of the Christianity shit") and another who was half -Arapaho. The two didn’t seem to have a lot to say to each other.

Chris warned me that we had a lot of bad weather ahead of us and that Yellowstone Park, our next big destination, would probably have no accommodation open for another two weeks yet. I took this with a pinch of salt because, I’ve noticed along the way that people quite like to scare you with the local weather, terrain or wild animals.

In the end Chris and I shared eight bottles of Alaskan Amber and I toddled home happily oblivious to the tempestuous rain blowing down the street.

Up this morning at seven. Snow on the ground and still falling. Gale force winds. And the TV forecast said more on the way. This is getting tedious.

A few phone calls to our intended stops for the next few days confirmed what Chris had said last night. Nowhere in Yellowstone open for another two weeks at least. A shame for Mike as he had really been looking forward to this. If I’m honest, I can handle missing a couple of days in a national park.

We looked at the maps and decided that we would have to radically alter our route and by-pass the park. Jackson was the nearest large town and from there we could rejoin the route in West Yellowstone . But it was 86 miles away and we would still have to cross the snow-covered Togwatee Pass, involving a climb to 9,800 feet. This was impossible today and almost certainly tomorrow. We needed transport again. We drafted a note to be put in bars and cafes and the receptionist made some copies for us. She also recommended ringing Scot who worked at a nearby hotel and sometimes ran a shuttle service to Jackson. Scot turned out to be our saviour. It wasn’t cheap at $210 but the receptionist said it was a fair price and anyway we had no real choice

Scot picked us up at one o clock. in his enormous pick-up truck festooned with anti- Obama stickers. He turned out to be so hilariously right-wing, I wished I’d recorded him. Instead I kept quiet in the back, trying to remember as much of it as possible. Harry Truman? A murdering bastard. 9/11? Clinton’s fault. Obama? A Kenyan. Mike sat in the front and, all in all, held his end up in the conversation quite well ( I think there was quite a lot of core common ground).

We got to Jackson at 2,30 and Scot recommended the Antler a decent place n the centre of town.

We spent the afternoon planning our route to W. Yellowstone and then went to a steak house next door for dinner. The sheriff was outside talking to a deputy and we asked them about our proposed route to Ashton tomorrow, over the 8500ft Teton Pass. They both thought it might be risky with some snow still up there. They recommended checking the weather carefully in the morning before setting out.

There was a slightly surreal moment in the restaurant when a large coach party of elderly British tourists arrived. What the hell are they doing in Wyoming (then again, what the hell am I doing in Wyoming?). I wish I’d asked one of them.

Towards the end of our meal, the sheriff came back into the restaurant looking for us. Apparently his deputy had just been over the pass, on his way home, and had rung him to say that it was clear and that if it stays dry tonight we’ll be ok. Now wasn’t that nice of the two of them to go to that trouble? It quite made my day.

Sunday May 2^nd Best Western Inn, Lander . Wyoming

22.00

Friday

Our rest day in Rawlins was, well, restful. We had a good breakfast in a nearby cafe, full of examples of a local taxidermist’s art: a bobcat, various birds and a bison’s head amongst other things. I thought the elderly couple at the next table might have been his masterpiece, till the woman raised her hand and asked for her check.

I spent three quarters of an hour in the morning walking through a snowdrift to get to laundrette and another three quarters of an hour in the afternoon walking through another one, to fetch it. The rest of the time was mostly spent on the internet checking the weather and reading the English newspaper reports of Fulham’s win against Hamburg ,which puts them into the Europa Cup final. Driving to Rawlins the previous day Marie had texted to say "The Germans have scored". Just after this I had lost the mobile signal. I assumed that the away goal would be enough and that Fulham had lost. It wasn't till the evening when I checked the internet that I realised that they had won. Lots of whooping in the hotel room with Mike, commendably, doing his best to act interested. I’ve worked out we’ll be in Missoula, Montana on the day of the final. Population 12,000 so a chance there might be a sports bar.

We ate three big meals again. Somehow you get used to it even when not cycling.

Saturday

We set off at 6.45 with the temperature about -5. We went back to the taxidermy cafe for breakfast only to find they didn’t open on Saturday and had to go back to the hotel. In the restaurant some of the construction workers were already into beer and shots. We settled for oatmeal, sausages eggs and hash browns.

