Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Changing Our Schedule Based on the Wind

     The winds on the plains of northern Montana are powerful, and have led to a minor modification in our schedule. After our "terrible, horrible, ..." day biking into an easterly wind on Monday, the wind shifted to westerly on Tuesday, so that we had a pleasant 72 mile ride from Malta to Glasgow with the wind behind us. Our plans, and hotel reservations, called for a rest day in Glasgow followed by a 50 mile ride to Wolf Point on Thursday. However, the weather forecast called for a moderate easterly wind (8-13 mph) on Wednesday and a very strong easterly wind (20-25 mph) on Thursday, so we chose to ride from Glasgow to Wolf Point on Wednesday and shift our rest day to Thursday in Wolf Point.
     Most of our Wednesday ride was in the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, where the town of Wolf Point is located. Though in a reservation, the population of Wolf Point is approximately equally divided between Native Americans and whites. The town is quite pleasant and our hotel is very nice. For dinner we enjoyed the local fish, walleye, excellently prepared at the restaurant in our hotel.
     We got special news at our morning break today: Nicky (Carol's daughter) got accepted into the University of Vermont Medical School! Although she has already been accepted to other schools, she was hoping to get into UVM based on her positive feelings about the school at the time of her interview in December.


The very strong wind against us (click to view)

Entering the Fort Peck Reservation

Scenes from our late morning break on Wednesday:

Down on the side of a drainage ditch, to escape the wind



Recovering from riding into the wind



Pretty cool with shades and doo-rag