Into The Wind
June 21
Malta, MT to Fort Peck, MT
89 miles
In Malta (mosquito capital of Montana), they spray for bugs. I woke up to a truck driving through the campsite blasting a cloud of chemical mist. I assumed it was a blend of organic peppermint, cedar and citronella, and went about my morning rituals pleasantly unhindered by bites. I chatted with some sweet folks at the campsite who warned me that the eastern wind was growing in ferocity. "It'll be meditative for you," said one of the gents, before he and his wife took off in their regal RV.
Indeed the wind had picked up speed and, once I started riding, seemed to adapt with every turn in the road to whip against me with ever increasing malevolence. The wild grasses bowed deeply to the west, mindless servants to the tyrannical wind. "If this is meditation, then honey I ain't never meditated," I thought. After about 20 miles I stopped at a gas station, rested my bike against a wall, sat down beside it and fell asleep for about 30 minutes; I woke up and carried on for more of the same. "At least it's not raining," I thought to myself, like a fool tempting fate. And then, sure enough, over the western horizon came the storm.
There's a particular cosmic cruelty to being stuck between a wind from the east and a storm approaching from the west. "How is this even meteorologically possible?" With just a few miles to the small town of Hinsdale, drivers slowed down to yell out their windows, "you better get yourself to cover; this is gonna be a bad one." I pedaled desperately onward. Within a mile of the town, lightning filled the sky. I started to count, "one, two, three..." (if I heard thunder before I reached five I knew I'd have to ditch the steel bike, tear off my metal-cleated shoes, find the lowest spot possible and crouch with my head between my legs [at which point I'd probably end up shitting myself]) "...four, five, six." The ground shook with echoing thunder and I raced on. I turned off the highway, onto Hinsdale's Main street, just as the hail started to fall, and made it safely to the cover of the town's only bar.
When I stumbled in nearly blind with panic, everyone raised their glasses. "You made it," they cheered. I went straight to the bathroom, then got a pitcher of water, a lemonade, and joined all the locals as the storm raged overhead. The thing about a storm moving 55 mph is that it's gone before you know it. I hadn't had more than a few sips of lemonade before the skies cleared. It had taken me 5 hours to cover the 40 miles between Malta and Hinsdale, and I still had quite a bit of ground to cover. I said goodbye to all my new friends, hopped back on the bike and carried on, now drafting behind the storm. It had conquered the eastern wind and left in its wake a tailwind that carried me forward; the grasses forgot their former master and now eagerly bent eastward. "Yas queen, slay! Yas!" we cried as the storm charged her way across the sky. I covered the remaining 49 miles in just under 4 hours, deciding to push myself an extra 20 miles after the city of Glasgow (intended destination) to go off route and see Fort Peck.
---
June 22
Fort Peck, MT to Circle, MT
89 miles
Between the towns of Fort Peck (pop: 300) and Circle (pop: 600), there's a whole lot of nothing. At times a pretty stunning nothing: an oceanic expanse of the dammed Missouri river fading into blood-red badlands beneath an infinite blue sky -- home to half the T Rex skeletons ever discovered and innumerable other prehistoric monsters, a land scarred by the glacial progression of water and ice. Road crews had ripped up half the loop back to highway 2, leaving me two options: ride 20 miles back to Glasgow to get back on route or face the void ahead. I chose the latter.
I started the day charged, thrilled by the vistas of my new terrain and the silence of my absolute isolation among the fossils. I carried with me food and water enough to survive for a couple days out there if need be but I wanted to make it back to the company of people, even if it took me all day. Each canyon -- from peak to peak -- stretched about 6 miles and for those three miles of descent I was nothing but Yipees and Yeehaws.
But as the hours and miles stretched on ahead of me, as the period of frequency for each rise and fall grew shorter and shorter, I became increasingly weary of all the climbing required: survival of one hill just meant a glimpse of the next one waiting. After about 40 miles, at one of the crossings for Hells Canyon Creek, I rested the bike against the guard rails, wolfed down some jerky, and took a one-eyed power nap (the sort you take on the safe side of the guard rails when the road's been lined with snake carcasses all afternoon). When I reached highway 200 (the final 30 mile push for the day), the badlands and sage grass had disappeared, replaced by green pastures. The climbing, though, would never die. If I ever again hear someone use the words "rolling hills" to describe a bucolic paradise, I'm going to vomit. It was a slow, manic, torturous progression forward. Climb, descend, climb, descend.
But finally, in the last 13 miles, the land leveled out. A pusillanimous headwind tried to slow me down. But with flat ground, a solid shoulder and virgin asphalt, nothing was going to hold me back from the flank steak dinner and beer that awaited me in Circle. Dinner was divine. I finally left the Round Towne Tavern around 10:30, just as the last light was fading from the sky. I set up camp on an open field behind the fairgrounds and disappeared into somnambulistic bliss.
I've been struggling to make these days meditative. My mood -- my state -- feels completely dependent upon the whims of the land and air that surround me. I am their subject. When conditions favor me, I am filled with boundless optimism; when they don't, an immeasurable hopelessness.
---
June 23
Circle, MT to Glendive, MT
51 miles
I've never had to stop to rest while riding downhill. I've never had to stop riding to weep. Today I did both: mid descent on one of the first few hills, a real soul-churning, body-quivering weep took me over. Birds, facing east like me, floated backwards in the wind. "Only a fool would try to fight this," they cried out. Apparently the wind heard me call him pusillanimous and today unleashed upon me all his fury. On a day I'd been expecting to be nice and easy, I'd traveled fewer than 10 miles in just over two hours. And I had 42 miles to go.
But a guy can only sob on the side of the road for so long. When the tears had exhausted themselves and I could reflect upon my life, I felt the trap of fantasizing about the finish line, the folly of counting down the days, miles, hours until I can see my aunt and cousins at the Ace hotel in New York and return to civilian life. Of course New York isn't the end of the ride: the end is when I become a gnarled mass of meat like the roadkill I've been dodging for the past thousand miles. And hopefully that doesn't happen for another 60 years or so, so what's the rush? I got back on the bike, pulled down the bill of my cap and focused on the few feet of pavement before me. There were no mile markers, no distances to cover. "You're a sleeping shark, babe. Just move forward."
In this state (dare I call it meditative?), my path crossed Marshall's. I wouldnt've noticed him out there on that desolate stretch of highway 200 (such was the depth of my trance) had he not crossed the road and waved me down. I was filled with joy and relief to see another cyclist. He'd left St. Paul around the same time I'd left Portland and we're both riding Long Haul Truckers. We talked shop, traded tips on the best places to eat and sleep, and then he was gone, blessed by a tailwind that was my same curséd headwind -- a karmic balance bigger than any one person's experience. "Don't take the wind personally, dude," I thought. "It's not really about you."
The day didn't become any easier. Peace of mind, like misery, came and went. By the time I reached Glendive I'd all but lost my voice from cursing, pleading with and ultimately surrendering to the wind. It took me almost nine hours to get there. But oh the sanctuary that awaited me. Billie Jo, general manager of Glendive's Holiday Inn Express, made an in-kind donation to the cause and gave me a king's room for the night -- cotton-clouded bed, jacuzzi, and more breakfast than I could handle. I'm back in the game.
