74 miles
Brush Lake, MT
70 miles
Culbertson, MT
50 miles
We are officially West! Yesterday we crossed into Montana and said goodbye to North Dakota (good riddance! I'd had enough of your evil headwinds and scary roads). Now we are in Mountain Standard Time... One time zone from being home!
Powers Lake was a tiny, tiny town of 253 people. The ride into "town" had literally nothing. Not even a gas station. No Internet service, no cell phone reception, no shops, not a lot of people. I marveled at the remoteness of North Dakota and how far away I felt from everything. The desolation of it all helped the conversation flow between riders during the ride. I had some of the best conversations and we worked hard to make the ride as interesting as possible. We had a lot of fun climbing haystacks and traversing the most amazing sunflower fields.
Brush Lake's ride featured crossing state lines, which is always exciting. For the most part, the ride was barren of life, but mile 62 brought the town of Grenora, with a delightful cafe, post office and that's about it. But to us, it seemed epic, and we feasted on the first non-pb&j food we'd had in a couple of days. (food is quite sparse these days. Hopefully we find a grocery store soon).
The last part of the ride led us to Brush Lake State Park, where we camped for the night. Unfortunately I don't have pictures, but the day was spent swimming in the beautiful lake and enjoying the isolation of having the campsite to ourselves. It was also a unique experience because I've never gone camping in a prairie before. The absence of trees made shade difficult in the day, but extra special at night. Laying in my tent and staring up at the stars in the sky, it felt real- we were in Montana, Big Sky Country.
This morning's ride was short and sweet. A tailwind carried us most of the way to town as we breezed over the foothills. The town of Culbertson is tiny, but we all love it for having Internet, cell phone service and people walking around in real cowboy boots.
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