Day 10- Lincoln, MT to Lubrecht Experimental Forest - 50.49 miles

Brrrrr….when we crawled out of the sleeping bags at 6:30, we noticed quite a difference in the temperature from yesterday’s 90 something degrees. I inquired at Ponde-rosa’s Restaurant where we had breakfast and was told that it had gotten down to 34 degrees last night.

“Not unusual,” the gentleman sitting next to us said. “Last week it got down to 28 degrees. Welcome to the mountains!”

We did have a great night’s sleep with the brook gurgling by. We headed on to a campground called Lubrecht. We were advised at the restaurant that this was a big fishing week and many campgrounds could be full. In light of that, I tried to call and reserve a spot at Lubrecht’s but no cell service so we’ll just have to take our chances. We were also told that just outside of Lincoln was one of the largest jerky manufacturing plants and there was a trading post attached. It was an interesting place to visit. We stopped there, and found that to be true. We stocked up on jerky, a good riding snack and bought Tai a sweatshirt in case of more cool weather.

Today, we again had some headwind but it was tolerable and we made reasonable time. We stopped for lunch at Trixie’s Café and Bar in Ovando, about half way along on the ride. The scenery is beautiful here in the mountains, but, of course we are going up and down constantly.

We arrived a Lubrecht’s only to find it almost deserted except for a large group of campers who called themselves the Barons of “something” Keep. This is a group who practice medieval martial arts. They were having some sort of rally that evening at this campground. We inquired as to who to secure a campsite but no one really knew. I called the number from a phone in the camp but just an answering machine. We were just about to become squatters, when a lady pulled up in a truck. She was a caretaker of the campground and took our $5.00 and gave us permission to camp. There are flush toilets and hot showers, but no electricity. It is situated in the middle of pine forest and she just said find a spot to set up your tent anywhere you want. We talked to the “Barons” and they all warned us that they planned a big campfire that night and it might be loud and boisterous at times. We decided that we were probably tired enough to weather almost anything. We set up camp a little away from their planned bonfire. They were correct and so were we. They were loud but their loudness was overcome by our tiredness and it all worked out.

Student question: The past 3 nights have been very clear. I have noticed that I can see roughly twice as many stars out here than I can back in Indiana. What are 2 reasons why this is true?