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07/03/2007 Entry: "Lavina to Melstone"

Monday morning, we awoke in the park in Lavina around 6 AM, when the sun began heating the tent until it was too hot to stay inside. We were able to pack up quickly and ate a refreshingly different breakfast of cereal with COLD milk at the gas station on the way out of town. As has been the case throughout Montana, the scenery changed drastically about every ten miles, moving from lush green river valley to rolling grassland to cliffy areas where you know there have to be mountain lions and rattlesnakes hiding in every crevice. Though we started early, it was hot even as we rode out of Lavina, and only continued to get hotter. Karen, MinWah and I rode together all day, sometimes talking, sometimes singing, and sometimes just listening to the sound of each other's tires on the pavement. It was a very nice ride, toasty though it was, so we tried to push out as many miles as possible before stopping for lunch. Forty-some miles after we started, we stopped in Musselshell for lunch, finding a shady fenceline next to the post office to make our peanut butter and banana sandwiches. As we settled down, a woman came out of the office and asked us if we needed some water. We replied that water would be great, thinking she would show us to a hose nearby. Instead she said she would jump in her car, run home, and bring us some bottled water. We looked at each other suprised and pleased as she sped away. Upon her return a few minutes later, she got out of the car carrying two bottles for each of us...then asked if we were watching our carbs. We all laughed. "Not exactly," we replied, "unless trying to eat as many carbs as possible counts." She seemed pleased, and asked us if we would like some ice cream sandwiches. Pleasantly astonished, we agreed, and she brought out two boxes of sandwiches. "Eat as many as you want," she said, "feel free to eat them all!" We each took two and thanked her profusely. She kept saying it was no problem, then ran home to put the leftovers back in the freezer. Once again, she returned, bringing with her a bag of ice, extra ziplocks, little baggies of hard candies for each of us, and some green tea packets. She said she liked to drink green tea as she rode, and that she might be the only woman around that rides her mountain bike with a pistol between her legs for the mountain lions and coyotes and such. She explained that she biked to keep in shape because she was a fire fighter. Before we knew it, this fairytale-like woman was gone, and we were left bewildered and full of ice cream. Karen later explained that she was like a Super Mario Brothers superhero that would enter the screen like a whirlwind, your health and energy ratings would fill back up, and then she would dissappear just as she came. I agreed.
We got to our end town, Melstone, pretty quickly after lunch. Our first stop at the general store we met Loretta, and she said we could camp in the yard behind the store. We decided to hang out inside to avoid the afternoon heat which was heating up more than we were interested in dealing with. After a good look around the store (which was truly a general store, with everything you could ever want or imagine inside) we sat down at the card table to chat with Jerry. Jerry delivers the mail to many of the small towns along highway 12, and had plenty of good stories to tell us about the area. After a few hours of chatting, writing in journals, and reading, Jerry got up to go, but offered to buy us each a cold drink before he head out. He said he would probably see us the next morning on his way to Ingomar. We also met a woman who had grown up near Melstone, but now lives in Iowa. It just so happens that her current home town is on the RAGBRAI route this year, and after chatting for awhile we exchanged contact information in hopes that we can meet up while were in Hartley, IA. As the evening wore on, we offered to help unload a supply truck that pulled up to deliver general store items and lots of glass and bags of concrete which had been ordered to make repairs from a golf-ball hailstorm two weeks back. When the general store was closing, we bought some salami and baked beans to make our dinner easy and stoveless, and walked back to the yard to prepare it. Karen decided to ask if we could sleep on the floor of the empty trailer behind the yard, and we were granted permission, which was a very good thing as you will read later. While preparing our dinner we found that all of the food we had left on our bikes was hot, and I mean really hot. The green tea I had left in my bottle had steeped to a temperature I might heat my tea to on the stove. We found our bread toasted, and very hot to the touch, and our cheese was in a puddle in the bottom of its bag. It had reached 100 degrees that afternoon as we lounged inside the general store. We decided to wake up at 4:30 to bike the next morning and went to sleep, not expecting the eventful night to come...see Karen's entry Melstone to Forsythe.

We'll have to do our picture update another day, as these library computers don't seem to want to cooperate.

-Ariel

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