Mutiny on the Bikeride

So several days ago we rode through Glacier National Park. It was perhaps my favorite riding day yet.

We spent the night in St. Mary's, a small tourist village on the southeastern side of the park. We stayed at the KOA campsite, which could be described as luxurious given the amount of amenities to be found there. Upon arrival, we hung out in the beautiful visitor's center. Sharon and I then went out to the hot tub and enjoyed the impressive views of the Rockies while the tub jets massaged our sore muscles. When we finally made it to the campsite, imagine our surprise when we discovered the whole place was covered with wireless. That right there was an amenity we'd been deprived of throughout the majority of Montana's churches.

Anywho, we set up our tents. We were pretty well assured that there would be no storms (and thankfully, Murphey's Law cut us a break; we remained dry throughout the night). However the winds which had dogged us on the bikes all day (terrible headwinds) never died down. Jessie and I opted to stand by the tent we had set up and sleep in it. Now this tent was massive. So tall and wide was it, I would not be surprised to learn it's designer had done ship sails before going into camping equipment. All night the tent was rocked and buffetted by the wind, leaving Jessie and I (the only ones in this six-sleeper) waking up to find the tent's sides on top of us.

J-Muf had the right idea all along. Muffin literally took one of our tarps, folded it in half, weighed it down with rocks, propped up the insides, and slept in the crevice. It sounds complicated, but it was really just a glorified tarp burrito. A burrito made of J-Muffin filling.

So the major issue with Glacier was the times in which we were able to ride through the park. On a certain, unknown stretch of road, bikes were not allowed to ride from the hours of 11-4. Long story short, we had it in our minds that one either had to bike 50 miles before 11 or 66 miles after 4 (this didn't end up being the case, but it's the Park Service, of course things would way more complicated than they needed to be). So 9 of us decide to wake up at the buttcrack of dawn to get the 50 done before 11 a.m. Normally this wouldn't be an issue for anyone in the group, but we still faced killer winds and had to climb Logan's Pass through the park, a 6600-ft. climb.

Waking up early that morning was the best decision I've made all trip. We were face-to-face with the breathtaking Rockies as the sun rose behind us. In the begining, the mountains were bathed with red light and the water (we passed two major lakes going up the pass) reflected the early morning sun. Jessie and I got some spectacular photos. The other benefit to riding through the gates at 6:15 was the fact that the park service wasn't up yet: no $12 entrance fee. Take that, NPS.

It was about 20 miles to the top of the pass. The first 14 miles wasn't bad, we were climbing slightly, but as we followed the two lakes inward, the rise wasn't great. The last 6 miles were legit. It was a steady climb, but I was so pumped, it didn't feel like much. I think the coolest part was seeing the mountains around me and looking below, knowing I had climbed all that way...on my bike. Shazaam!

When Jessie and I reached the top, we went to the 'lodge.' NPS, once again confirming their status as tools, didn't open the lodge until 9. Then they tried to tell us the bathroom wasn't a 'visitor's area.' Okay, lady, I just climbed up your mountain on a bike and am freezing my butt off. Your 'center' isn't open, so if me and my friends want to hundle in the bathroom, you better damn well let us. Fortunately, I had Christopher there so I didn't have to say this to her: he did that himself.

From there, for fear of getting us kicked out of the park as well as to avoid hypothermia, Jessie and I got our pictures and started heading down the pass. I was a little shocked to hear Jessie freaking out about the cold. Fortunately, our relationship is such that we can comfortably call each other out on stuff (Mom: we're both 8s). So I told her to suck it up and go; we were going to be fine once we got a couple thousand feet lower. Unfortunately, the other side of Logan's Pass was quite a bit longer. It was 12 miles of 6% grade. Normally, I would be ecstatic at this opportunity...but I was freezing. Coming up the pass, we had gotten all sweaty under our long-sleeves. Then we went over the top, stopped pedaling, and had intense winds for 12 miles down.

