Jun
03
On Tuesday we woke up at the ranch, chatted for a bit over coffee with the two Ty’s and took off. One of the Ty’s took us to wander around a very cool little ghost town called Bannack.
It’s incredibly preserved (and a little spooky) so we got to wander in and out of the old buildings for a bit.
That afternoon we hit awful headwinds as we rode… it made us feel like we were back in California! We finally reached our destination of Twin Bridges just as the sky opened up and started pouring. Fortunately, the town is in the middle of constructing a little cyclist camping/picnic area in their town park and we were able to pitch our tent under the new construction. I actually fell asleep at 6:30pm- a possible record for this trip, but I was exhausted!
We woke up this morning feeling fresh and glad to see that the rain had stopped. It still looked threatening, so we started the slow climb to Virginia City where we planned on lunching before tackling another 2000 ft pass. Virginia city was really neat- like a restored ghost town, except that people still live there! We stopped in the candy store at Ty’s suggestion and filled up on some homemade old fashioned ice cream. It fueled us for the climb we faced and we headed out. The climb was a little shorter and a little less steep than we had imagined (which is always good) and we couldn’t help but renew our newfound love for Montana with the view from the top.
We had planned to stop in Cameron for the night, but upon our arrival we found an empty building where the campground used to be. The woman working at the post office informed us that a woman from Texas had owned the place (which was also the town’s grocery store, restaurant and coffee house) but a year ago she fired everyone and closed the place down. We pulled out our maps and decided to push the extra 15 miles to the next campground. But somehow we didn’t find it. It ended up being a 79 mile day and we rode for about 7 hours… a little longer than expected. But we finally found a great campground where the owner even gave us towels for the shower! The towels we carry are these tiny pack towels that supposedly dry quickly so full sized, soft towels are a real luxury on this trip! Once again, Montana proves to be a good state for us… and the scenery, though it’s slowly changing, is still spectacular.
Jun
01
This morning we woke up and rode the 8 miles to the ranch where Ty works. He, his family and another ranch hand also named Ty greeted us warmly and graciously let us photograph their lives for the day. Here’s Alan waiting on a truck for the cattle to be driven up the road to another pasture. As you can see, the scenery hasn’t gotten any less spectacular. Today we decided we officially have one of the greatest jobs on the planet.
Everyone at the ranch was fantastic and really worked with us to help us get the shots we were dreaming of. Here I am riding out into a pasture with Ty and Ryder.
We were pretty pleased with the photos we got during the day- here’s one Alan grabbed of Ty and Ryder.
Words can’t really express how amazing today was, but it wasn’t without its challenges! Here I am navigating my way over a creek on barbed wire through one of the pastures to follow Ty and Ty on horseback as they herded some calves back towards their mothers. 
Alan had a little run-in of his own when dismounting a horse. His borrowed rubber boots were a little too far in the stirrups and his foot got caught. He was dragged by the horse for a bit and fortunately the horse turned and it twisted his foot loose. Everyone was quick to point out how easily that could have been very, very bad, but Alan escaped with only some shaken nerves, a scratched up hand, sore elbow and some pretty serious damage to his behind:
Tonight Ty’s family cooked us some burgers and put us up in the ranch’s guest house- it’s a beautiful place and after all the adventures today we’re sure to sleep well tonight. Thank you so much to everyone on the ranch today! We had an amazing time and got some shots that we’re really pleased with.
Jun
01
From Saturday night’s campsite we headed down the other side of the divide into what is known as the Big Hole. We are in agreement that this area is one of the most beautiful places either of us have ever been. 
As we rode, the continental divide stretched out around three sides of the basin that is the Big Hole and ranches spread out all around us.
The scenery was so incredible that it took us 3 hours to go 20 miles (mostly downhill). We just couldn’t stop photographing.
We finally rolled into the town of Wisdom. Population? Just over 100. I absolutely loved this storefront on the main street. It was Sunday morning and the town felt almost abandoned but this store was blaring tinny country music out of a tiny speaker on its right hand side.
