Darby to Wisdom

65 miles. There are enemies, and there are frenemies. The sun was an enemy today.

Even with a million sun block applications today, my skin burned like hell; I cursed the sun all day. Hopefully it doesn't cause me to wrinkle before my time, I've never spent this kind of time, day after day, in the hot, hot sun. And Wtf, Montana is far away enough from the equator that it shouldn't be 90 degrees!

We stopped for lunch in Sula and only made it maybe another 7 miles before we went looking for cold water. We turned towards a camp ground, never found it, and ended up on a gravel road that partly paralleled the road we turned off from. We were hot, tired, and slightly grouchy.

A beautiful log home popped out from the thicket of trees. I knocked on the door a few times, to no avail. Sigh. After pacing around and deciding what to do, I heard a man say, "Can I help you?" We were saved! He and his wife and 2 pre teen boys came down to greet us and bring ice water. Before long, we were sitting on their cushy leather couch eating gigantic bowls of vanilla ice cream. It was absolutely what we needed to cool down. They were intrigued with our trip and asked an assortment of questions. If they had offered us to sleep in their brand new, several million dollar home, I would have graciously accepted. Also, and more importantly, they contributed to my 1 of the usual 2 ice cream consumptions per day. The second ice cream came after dinner in the form of a brownie sunday. I've had a brownie sunday just about daily.

After battling severe heat, head winds and cross winds, exhaustion won and we called it a day in Wisdom. McKinley and I stumbled into a bar, guzzled a beer, and chowed down like wild beasts. We ran into Lauren and Pete, cyclists we met at the ACA in Missoula, so we all shared a dinner table. It was great to chat with them again, they are hilarious and play well off of each other.

We're pulling for a century tomorrow, including 2 passes, so let's hope the heat and sun are not ridiculous.