Thursday, June 28, 2012

Townsend Day 11

Day 11

We made it to Townsend.   Located along the Missouri River, it's the center of a cattle raising county.

Avon was seriously cold this morning.   We had frost on most of our tents and on anything that was left outside.  Glad that I exchanged the original sleeping bag for something a bit more heavy duty.   The bag was just fine, but my face was cold several times during the night, as I think it got down to the mid 20's.   When we unloaded the truck this afternoon in Townsend, there was still lots of condensation from the frost that had been on the luggage.

Last night we were sitting around as the sun was going down.  Sarah spied this animal moving around and we each got some pictures of it.   It was a little prairie dog.  I dug out my new lens that I had not used before and took some pictures, and here he is.

Prairie dog peeking out of his burrow

Liz, Reesh, Cam, Sarah, Jeffrey and Ben chilling...

Today we started that cold ride ( I said it was cold before, yep it was cold ! )  out to McDonald Pass.  We climbed up the pass and the highway department had been chip sealing the road, and they were providing pilot cars to guide folks down the road.   We descended at 25 mph, sitting "butts back" ( as I yelled that out ) and rode right on down.  Think everyone handled it quite well.

Steve rolling up the top of McDonald Pass

Montana State Capitol Building in Helena

Pretty lawn in front of the Capitol

Open Skies ..  A photo cannot do this justice

Jeffrey and Yuji checking out Montana horses

Crossing the Missouri at the Townsend city limits

The ride to Townsend went pretty well.   In a few places the shoulder was pretty narrow, with the pavement edge being separated from the "rumble strip" by about 1 foot.  So we're trying to roll along at 18 mph holding ourselves into a 1 foot wide corridor.   Takes a bit of concentration to get used to !

I led 

Found Townsend, then found a coffee shop and got myself a grilled ham and cheese, and an iced tea.   Wonderful.   Tonight we stay in the local high school, with tent pitched on a lawn in front of their library.   These small towns have been very nice to us.  We are in the library right now, using the WiFi and getting batteries charged.   Each day, I need to recharge the Garmin, the cell phone, my MagicShine light, maybe my iPod, and sometimes the laptop.   Hmmmmm......

Tomorrow, it's about 100 miles to Harlowton.... that will be 3 Centuries in one week for us !   

 

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