Now realistically, I knew I was fine. When skiing, I often start freezing once I'm on the lift. On the bike it was really no different. I considered the possibility that my hands were getting frostbite, but I figured my exposure wasn't prolonged enough to land me with any serious problems, such as lost extremities.

Jessie however is from Miami. Never having skied or done anything of a similar vein, she really was freaking out. She told me later she was thankful Anson (from Alaska) would be at the bottom to help her with any mild hypthermia she might develop. I know Mr. and Mrs. Pouchet are awaiting the priceless video I have of Jessie stopped halfway down at Christopher's flat tire. Don't worry; I should have the video up later tonight.

Later we made it out of Glacier by the appointed time and stopped by the town of West Glacier for lunch. As fate would have it, we wound up sitting next to the H4H Director in Whitefish (where we were to spend the night). He had never heard of us, but when he found out who we were and the fact that we had a day off the next day in Whitefish, he solicited us to come help on his build.

We spoke vaguely of our interest, but I think the importance of our day off was perhaps not emphasized enough...? Then he bought our lunches; we were between a rock and a hard place.

Hours later, after dinner in Whitefish and the return of the rest of the riders (and this is around 9 pm after a long day for the other 21 riders), Christopher decides we are all going to the build the next day. This idea was met with some major resistance, to say the least. Many were perhaps willing to go to the build, but the notion that we were suddenly forced to forgo one of our precious days off for something completely unplanned was out of the question.

Things worked themselves out however after a slight mutiny. The build became optional and Christopher, utilizing his guilt trip skills likely learned in Catholic school (they start us young, you know), managed to rassle up about 13 people to go and put in a half day. I went, which I wound up being glad for as I was able to experience the wonder that was Dottie, a retiree builder. Dottie wasn't the site manager, but she may as well have been given her ability to put people to work. Oh, and let's not forget her precision. Dottie was big on making the caulking underneath the eaves (because people will notice that, for sure) blend into the wood grain 'like a bird feather.' Isaiah, who was not doing his correctly, got chewed out, majorly. "Have you ever looked at a bird's feather?!" Dottie exclaimed. "That looks like a rat's tail!" After some profuse apologizing, Isaiah was asked to find something else to do. Shazaam!

The rest of my day in Whitefish was a bust though. I fell asleep at the gym watching the Olympics then went to the library where every skater in town had decended upon the computers, rendering me unable to update the blog :-(

We did go out to watch the Olympics after dinner however, where Jessie graciously explained all the inner workings of the gymnastics world. We didn't even need the commentary (the volume was muted, no closed captioning either), we had Jessie there.

Which, btw, reminds me: we have two riders on the trip who have done some pretty high-profile sporting events. Jessie has attended international competitions representing Trinadad in gymnastics; Kate is a world-champion rower. I didn't even find this out until the Olympics came on; you two rock.

Yesterday we had a fabulous ride into Eureka. Revved off a fabulous salad and cappucino (also having bummed onion rings and milk shakes off fellow diners), I hit up the local thrift stores and wound up with western gold: a cowgirl outfit. An impromptu hoe down followed that evening's dinner. Pictures to come.

Today was the ride into Libby and we are currently staying in the local Christian school strewn with scary extremist posters. I'll write some down to share.

Once again, thanks to everyone who sent mail. Ellen, I'm getting your letter out soon; my life hasn't been my own much recently. Pictures and videos hopefully later tonight; get hyped for some footage from the "Montana Vortex" and other roadside attractions.

Sorry, one last video!

And my favorite video of them all:

And the top assassin is....

Anson. So here's what went down from the previous post to now. As I was typing up my blog, Bobby comes by with Jessie in tow. Jessie runs into the library, I freak out and run to the back where I am killed. Jessie and I go to the front to plan her new strategy when Anson comes from the back door of the library and kills Jessie on the spot. Now it's just Anson and Bobby. We all return to the church, Bobby is no where to be found. Anson goes out again through the left. Jessie goes to the right into order to help Bobby. Bobby, just down the lane, sees Jessie who he does not know is dead, runs to the left (where Anson is) and Anson ambushes him. Great game, everyone. Except Derek. Stop preventing me from leaving the library when you died two days ago. Once your dead, pick up your corpse and get out of my damn way.

