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Previous entry: "June 23, 2007 Lowell, ID" | Next entry: "Missoula to Townsend...what the heck is going on with this stupid website?"

07/17/2007 Entry: "Not so Lolo"

From Lowell we headed for Powell: a 60-ish mile day. Powell is another small rest place for rafters. The scenery was really great along the Lochsa River: mountains, trees, white water, spiffy bridges and gondolas all wrapped up in one. It was pretty much a very slight uphill, until a mile out from Powell where it started getting steep. Sometime after lunch, we decided to take a rest at a spring. Ariel got the most wet, and the others dipped our heads for the most part. Boy, it was refreshing!

At Powell, we stayed at the campground, since they didn't let us stay behind the store. We ate a nice dinner at Lochsa Lodge, because Mommy Welling treated us for some nice food. (Thanks Mommy Welling!) I think we might have scared the couple sitting next to us: we laugh quite loudly, good thing we were outside on the porch. Before we went to bed, we made friends with our campsite neighbors (old folk-retired) who biked from Kansas to Ohio, then are heading West to Washington.

Next day we went over Lolo Indian Pass. Yep, the pass wasn't very low. It was 15 miles of rather steep uphill. But at least we had a tailwind and the surrounding mountains were pretty. At the top of Lolo Pass, it started hailing/snowing/raining. I guess COLD sums it up nicely. But there was FREE HOT CHOCOLATE and coffee and tea; whoever thought of that idea was ingenious. After a long rest at the top, we put on virtually all our warm clothing on and headed down. Yay downhill! except for the parts that were sleeting. From Lolo Hot Springs into Lolo and Missoula was a very nice ride...a slow steady downhill and hardly any cars (virtually effortless!). The four of us rode together for most of it.

Oh, and somewhere along the way, we crossed from Idaho into Montana, and also changed time zones.

When we got into Missoula, we decided to head over to the Adventure Cycling Headquarters. (we had heard there was free ice cream and soda there.) But along the way, we bumped into a woman on her bike at an intersection (Her name was Geraldine). She saw our panniers and said "Do you need a place to stay?" Just like that, we found ourselves a nice home for the night, but we had to finish our unfinished business first.

The Adventure Cycling Headquarters treated us very nicely! Yes, there was all the free food...and free stickers. We thoroughly enjoyed looking at all the pictures of the bike tourers from the early days. There was also a wall of pictures of all the bike tourers that have visited. So they took our picture too. After they closed, Kendra picked Seager up for the wedding. Thanks for the cookies Kendra, and see you in a week Seager!

We then headed over to Geraldine's place. She was bike touring for 8 years before settling in Missoula. Apparently, after graduating from Cornell Engineering, we told her mom she wanted to lead bike tours in Europe and all over. So that's what she did. Over some yummy tofu&spaghetti dinner that Ariel cooked, we introduced her to the world of dumpster diving. She was thoroughly intrigued and fascinated. I'm so glad we got to spend the night in good company. Makes me think Missoula may be a great place for me someday!

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