Decided that I really want to go to Missoula and stop by the Adventure Cycling Headquarters (ACA) so slept in late this morning—up at 8 am—since Missoula is only about 50 miles away. The main reason I want to go there is to buy my TransAmerica Cycling Jersey—I could order it online, but it wouldn’t be the same 🙂 since they are closed today, this will be a short riding day and I probably won’t hit the road tomorrow until noon or so resulting in a short riding day tomorrow, but it’ll be worth it and will give my body a little recovery time before the last 1,000 miles of the trip.
Stopped on the way out of town this morning for breakfast at the Coffee Cup Cafe—waffle, oatmeal, orange juice and coffee. Nice day this morning—calling for a high of 89 and sunny all day.
Nice bike trail by the road all the way to Missoula, but that is really the highlight of the day. From Hamilton to Missoula I’m on this bike trail right beside a very busy 4 lane highway. Missoula is a big city—at least the largest I’ve been in since Pueblo. Lots of industrial/sprawl between the two places—not a lot of great scenery. Missoula is actually about 8 miles off-route. Once I’ve visited the ACA tomorrow I’ll have to ride the 8 miles back down to Lolo then head out into the Wild West again…should cross over into Idaho tomorrow.
Lots of log home and ranch gate/entrance builders here and for the past two days I’ve been seeing a lot of little casinos out here. These are attached to everything from McDonalds to gas stations to grocery stores to cafes. Seems like a lot of places with electronic gaming they call casinos—pretty unattractive actually.
Stopped in Lolo for lunch….turkey sub with Diet Coke and I ordered 2 rasin and oatmeal cookies but they were 3 for a dollar so I had to take that deal 🙂
Rode the last 8 miles into Missoula with a local bicyclists who was very interested in what I was doing. He lives in Missoula but never heard of the ACA. Got to town early and decided to swing by the ACA headquarters just so I would know where it is tomorrow, so I can get there when it opens, get my jersey, and hit the road. The headquarters is on the far end of town in the swanky, high rent area—very nice building. Judging from the building they are occupying the ACA is doing very well for a nonprofit. I think the Missoula university (or maybe college) is just down the road and there was a Holiday Inn just a couple blocks away. I stopped there to see about getting a room for the night—$210. I declined that deal…remembered a motel I passed on the other side of town (the low rent side of town) that had a sigh that read something like “a nice motel for ice people” so rode 3 miles back there for a room—$70—much better 🙂 of course they have a card with room safety tips on the bed (don’t remember seeing that before) but I’m sure everything will be ok 🙂
Tomorrow I’ll ride the 3 miles back to the ACA for a visit and to pick up my jersey (my luck they will be out or won’t have my size :-)), then I’ll head toward Idaho.
When I started this trip I had a 12 map set for the entire trip. It’s mapped west to east, so I started with map 12…today I finished map 4 and will start map 3 tomorrow—in the home stretch now.
Feeling great and strong….looking forward to getting out of this city and back to the Wild West 🙂
