TransAm Day #46 Dillon, MT - Wisdom, MT
TransAm Day #46
July 11, 2018
Dillon, MT - Wisdom, MT
74 Miles
Ride Time 6:08 Hours
Tour Total Miles 3316
I slept very well last night on the floor of a stained glass studio in Dillon, MT. Larry and his wife Lois were our gracious Warm Showers hosts. Warm Showers is an organization that links touring cyclists with places to stay for the night. Larry and Lois are huge cycling advocates. Larry crossed the country with his son in 2005. He is active locally and statewide promoting bike trails and places for cyclists to stay. Larry is a retired physics teacher. He and Lois moved to Dillon several years ago and built a house on a large plot of land outside of town. Larry now makes and teaches stained glass art. He met us in front of the Dillon IGA with his pick-up truck. His place was five miles off route, up in the hills.
We talked for hours out on Larry’s back porch. He had physics in common with Scott, and shared glass art with me. We learned so much about the area. For instance, Beaverhead county is the largest county in the Continental U.S. It is larger than Rhode Island and New Hampshire combined. The local property taxes are high, but there is no sales tax. Generally there are no rules here. For example, Larry built his house with no oversight. The grass here is alfalfa, and it is used to feed cattle. The large rolls of hay we see along the road sell for $300. There are more cows than people in Montana. Ted Turner and David Letterman both have large ranches nearby. The average income is twenty four thousand dollars. Most people here live off the land, hunting and cutting firewood.
I got to see the Milky Way last night, in addition to Mars, Saturn, and the Big Dipper. It was spectacular!
This morning I took four ibuprofens instead of my usual two. Yesterday’s headwind really did it to me. After making us a delicious pancake breakfast, Larry and Lois dropped us off back at the IGA, and we continued on our way. I had two large climbs today. The first was Badger Pass, which was fourteen miles long and an 1800’ ascent. My left knee bothered me, and Scott beat me to the top.
Larry had told me about Bannack, Montana’s first gold rush town, which was now abandoned. I decided to take the four mile detour to check it out. Unlike Virginia City, it hadn’t been restored and was a bit creepy inside the dilapidated buildings. I got an idea of what life was like here in the late nineteenth century. There was a school house, a Masonic hall, a hotel, a general store, and a saloon, in addition to about twenty houses.
I was now about an hour behind Scott and Eileen, and had another pass to climb. Big Hole pass was thirteen miles long and a 1500’ ascent. My legs were feeling stronger by this point. I caught up with Scott and Eileen in Jackson, where the map had promised us a restaurant and food. Unfortunately everything was closed. I was starving. I rode through the big Hole valley to Wisdom. This is where Lewis and Clark crossed the Continental Divide.
Coming into Wisdom I had a slight headwind, and was only able to average thirteen miles an hour. The bugs were bad, and I had to keep my mouth shut. I was glad to have wide sunglasses to protect my eyes. Larry had told me that the bugs would be bad in Wisdom. It’s lower than Dillon with more moisture. Snowcapped mountains could be seen to the north and to the west. I saw my first Bike Route 76 sign since Colorado, and passed dozens of large wooden ramp structures in the fields that are called beaver slides, which are used to bale hay. I heard that it could get down to thirty five degrees tonight.
Tonight was Eileen’s Birthday and we were excited about dinner at The Crossing in Wisdom. We went straight there and ordered a round of beer. Our waitress was extremely unfriendly, yet we all did our best to cajole her. We had a fantastic meal. A couple of east bound cyclists whom we had met back in Jackson joined us. After our pie, while settling up the tab, Eileen asked our waitress what the problem was. The woman replied that cyclists never leave good tips. Woah! I've left twenty percent tips all across the country. We were upset. Eileen complained to the owner, and we all gave our waitress a bad tip. We wrote on our receipts, ‘worst service of the tour’.
We went across the street to the Antler Saloon, to continue Eileen’s birthday celebration. Something odd had transpired, and the bartender refused to serve us. We now found ourselves banned from the only establishments in town. The next town was thirty eight miles away and it was getting late. Apparently the kitchen staff from The Crossing had run across the street and told the bartender not to serve us. Scott and I waited outside, while Eileen was somehow able to explain our side of the story. The bartender knew the waitress and agreed that she could sometimes be unpleasant. Apparently, a lot of cyclists who have traveled through Wisdom have behaved poorly. We now had to be on our best behavior.
We bantered with the locals at the bar, who were somewhat suspicious of Easterners. This being Trump country, we avoided politics and joked about our differences. They ended up buying us several rounds of drinks. One of the gentlemen digs ditches for underground cable lines. My recollections of the end of the evening are a little hazy. Eileen and Scott went to one of the men's homes to take a shower. I had a hard time finding the American Legion Memorial Park, and had to be led the way by a local in a pick-up truck. I set up my tent in complete darkness. Scott and Eileen never found the park.
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