Day 143: 78.16 miles, 7:19 hours, St Mary (Red Eagle RV Park), MONTANA
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Another shitty, boring windy day. Would have been lovely if I was heading east with the wind.

I spent the day in a trance. Instead of watching the road ahead of me, I watched the reflection of the road, reflected onto my sunglasses, reflected into my helmet mirror. Kept me entertained for a few hours but left me with crossed-eyes.

They let me back into the USA, surprisingly. Was hoping to be in Glacier National Park tonight but riding with a constant side wind was too tiring.

Day 144: 108.1 miles, 8:26 hours, Stealth Camp (Big Fork National Campground)
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Ah… Today was the first enjoyable day of riding I've had for a very long time. I got up early and rode straight into the park, it was still cold and wet but the scenery was fantastic. I eventually got to the summit of the road and was then treated to a 12 mile downhill ride through some of the most fan-fucking-tastic scenery ever. Was treated to another bear sighting. I've got that shit-eating grin back on my face again.

Pulled into a closed National Park campground and treated myself to a 12" pizza from the store just outside. Convenience plus.

Day 145: 93.7 miles, 6:55 hours, Campground 10mi W of Ovando
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I was too lazy to set up my tent last night and instead just lay on the picnic table. It was an on and off sleep, I kept hearing noises down by the water but couldn't work out what it was. I had my alarm set for 6am but when it went off it was pitch black with the stars still out in force. Tried to sleep a bit more, but the 12" vegetarian pizza wanted out.

The ride along Highway 83 was quite pleasant, nothing special, just forest, but almost no traffic. Around lunchtime I stopped at Condon and ate two over-ripe bananas, an apple and a litre of chocolate milk. About ten minutes down the road I was feeling as high as a kite. My body felt numb and I had to concentrate on following the road's white line. It was great.

A guy at the store wearing coke bottle glasses noted that I was travelling alone, "That's a bit stupid isn't it?". I thought of a bunch of good things I could have said to him afterwards, but unfortunately not at the time.

Day 146: 151.71 miles, 8:53 hours, Three Forks (KOA Campground)
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What a day of fabulous riding. It's amazing how the aversion of paying one's camping fees motivates one to start riding early. I was out of the campground by seven and didn't see the sun until 7:50am. A lot of small rolling hills but with a little tailwind I'd done fifty miles by 11am. After forty minutes of climbing, I hit my summit for the day; six thousand and something feet and about my fifth(?) crossing of the continental divide. Then a fabulous eight percent grade downhill almost all the way into Helena. I stopped for a quick thickshake and fries and was off again with more twenty mile per hour tailwinds. The skies had huge storm potential and looked very threatening but luckily not a drop of rain hit me. Just out of town, at the edge of an empty field, stood a black billboard with plain, white lettering:

"Is the road you're on taking you to my place?"

- God                

I thought it was something to do with safe driving or something. As I was swept past with the wind I looked at the back of it. Again; white lettering on an all black background:

"I don't doubt your existence"

- God                

Another shit-eating grin from me, and I gave the big guy in the sky a big thank you for the trip so far.

It wasn't long before I hit Townsend where I had planned to continue on with my good run and head east to a campground (winds were coming from the northwest). I stopped at the gas station to fill up on water but by the time I got outside again the wind was all over the place. I tried heading east out of town but had leaves blowing straight into my face and was almost careering into oncoming cars. At first I thought it was just turbulence from being amongst the town's buildings, but as I got to the edge of the town I was almost blown completely off my bike. The wind had almost reversed direction in just ten minutes.

Well...a change in wind direction calls for a change in plan. There was no way I was gonna struggle against ths headwind so late in the day. So I turned South and followed the wind. It was kind of like windsurfing; I just pointed the tyres in the right direction and the wind did the rest. Just before getting to the Interstate 90, on a downhill with the wind at my back, I reached my highest speed on this trip so far; 52 miles per hour (83km/h). Moments later, I got my first ever pinch flat; probably from rolling over gravel on a fully-loaded bike going 52 miles per hour.