Day 1--Lewistown, MT to Denton, MT--39.84 miles

Our first biking day and I am feeling it. The 40 miles took it out of me today. We set off this morning at 9:00 which isn't too bad on the first day of eating breakfast, packing up, and taking off. The morning weather was calm and cloudy which made for some pleasant biking. By noon, however, the sun found us and also the wind sneaked up on us too. We encountered one pretty challenging hill of about 4 miles in length that took about 45 minutes to scale. It came towards the end of the ride and really sapped my energy, but we made it. We are updating from the library in Denton and when we finish here we will go find the city park to camp for the night. We were told at the local cafe that the pool is open for night swimming tonight at the park. More about that when we update next time.

-clarkwheel




^agreed^

-spokewrench


Today's Student Question: Riding today we saw (and climbed) a few mountain ranges. Excluding the Judith and Rocky Mountains, name two more mountain ranges near us. They are small and may not be found on all maps, but they are beautiful. Find the answer and email it to us: lewisCLARK.06@gmail.com


--- STATS ---

Distance: 39.84 miles
Highest Speed: 27.7 mph
Average Speed: 10.1 mph
Cycling Time: 3 hours 55 min
Wind: Cross Wind 5-15 mph
Weather: Party Cloudy AM, Sunny PM. Hot, about 95 degrees.

Finally Arrived...

We have arrived at the beginning point of this year's tour. The major accomplishments today were flying from Billings to Lewistown via a local airline (see today's question). A most interesting flight, by the way. Accomplishment number two was retrieving our bikes, rebuilding the trailers, as well as reloading them. We are camped at Mountain Acres RV Park. We are having supper at the Yogo Inn, mainly because of the good food and a wireless internet connection (we ate here last year). Our only mileage today was biking around Lewistown, just a couple miles. Tomorrow we begin the biking portion of the trip, 40 miles to Denton, MT. It is unlikely we will have an internet connection for a few days, but when we update, you will be notified.

Student Question:
The airline we flew today is based in Montana; with a name on Montana license plates as well. What is the name of the airline?

Email the answers to: lewisCLARK.06@gmail.com

The Adventure Begins....

<-- One of many planes we rode in today

I learned many years ago in math class that the closest distance between two points is a straight line. Why then did the most inexpensive flight ticket we could find take us from Fort Wayne, IN to Chicago, IL to Dallas/Fort Worth, TX to Denver, CO to Billings, MT, a flight mileage of over 2000 miles? That was our route today as we made our way to our stopping point last summer in Lewistown, MT. We will take the last flight up to Lewistown tomorrow and start bicycling on Thursday, June 29th. Everything went well today...at first. When we arrived in Dallas/Fort Worth we found that the next
United flight on our itinerary was delayed. This meant that we would miss our connection to Billings. To make a loooong story short, we found another flight on Frontier Airlines to Denver. The only problem was that this flight arrival time was perilously close to the departure time of the Billings' flight. After running through the Denver airport, we found that the Billings' flight was also delayed so we ended up having to wait for some time to go on to Billings. We finally arrived in our hotel room at 3:15 a.m. Indiana time nearly 14 hours from when we left Fort Wayne.
Our bikes and trailers along with the stove and fuel tanks preceed us. We sent those ahead to the High Plains Bike and Ski shop where Mark, the owner, has them assembled and ready for our use. We will have a reunion with our bikes and trailers tomorrow afternoon.
The weather in Billings is clear with a promise of a 94 degree high temp tomorrow. Billings is located in the southcentral part of Montana at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. When we look to the west, we can see a fairly high bluff (they call the "rim") from the hotel parking lot. Judging from the Billings Gazette, the "Magic City" as they call themselves, is an up and coming community in Montana. It even has its own professional minor league baseball team. This brings us to the question of the day....What is the name of Billings' minor league baseball team. Tune up your internet research skills and see if you can find the answer to that question. If you find it, email it to , or if you are on our email notification list, you may just reply to that email. Good luck!
-Clarkwheel

2006 BEGINS!!!

We leave Indiana the 27th. First biking day is June 29. Stay tuned and watch the blog for the day's journal entry!


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