7.5.17. Great Falls to Stanford (56 miles)

The ride today was going too be a short one, relative to our trip thus far. Due to this, a long ride, and little sleep the night before, we slept in until 7am. We had a great breakfast (coffee, scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and several spreads for the toast). Thankfully, our host drove us to a paved road (sparing us and our bikes from riding on 2-3 miles of gravel; something that my bike tires have little tolerance for! We began our 56 mile ride just southeast of Great Falls. Our ride consisted of 2300+ feet of climbing and 1400+ feet of descending distributed evenly across the route. We stopped at a rest stop about half way through the ride and once more about 10 miles down the road. We usually stopped more often as the heat climbed during the day. In an effort to stay cool, we stopped in Geyser, MT at the local establishment, which was the only place in town to get any kind of beverage. In the hour or so that we were in the Cabin Creek Bar in Geyser, the wind had shifted considerably: what had been a tailwind turned into a stiff headwind making the next 15 miles one of the more challenging stretches of the trip thus far. We arrived in Stanford, dropped our things off at a local motel, and walked around town. We eventually ended up at the only restaurant open in town, and the burgers were fairly average. On the walk back to the motel, we watched the skies to the south as a thunderstorm brewed in the distance. However, in short time we realized that the storm was moving north (toward us), which motivated a quicker return to the motel. After sitting in the room for about 20 minutes, I mentioned to Garrett that the wind had really picked up outside, and Garrett inquisitively opened the exterior door to the room. What followed was a mighty whoosh of air that blew a plastic light panel up and back onto the drop ceiling. I, of course, belly laughed at this. Surprisingly, the storm only consisted of wind and was gone almost as soon as it had arrived. 

Tomorrow, we would only ride 46 miles to Lewistown.