Not much to report over the past few days. We have had some amazing fodder to laugh over at the past couple churches. First was the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Glasgow. A typical barn church, ELCG had an amazing library. Amongst the items: Witchcraft Repacked (a fervent lambaste against the Harry Potter series); Russia, WWIII, and Armageddon; and What Every Woman Wishes Her Husband Knew. The Harry Potter video was the best though as one of the arguments against the book was the use of phallic symbols, such as a broomstick. Flash to a scene from the Harry Potter movie in which everyone in the scene yells, "Up!" and the broomsticks levitate off the ground. Then flash to some home video from actual witch ceremonies in which women are dancing around the room with broomsticks between their legs. Priceless.

Then at the Catholic Center in Malta was the video "Survival Guide: Teen Crisis." It was actually a whole series, but we put in the one about relationships with the opposite sex. A terribly awkward video. Also in the Catholic center were miles worth of sappy quotes. The best of them were the painted notes on all mirrors, bathroom stalls, and clocks. On the clocks were written, "Time for God." On the girls' room mirror was written, "You are beautiful no matter what you look like." And the note in the boys' bathroom: "God wants you to flush."

Then last night we found another game at the Methodist Church in Chinook: Teen Choices. The game was a variety of cards, each with a dilemma. You were supposed to choose from another card an approach with how to deal with the problem. I won't go into any more, just look below at videos.

Shout-outs: Thanks Mrs. Roi and Mr. Lee, I enjoy the comments. Thanks also to Mrs. Pinero, we had a lot of fun with the Pirates of the Caribbean tattoos (I stuck Orlando Bloom on the side of my mouth so I could lick him whenever I want). And last, but certainly not least, Ellen Mail!!! The group loved the song, we're going to do a rendition on the camera soon and post it on the site.

Photos and vids, shazaam!

A Trojan horse? No! A Norwegian Horse!

At the Scandinavian Heritage Museum. A massive troll is trying to graze my boob.

A Dead End for Bingo.

Craig is getting really close...

Not winning.

Licking Orlando.

The Game of Teen Choices

The Wilds of Montana

Teen Choices!

Wild, Wild West

The game of assassins continues...but not for long.

Currently I am in the library in Chester, MT waiting for the showdown to occur. Currently, Anson, Jessie, Bobby and I are still left in the game. The stakes are high, all of us being very competitive. The other night I went through with my plan to throw Bobby's sleeping bag into the front yard. However, as I ran around like a banshee gloating, Bobby made his way around the back and amry crawled out to his stuff under the cover of darkness. The next time I looked out the window, his stuff was gone. Mission failed. As yesterday passed however, more casualties amassed, bringing the death count to 26. The four of us who did remain today then made the brilliant decision to ride together. While we could stop, we were forced to straddle our bikes. This meant that when Jessie (who has me as a mark) got off her bike to pee (Anson, who has Jessie, was not there at this point, so she was not in danger of being killed), I just decided to drop trow (still straddling my bike) and pee along the side of the highway. Jessie then turned around and took photos.

Right now, we're in town and determined to have this cat-and-mouse game out before dinner. Which is perfect because Chester is basically an old railroad town in the midst of the plains. A more perfect location for a showdown cannot exist. I'll probably go down, but so help me, I am taking Bobby with me.

Okay, gtg.

Don't get off the bike!

First of all, I would like to direct all my readers to Craig's blog, craigacrossamerica.blogspot.com. Therein is contained an apostrophe to the Wind. It is brilliant, but what's more, it has thus far been effective. Since its writing two days ago, there have been no and/or tail winds.