We rolled through the next 20 miles to an even smaller town called Jackson where we had decided to treat ourselves to their famous hot springs. Apparently Lewis stopped there on his return trip and cooked a meal in this spring… we figured it would be good for our tired legs.
We found the springs without much ado- there is a hotel build around them called Jackson Hot Springs and when we inquired about camping for the night they generously gave us a room for free! Needless to say, we very much enjoyed the springs. 
That night we went to the bar in the hotel (generally a good place to meet locals and get a better feel for towns) and got to chatting with the bartender, Ty. Turns out he’s a cowboy. A real, genuine cowboy who worked at a ranch about 8 miles down the road. He invited us to stop by the ranch on our way out of Jackson and we turned in for the night excited about the photographic possibilities of the next day.
Jun
01
On Friday night Alan caught a beautiful sunset over the mountains.
I was asleep already (the sun doesn’t set out here until 10ish) resting up for our climb over Chief Joseph Pass- our second cross of the trip over the continental divide.
After a few hours of climbing, we made it and were pretty thrilled.
We camped just on the other side of the pass at a beautiful USFS campground. The weather was beautiful and we had an amazing night’s sleep.
May
29
We got a late start out of Missoula today- it’s such a great city with so much to see and do! We woke up to the smell of fresh, homemade waffles that our host Laurie was making us for breakfast… hard to start a day out better than that! Anyway, we chowed down on the delicious offerings, packed up and took off for Adventure Cycling headquarters. WE met back up with Greg there and he took some more photos and advised us to stop at Glen’s Diner for pie when we rode through the town of Florence. We swung by the Rocky Mountain School of Photography and checked out their beautiful gallery show before grabbing a little more coffee and heading out. The ride took us through beautiful country all day.
We rode just over 60 miles and hit some good winds in the late afternoon as a storm rolled past. Tomorrow we start really climbing, but we learned our lesson from Emory pass in New Mexico: climb slowly! So tomorrow we’ll hit it nice and early so we can take our sweet time climbing over Chief Joseph pass. A humongous thanks goes out tonight to our amazing host in Missoula, Laurie. Thank you so much for welcoming us into your home- we loved getting to meet and hang out and we can’t wait to see you sometime in New York!
PS: Of course, we took Greg’s advice and stopped in Florence for some of the best pie we’ve ever had. If you’re ever there, you must stop. Delicious!
May
27
We woke up this morning feeling surprisingly good and mentally prepared ourselves for Lolo Pass- the 5235 ft climb into Montana. We packed up and headed 4 miles to a local lodge we knew served breakfast. As we pulled out of the campground we saw two cyclists coming up behind us. We all rode to the breakfast place and shared stories of our plans. Steve and David are about the same ages as us and are biking from Seattle to Minnesota for David’s sister’s wedding. We were soon joined at breakfast by Earl, a retired engineer who is headed from Portland to Nashville. We decided to ride in a big “bike gang” over the pass for support and it turned out to be a pretty effective method. Everyone was so engaged in conversation that we barely noticed when all the mountains around us became laced with snow!
We hit the summit of Lolo Pass and Alan took a minute to celebrate our first ride into snow. 
Earl got this shot of the rest of us as we crossed the state line into Montana. We can’t believe we’re in Montana!! It seems so close to home… only a few thousand miles left!
We coasted down the other side of the pass and enjoyed the scenery… Montana is just incredibly beautiful and vast feeling.
We parted ways with our new friends in Missoula and went to check out the Adventure Cycling headquarters. They welcomed us with free cold drinks and ice cream (every touring cyclist’s dream) and Greg Siple (one of the founding members of the organization) took our photo for their beautiful archive of touring cyclists. Greg uses a fully manual Nikon and black and white film for the shots. You can check some of them out here. 
Tomorrow we’ll set out to do some errands and see Missoula a bit while we rest our legs. From the small glimpse we got of it today, we’re going to have a great time checking it out.