Cycloops

Montana facilitates my pursuit of hardcore-ness. I just built a crazy huge fire on which I shall, immediately following this blog post, cook a steak until it turns dark purple and only moos a little. It helped my image that I did this while wearing hiking boots and long underwear (which was short-sleeved, so technically I have to wonder if it qualifies as short underwear).

Our journey began early yesterday morning – at 6am for me and 4am for the Judge and SB, who drove to Atlanta before our 8:30am flight. Yesterday morning was probably the first time I felt lucky in only needing to ride MARTA to reach the airport.

Two flights and another car ride later, through all of which SB slept, we arrived in a tiny section of Whitefish, Montana. A little background information on Whitefish: it lies an hour south of Canada and functions as a resort town in the winter and the month of July (their summer). When my sister told her high school roommate, who happens to hail from Montana herself, that we planned to vacation in Whitefish, she asked, “Why?”

Interestingly, most Whitefish residents also ask us “Why Whitefish?” in the first three sentences of any conversation. This includes, but is not limited to: bartenders, guys working at cycling stores, bakery owners, little girls walking through town with their father, the pharmacist at Walgreen’s where we stopped to pick up an emergency inhaler for SB, and random people who run after us when we exit one outdoor adventure store to convince us to visit theirs.

Montana R happened to run after us as we left a cycling-store-slash-coffee-shop. I stopped because a huge black dog bounded after him and I think if my personality had a sign it would read, “Will brake for dogs”. Montana R insisted we follow him into his fly-fishing store, and since the dog went I did too, and since I went the Judge and SB did three.

We don’t fly-fish, but the store was notably cool and Montana R proved full of helpful advice about local watering holes and bike routes. In what I’ve come to learn is true Montana kindness, upon learning that we might want to take our newly-rented bikes up to Glacier National Park tomorrow, Montana R immediately offered to loan us his bike rack.

Of course we refused, because in the East, even in the South, people don’t just do that. Montana R insisted, though, adding that he would meet us at The Great Northern Brewing Company in a few hours and buy us a beer.

We’d been in Whitefish for only two hours.

At around 7:30 we met Montana R at Great Northern and plopped down around a bar table with the loaned bike rack on the booth beside us. He and another friend pulled out maps and I jotted down notes on their suggestions for how and where to hike and bike Glacier. Eventually we stumbled on weary legs to a quick supper and drove back to our cabin in the woods in 20-hour-day-inflicted somnambulant silence. Montana R left a message concerning his disappointment that SB and I did not return to Great Northern for pool and more drinks.

Montana is like a mix between camp and the movie “A River Runs Through It”. This morning we climbed out of bed early and outfitted ourselves for a day of biking (the Judge refused to let me bring my long-time helmet because it happens to be duct-taped together, and SB decided to purchase a pair of biking shorts) before taking off on a 25-mile trail around Whitefish Lake. At home we usually ride bikes with big, cushiony seats, and all evening we’ve been taking care to sit down gently. Tomorrow we plan to ride 30 miles to one of the more famous peaks in Glacier. I foresee a necessity for serious use of the resort hot tub tomorrow evening – I’ll just stand in the middle of it.