Now a more pressing matter: everyone's unwillingness to dismount from their bikes. Several reasons exist as to why all Bike and Build members are inclined to stay firmly planted on or over their bikes:

1. Assassins. A game played where each person is given a 'mark.' The point is to kill before killed until you are the last person left standing. Once you 'kill' your mark, they give you the name of the person they have to kill, who then becomes your next mark. In our version, 'killing' consists of hitting the mark with a clean sock while not on the bike or in the church. This has caused massive paranoia. Today people literally packed a lunch and ate it on the bike so as to not have to stop at lunch. I'm at the library right now, constantly checking to see who comes in so as to make an escape if needed. My mark was bragging last night that he/she would do whatever it took to be the last one standing. But I have a brilliant plan: throw his/her sleeping bag outside tonight to see if he/she will run out to get it. If he/she does, he/she is dead. If not, he/she is without their sleeping bag. I'll laugh uproariously either way. Shazaam.

2. Mosquitoes. I swept today, which sometimes calls for slow going. But since there was a tailwind, the slowest I went was like, 11 mph. You would think this would be enough to outfly mosquitoes. Nope. Not a chance. I was literally getting bit on my bike riding 14 mph. Don't ask me to describe the madness that occurred once I stopped to help Michelle with her flat tire. (*note: a small ways outside Malta, our current town, was recorded as the highest density mosquito population in the world).

Ahh, Pen and Ian walked in! Paranoia requires me to flee!

Hurricane Theodore

So we were staying in Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Mind you, this is the Park Service, so everything is ridiculously overpriced, as per the $150 fee we had to pay to enter the park and spend the night. Oh, and let's not forget that despite the massive fee, the Park Service was not about to do us any favors. Case in point: they warn us about the bison since bison are pretty freaked out when it comes to runners and cyclists. But when we proceed to ride down the road to the campsite, we come across a masive heard with calves. We call the Park Service to come and help us out a little (I'm paying $150 to stay here, you asses) by driving through, thus clearing the road. Does this happen? Of course not. We're told to wait.

Okay, so that night I'm sleeping in my gerry-rigged tent because the administration can't stand to spend money even on the stuff we need. We don't even have tent stakes; we had to use our utensils to secure the tents down. WE HAD TO TAKE THE THINGS WE USE TO EAT AND PUT THEM IN THE GROUND FOR THESE TENTS. Then there are missing tent poles and rain flies, but whetever, we went with it.

So that night I go to bed with J-Muf and Pen. We didn't ut our rainfly on because it was going to be hot and we pretty much knew that if it rained, we were pretty much screwed, rain fly or no. Next thing I know, it's 3 a.m. and I wake up to hear the sounds of Anson and J-Muf attempting to put the rain fly on. It's windy and I can see the lightning flashes through the tent. Then comes the patter of rain. Then I look out the window of the tent. I was met with the funniest sight I may have seen yet on this trip. Every tent within sight is literally being flattened by the wind. When the lightning flashes (every other second), you can just see the rain coming down. It was something out of a movie. And just the futility of that moment made me laugh, so hard.

Later, I heard an account from Maki, who had slept in the van. Around 3:15 she woke up with the other people inside and decided to go out to see if the tent campers were ok. All they could hear above the wind was the sound of my hysterical laughter.

J-muf re-enters the tent and meanwhile Pen starts holding town the stakes because the tent is in fear of collapsing at this point. Pen starts screaming wildly, "We've got to stay! We're not going to the bathroom (several hundred feet away, where I'm sure about half the group was sheltered at this point)." Then I looked out the window again to see tree branches start falling. That was when I heard Jessie, several tents away yell, "Tornado!" I thought, "We are going to die if we stay in this tent." Then I started laughing some more.

Finally, I hear over wind Joy's voice yelling, "Everyone to the bathroom!" So the guys in the tent and I gathered up everything we could carry and made a mad dash toward the restroom. We made it inside to find about 20 others. In a flurry of excitment, we began recounting all that had gone on in our perspective tents and also wondering about the other 10. Reed however had other things on his mind. Silent the entire time, Reed said during a conversation lull, "I wonder what the buffalo do." Are you kidding me? There are soaking people crammed in a bathroom at 3:30 in the morning, and you have THAT on your mind? Who cares what the buffalo are doing, they deal with this all the time; they have shelter by the rocks for goodness sake.

