Day 11 - Shelby to Havre + 30

Greetings from the plains of Montana.  Our morning started with me dropping the guys off at the starting point for the day (40 miles east of Shelby) - where I realized I had left my trip journal and maps in the restaurant where we had breakfast.  Made a u-turn and headed the 40 miles back to Shelby and retrieved the book.  Made another u-turn, meeting the cyclists 70 miles later.  Had a quick snack along side of US Hwy 2, then sent them on their way.   We met at the hotel a little after noon, had a 'cooler lunch' - then they were off again.  I spent the afternoon doing a little laundry and some reading.  Found a local quilt store and purchased a 'souvenir' :)

The first pix is the town of Havre - the largest town we have been in since enterning Montana!  A buffalo jump is the way the Native Americans 'harvested' buffalo - by rounding them up and forcing them to 'jump' over a cliff.  The 3rd photo is a pix from the top of the buffalo jump in Havre.

Notes from Tom:  Today was a good news/bad news day.  The good news is that it was the first day we've ridden in just shorts and short sleeved jerseys.  The bad news is that we rode 40 of our 90 miles into a fairly strong headwind.  The first 30 miles of the day was into a breeze, the next 40 into the wind, and the last 20 was still a little windy, but nothing like the middle 40.  According to mile markers on US Hwy 2, we're over 400 miles into Montana.  Last night I said we were approaching 800 miles for the trip, but I was overly optimistic--we were really only at 740--I didn't account for the weather induced short day we had in Glacier Park.  So tonight we're at about 830 miles.

On the wildlife front, in the last couple of days we've started seeing antelope.  Today I saw a really nice buck who crossed the road in front of me.  We also saw a pheasant driving back to Havre.

The micro brew tour has run into hard times.  Last night we barely found a place for dinner, and there were no beers, much less micro brews.  We had to drink our cooler beers--Sierra Torpedo and Dales Pale Ale--hard times.

Notes from Jerry:  The deer and antelope around here are easy to see and plentiful.  One time Tom had his head down and was grinding away in the lead and a doe with a fawn crossed the highway on the opposite side of the road heading to our side of the road, no more than 30 feet in front of Tom - he almost hit them and barely lifted his head in time to see them jump a fence. 
We all missed our families and hometown 4th of July parades and fireworks shows - not much was going on in Shelby.  Where we are tonight, Havre, is a lot bigger and might have had something.  I'm sure we will hear a lot of leftover fireworks going off tonight because lots of fireworks are sold around here. Tomorrow is supposed to have tailwinds and fair skies (today was overcast) so we will see.  It is time to find ourselves a big dinner and bed!