7.3.17. Missoula to Lincoln (83 miles)

Lincoln was approximately 83 miles down State Highway 200. Throughout the first three hours of riding, traffic was light; especially after a different state route diverged toward Helena. Prior to this aforementioned highway diverging, we ran into the three riders from New Jersey! They had left Missoula an hour before us, and we had caught up to them on account of them stopping for lunch at Ovando, MT. We all chatted for a few minutes, mostly about where our routes were taking us during the next couple of days. It turned out that they would head south toward Helena while we continued east to Lincoln, MT. After the New Jersey riders departed, we didn't encounter them again on this day. At this point the remaining 30 miles were relatively flat and a slight tailwind pushed us toward Lincoln. Upon arriving in town, our first stop was at the post office (to mail back some gear that we determined was unnecessary). It turns out that the post office employee that was working was also on duty for the fire department. Talk about double duty! We found the campground conveniently located off of the highway. Few sites were left, so we had little choice in settling for one that basked in the sun on a hot 95 degree afternoon. While setting up camp we gathered from the campground manager that a city ordinance had been temporarily lifted, allowing people to light off fireworks... in the baseball field immediately adjacent to the campground. On our own, we had also determined that a lot of the neighboring campers were already in the 4th of July spirit. This made for a somewhat sleepless night until 11:30pm, which made for a rough wake-up at 4:30am!