Havre, MT

Was on the road this morning before 6AM. Made it to Havre MT...85 miles later, by 1230PM. Spending the evening at a Best Western in Havre. It was a hot early afternoon. Stopped in Chinook MT for breakfast around 11AM. Before entering the cafe the morning was cool with a great tailwind. Forty-five minutes later the weather changed. The temp was well into the 90s and the wind changed to a headwind. Tomorrow my goal is to make it to Shelby MT. I will be in the Glacier National Park area this weekend. The Rockies are looming.

My last entry was from Glasgow MT. Ginger and Aaron arrived around 2PM. We had a quick lunch and traveled (by truck) to the Fort Peck Reservoir. This area features the world's largest Earth dam...Which translates into a whole bunch of dirt. The dam looked like a giant dike. There is a road that crosses the dam...It was 3.8 miles across. If you find yourself in this area it is well worth your time to check it out. The dam features a free museum with dinosaurs and native American artifacts.

On July 4th I made it to Malta MT by 11AM. Ginger and Aaron met me for lunch there and were planning on going back to Billings afterward. It felt good to see familiar faces so I decided to call it a day and the Bryers gang decided to stay another evening with me. Glasgow to Malta was a little over 70 miles. After lunch we toured a dinosaur field station. The field station is where dinosaur bones are taken after being dug up. The staff at the field station cleans and preserves the bones. Malta is a town of just over 1000 people. The town has over 10 hotels/motels. Because this area of Montana is becoming a hotbed for dinosaur bone hunters the hotel rooms are often occupied by scientists from all over the world. Once again if you find yourself in this area, the field station is a must. The dinosaur displays were fantastic. We ended the evening by watching Malta's fireworks display with the locals. The event was quit amusing. The volunteer fire department was in charge of the event. We watched them down beer after beer an hour our leading up to the event. The fireworks were cool as we had great seats less than 50 yards from the launching area.

Over the past 4 days I've seen countless mule deer. Several times they have run across the road just a short distance from me. They are so close I can hear their hoofs click-clacking on highway. I've seen several crushed rattle snakes over the past week. Yesterday morning I saw a live one. It was sunning itself on the highway. As I approached it I thought it was a shredded tire. I turned around and took a great picture of it. I've also spotted several antelope.

Current stats:
Route miles complete: 3213.5
Miles peddled: 2994.18
Miles ahead of schedule: 686.3
Days ahead of schedule: 10.5