Walking around Jordan the Fire House door is open, loud music is playing and a lone man sits at a card table playing solitary. There is one grass fire rig inside, and the man talks about fire response inJordan. It reminds me of a hundred years ago with fire fighters sitting in front of fire stations filled with horses and steamers.
As we wake up it’s raining. We have an early breakfast at the cafe up the street. Since it’s raining there are 15 local men all sitting around drinking coffee. They warn us that the road to Circle is pretty bad, that in one spot it’s just one lane. One man says we should just lay low in Jordan and wait for the rain to quit. As we are leaving town we discover a flat on my trailer that we repair back in our room before riding off into the rain. The road is narrow enough that a couple of times we have to quickly get completely off the 2 lane road because there is traffic coming from both directions. Along with the rain there’s a tail wind that helps us along the great stretches of fast descents followed by slow climbs to get through the giant rolling hills. The ride really isn’t as bad as we’ve been told thanks to the wind and the cool weather.
When we get to Circle Montana we stop to eat at the only cafe that’s open, check into the only motel, and walk to the grocery store. There’s also a hardware store where we buy another tube for the trailer. As usual the people here are very friendly and like to let us know about the town. We meet one woman who says she moved here to Circle from Chicago four years ago, because it feels like home to her, she’s always felt like a cowgirl. To look at her you’d think she grew up on a ranch here.
This is our 24th day since we began pedaling, our 10th night in Montana. We rode 68 miles today, and about 1200 miles so far.
Greg