Day 19 July 17

This is it, the big day. The test to see if we are as tough as the divide riders. We are doing 100 miles. This is not your 100 flat Florida road miles, or your 100 miles tour de France style with a message, food, and all luxuries at the end. This is mind numbing, cow killing 100 miles through the desert. Yet, it's not all bad. Through what has been recently discovered as Jeff's Law -all things that can go right will go right- we stumbled upon the festivities known as Bannack Days. Like a time machine or the car from back to the future, we are whipped back to the old western days. Cowboys; with their 10 gallon hats, boots, and spurs walk up and down the boardwalk. Little girls dressed in plain dresses holding sun umbrellas sitting in the shade and the faint sound of a piano playing old tunes. Finally, there is us. Two bikers in our spandex shorts and synthetic jerseys eating, laughing, and having a grand time. In the little time we were in Bannack Days, we drank freshly squeezed lemonade, visited every attraction and thrift store, and of course we eat food of all sorts. Sadly, we had to leave that western paradise and continue our 100 mile day. At this point we are 25 miles in and the wind has picked up. We ride for hours on dirt road with no shade and a blazing hot sun above is. We see no one and nothing except the trail in front of us. The scenery is fixed. Mountains around us and trail rolling in front of us as far as the eye can see. It is around mile 50 and a divide rider appears riding toward us. He is not northbound, he is whipped. The headwind on us all day and the steepness of Medicine Lodge Pass has forced him to turn tail and return to the highway. He asks us to tell the group he is with his plans. Of course we agree to his quest. We finally near the summit of Medicine Lodge. It's so steep, there is a cow at the top, dead from exhaustion. We continue on. The cows journey is over bit ours is not at it's end yet. We believed after hitting the top of the climb we would descend for awhile we were wrong. We continued climbing, very gradually but the wind in our face made it worse. We find the lone riders group. They are exhausted and barely understand what we tell them. They are done for the day. We keep moving. Our water supply is at zero. We are parched, dry throated and burned. There is a small river near the mountains edge. The land we have been traveling on is full of livestock. I don't see any cows nearby. Oh well we need water. It's the sweetest coldest water ever. We blaze the last 20 miles, passing huge rock walls and running rivers and finally end our day 105 miles later in the city of Lima.