Lewis and Clark Cycling Trek

Saturday, July 23, 2005

Winnett, MT to Lewistown, MT- Day 39- 58.63 mi.

I know I've said this before, but what a difference the wind makes from one day to the next. Today, the wind was light out of the east and that is to our backs!! We left Winnett at about 8:15 filled with a good breakfast from the Kozy Korner. The first half of the ride was pretty much flat. We stopped at about 11:00 at Grass Range at a truckstop/restaurant/campground for lunch. After Grass Range the road started heading in an upward direction. We were approaching the first mountains of the ride. This range was called the Judith Mountains and is a part of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains to come. With the lack of a headwind, even climbing didn't seem so bad. This range was steep enough that the transportation department had a pulloff at the start of the Judith Mountains for vehicles to put on tire chains in the winter and another place to take them off on the other side. Even though mountains mean some hard pedaling, it was a pleasant change of scenery. We saw large pines on the hillsides and cooler temperatures as we ascended. We summited at about 4800 feet. This was followed by a 9 mile downhill of 20-30 mph into Lewistown. We secured a campsite at the Mountain Acres RV Park and then thought it might be a good idea to start figuring out how we are going to get home. I called the car rental place in Lewistown...no one way rentals outside of Montana. I called the Avis rental in Great Falls...no vehicles available. I called the Avis rental in Billings, thinking I could rent a local one way here in Lewistown to Billings and then rent another vehicle home. This would have worked except for one small detail. There is a $750 fee for a one way rental on top of the car rental fee. This brought the grand total to well over $1000 plus gasoline and the rental fee to Billings. We still didn't have an SUV, it was just a sedan. At this point we decided that we would try to head back home from here in Lewistown instead of going on the Great Falls. The weather did not look good for the next 3 days, with headwinds in the forecast each day. So back to the drawing board...no trains out of Lewistown, but there was Greyhound bus service. We biked down to the bus depot and talked to them. For slightly over $300 we could get a bus home with our bikes and trailers as long as the bikes were boxed. Boxing the bikes was the only hitch in this plan, but there was a bike shop in town and most shops will box bikes. The shop was closed by this time so I called and left a message. Next morning, Mark from High Plains Bike and Sky Shop called me and said no problem boxing our bikes and he would even drive them down to the bus depot. It looks like we are set to come home.
Seventh Grade Question:
This entire trip was brought on by a story I read when I was a fifth grader at Leesburg Elementary School. It was a story about how Lewis and Clark came to a fork in the Missouri River and didn't know which way to go. It was called, "Which is the Missouri?" Since reading that story, I have dreamed of someday following the Lewis and Clark Trail. We are fairly close to that fork in the Missouri. What is the present-day name of the river that Lewis and Clark nearly mistook for the Missouri?

-ClarkWheel

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