Can you see the wind? The terrain today was mostly flat and downhill, but the headwind that I rode into for most of the day made it a bit harder than I'd expected. The saving grace was the overall loss of elevation. Wind or not, the day was absolutely beautiful. I started out in forested areas, then turned to ride down Hebgen Lake and Quake Lake. Quake Lake was created by an earthquake in August of 1959. What was the river is now a lake. The visitor center run by the US Forest Service was definitely worth a stop. After I passed Quake Lake, I followed the Madison River for the rest of the day. After a little bit of a climb I came out on top of a plateau. The river valley widened out, and the mountains reappeared. There was flat ranch land next to the road, with the Montana mountains in the distance. What a beautiful ride.
The weather continues to be cool. In fact, it started out kind of cold, but it warmed up into the low 70s. Not bad.
I did have a hard time getting going this morning, didn't get on the road until 8:30. And with the constant wind and the distance I covered, I didn't pull into Ennis until 5:30. That's definitely later than I like to finish the day. There was a "Welcome to Ennis" sign on the south side of town that said the population here is 660 people and 11,000,000 trout!
There were two nice looking motels as I entered Ennis - they had vacancies, but they were a mile out of town. I prefer to be able to walk to dinner, so I kept on going. There were 4 more motels - 2 right in town, and 2 on the northern edge. Only 1 had rooms available, so I ended up in a somewhat funky place. Funky, but clean, and in walking distance of the town, and the Ennis Cafe. That works. It is kind of amazing though that a town with a population of 600 has 6 motels in it - guess this really must be a fishing mecca.
I met two cyclists riding south today. The first was Gerhard from Germany. He started riding in San Francisco. He rode up the coast and picked up the Transam in Oregon. He'll stay on the Transam until somewhere in Colorado, then turn west to head back to San Francisco. It's funny - he noticed my bike, but what he commented on were the tires. I'm using Continental tires, which are made in Germany, as are my Ortlieb panniers. They both looked familiar to him!
A little later in the afternoon I met Jeff from Pennsylvania. He also started riding in San Francisco, and is heading back to his home in Pennsylvania. Jeff and I stood on the side of the road comparing notes for quite a while. It's interesting that we have both gone through some of the same thought processes and had some of the same issues. We've both had to stop being too hard on ourselves, and we've both had to do a better job of recognizing when we needed a rest day, and we've both had off and on energy problems. It was good to be able to compare notes, and to share the usual tips of places to stop along the way.
Wildlife sightings - I saw both osprey and a bald eagle today as I rode along Quake Lake. Very cool.
