Lincoln, MT

Some interesting facts about Lincoln, MT is that it is near this town that Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, hid out in his shack. HMMM. Anyways.

We had another really great breakfast this morning. A whole host of volunteers came by really early to cook pancakes (plain AND blueberry), sausages, and hashbrowns for us. I was careful today not to eat too much.

Shira informed us early on during the route meeting that we were crossing the Continental Divide AGAIN ?!??!?!? Apparently, we had crossed it going into Montana, which meant we had yet another mountain pass to climb over! (So no general downhill trend today, Dr. K.)

For the past few days, I've been riding in the front group to make my rides shorter. Riding behind Peter up this one hill, he mentions he likes climbs early in the morning because they're kind of like a butt massage. Mmm hmm. We also conversed a little about what buildings I liked and disliked. He seemed surprised that the Centre Pompidou is one of my favorite buildings. It's a building that has all of its mechanical apparatus on the outside. I remember Red telling me that his engineer father absolutely loved it, and it's pretty apparent why. Its functions are really clearly depicted. Also, I explained that it's a really successful building which is obvious because it is always full of people using it. People in a building are always a good sign.

Anyways. I rode in the morning with Jake Schorr, Stazzle, Eric, and Joe. For about the first 25 miles or so, there was a very gentle uphill. It even prompted Jake Stazzle to say that this was going to be the easiest mountain pass he has ever climbed. AND THEN, we hit the actual climb. It wasn't quite as steep as the Tetons, but it was definitely longer (~10 miles) and perhaps slightly steeper as the first time we crossed the Divide. There was this one 180 degree switchback that did a U-turn on the mountain faces, on which I could see the road curving upwards steeply and indefinitely, and I just thought, oh gawd, but it really wasn't that bad. I did have to tell Joe to pass me early on though. Even on his Fuji loaded down with a back rack and aerobars, he's a beast going up the hills.

I saw encouraging chalk on the road near the crest, shifted up 3 gears and sprinted the rest of the way. It was a good climb. And of course, the downhill was amazing. The view is absolutely amazing, but it's also pretty difficult to enjoy it because I'm accelerating on a narrow curvy road.

The rest of the ride was pretty windy, but it was only about 20 miles. I passed a promising looking milkshake place on the way in, but then I ended up passing out for 2 hours in my sleeping bag in stead. A lot of people took naps today. We're all feeling pretty tired at this point, and we're really looking forward to the day off (not tomorrow ...).

We're staying the hallways of the school here, which had a graduating class of 25 people last year. So different from UIUC! I flexed my atrophied sketching muscles a bit so I'm not entirely awful by the time I get to Seattle, but it's hard to do so without inspiring architecture near by. If anyone has any suggestions about buildings to see there, definiely let me know. I'm going to start looking places up as soon as possible.

One final note: Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffle buffalo. It's an actual sentence, I promise.