It was bitterly cold all day and we were wearing all our gear, waterproofs, balaclavas, the lot. Mike tells me there was some wonderful scenery but I was bent head down for most of the day, trying to reduce the wind resistance We had long spells going directly into an icy 15 mph north wind. All in all we did 76 miles in 8 hours with nowhere to stop for a meal. We had a cup of coffee in Muddy Gap and ate the sandwiches we had bought in Rawlins ( in an odd store run by Mennonites – a bit like the Amish in dress but not against using modern methods - lousy sandwich makers though)

We reached our destination, Jeffrey City at 4. It was once a uranium mining town with a population of 6000 but, according to our guide book, the 1979 Three Mile Island disaster put an end to that and it is now a ghost town with a population of 5. Basically all there is now is an old garage, the Top Hat Motel and The Split Rock Cafe and bar. The guy who checked us in at the motel, said the Three Mile Island story wasn’t true and that basically the company who owned the mine (and the town) were just charging too much and went out of business . In 1982 they virtually closed the town down , making 50 % of the population (most of whom lived in motor homes anyway) redundant and giving them seven days to get off company land. There are now plans for a new company to re-open the mine next year.

The motel looked pretty seedy from the outside but the rooms were surprisingly comfortable and spacious. No Wi-Fi (no phone, no telly) but after the day we had had it was just nice to be warm for a while.

At six we headed down to the Split Rock Cafe for a drink and something to eat. I brought my computer on the off-chance they might have Wi-Fi. We sat at the bar when we got there and a little old lady, late sixties at a guess, wearing a t-short, lumberjack shirt and a baseball cap came up to us. I was waiting for the usual “And where are you two fellows from?” or something like that but she just stood there. No eye contact or anything.

“What draught beer do you have ?”

“Don’t do draught beer ”

Mike asked for a Bud.

“What other bottled beer do you have”

A heavy sigh. “Bud or Coors” Still no eye contact.

I asked for a Bud too.

I then asked for a glass. This was the only point I managed to score all evening. Her lips tightened and I could tell she was trying to think of some obscure Wyoming law that prohibited the use of glasses by strangers on a Saturday evening but she couldn’t. With another heavy sigh, two dusty tumblers were put in front of us.

Mike asked if the restaurant was still open. Silently she shuffled away and returned with two plastic menus offering various combinations of fried meat, cheese and potatoes. Grilled cheese and chips was a new one on me.

Mike ordered the hamburger steak and a jacket potato . I said I’ll have the grilled chicken.

“No you won’t .No chicken left”

I said I’d have the hamburger too and she shuffled off again. I noticed that here were a couple of laptops on tables and I tried my pc. I got onto the net using the Split Rock network and managed to read a few e-mails while we were waiting. Her daughter who seemed pleasant enough, served us another beer. Somehow I have a hunch she was an only child.

A few minutes later she returned and gave us each a plate containing a piece of fried brown carpet covered in some sort of white mucus, with slices of fried onion swimming in it. Next to this was a lukewarm, semi-raw jacket potato. (We were paying $11 each for this). She said nothing, glanced down at my open computer and disappeared again.

Then came her masterstroke. She re-appeared from the kitchen and, with a damp cloth, wiped clean the blackboard containing the list of today’s specials. Then, laboriously she wrote on the board “Internet $5.” I could almost have applauded.

As we were leaving, Mike asked if she was open on Sunday. She said not. Sunday was her day of rest.. He asked if there was anywhere we could eat between there and Lander, our next destination, sixty miles away.

“Nope, nothing till Lander”.

It was the only time I saw her smile all evening.

I threatened to kneecap Mike if he left a tip and he didn’t. Looking back now I regret this.

Someone able to give such a master class in surly malignancy deserves every penny they can get.

Sunday

Two inches of snow on the ground when we got up this morning but at least it had stopped falling. I automatically demand to be driven now if there’s a single snowflake in evidence but Mike is made of sterner stuff. We would cycle on.

Nowhere to go for breakfast so we ate our emergency rations. These consisted of: two sachets of oatmeal we had lifted from the hotel in Fairplay, two Tetley tea bags I’d got from a motel in Kansas and had been saving for just such an occasion, and, in Mike’s case, the leftover half of the Mennonite beef sandwich I had thrown away the previous evening, describing it as inedible. We ate the oatmeal with hot water, from plastic bathroom tumblers and then rinsed these out for the tea. Mike got me to sign away all rights to the half sandwich before he ate it. He’s a stickler for detail. Suitably refreshed we set off.

Another hard day today. The first 30 miles were a real uphill slog in weather even colder than yesterday. Then when we go to the top of the evocatively named Beaver Divide, we had a wonderful 5 mile down hill run. Almost at the same time the sun came out and the rest of the run was fairly pleasant. Nowhere to eat or even get a coffee and we were digging deep into our supplies of Snickers, dried cranberries and Trail Mix (a mixture of nuts, raisins and dried fruit – it’s squirrel food but it does the trick).

We got to Lander at two, just in time for lunch. When asked, the receptionist at our first hotel said “Yes we do have Wi-Fi but there are some issues with it at the moment.” Not worth the risk. So here we are at the Best Western. A bit more pricey but good internet connections an on-site laundromat. I don’t ask much really.