So eventually the group split up and some, including myself, went around the building to the men's restroom. There, we spread out a tent and some thermarests on the floor and got some sleep. Surprisingly, depite the fact that my head was on the bare, dirty floor and that I was about 6 inches away from Craig's butt, I got really good sleep.

At 6:30 we were awoken and began to survey the damage. Only one tent still stood. They looked like fallen, bloody soldiers as they lay on the plain in small lakes of water. Branches were everywhere. Most stuff fortunately had been put in the trailer the night before and Anson and friends had made a point to put the bikes under the awning of the restroom before the storm set in.

My favorite part was when the Park Ranger came out. He literally got out of his car, proceeded to check on the RV (because yeah, I'm sure THEY had a trying night in their portable house), say to us, "Rough night, huh?", and get back in his car to drive off. I will abstain from making any further comments about the Park Service; the use of expletives would not be appropriate.

But everyone was in a great mood and a lot of laughs were shared over our feeble breakfast of cold cereal.

Favorite quotes:

"We just spent the most money we've ever spent on accomodations this trip and Shawn slept face down next to a urinal." -unknown

"Tornado!" -Jessie

"Well that certainly wasn't the first time I've woken up half-naked next to a toilet." -Christopher

"I opened the door and literally the only thing I could hear over the wind was your laughter." -Maki

BINGO!

Coming into the city of Minot, Christopher and I witnessed a beacon: Bingorama. Actually, it was just a billboard for Bingorama, but nonetheless a beacon.

Then, as we rolled into the city proper, we saw a giant beaver. Apparently the college, Minot State University, thought it would be a smart plan to hold an admissions recruitment event in a parking lot. In the city where the university was located. And not advertise it. So we just popped on by and they literally threw us a crapload of food. Then the admissions advisor tells us of more bingo on the other side of town. BINGO! Shazaam.

So the next day we had off, the majority of which I spent writing that tome which was my previous post. That evening, Christopher, Kristen, Craig, Kate, Shawn, Jessie and I stormed Bingorama. I knew it was going to be priceless once I saw the building: a massive warehouse with a parking lot full of Buicks outside.

We walk in to find the most drab scene ever: about 150 bingo zombies mindlessly blotting bingo cards as an announcer monotonously rattled off numbers in the background. We were going to have a great time.

Basically, we were the boisterous upstarts that were actually excited about the bingo prospects. In the first round, Craig’s card was doing smashingly (and a prize of $5700 was up for grabs) and all our hearts were racing wildly. It was a lot more exciting than one might expect: probably the biggest adrenalin rush you can get without ever leaving your seat. Maybe that explains the demographic.

In the midst of all this, Christopher and Jess were getting rather competitive. Why, I have no clue considering the game of Bingo requires no skill whatsoever. That is of course if you don’t count staying awake, something I fear some people in the bingo hall were unable to do. We couldn’t really understand it, no one yelled, “BINGO!” Even at the end, when a woman won $1700, it was this half-hearted mumble. If one of our group had won that, we would have screamed, torn off our shirts, and run around the room. The same applies to winnings of $50.

In bigger news however, we are facing a real-life costume contest. Our van broke today, leaving us to forage out on the road for lunch and without any of our stuff upon arrival at the church. I ate it up, frequenting the local rummage sale for clothing to change into once showers were done. Right now I am sporting a massive Indian horse sweatshirt and a pair of baggy grey shorts. What’s best about the sweatshirt is that it doubles as a towel And a sleeping bag. I am set for the night because about ten minutes ago, the news got worse: the transmission on the van is broken. At least 3 days for the fix-up. SHAZAAM! The leaders will figure out something of course, but right now I’m loving the limbo we all now face.

Well, I have to sign off since I am starving and need to try some frybread. Apparently we’re on a Sioux Indian Reservation, so I need to see the sights.