Meeting Tour Divide Racers
Seeley Lake to Big Nelson Campground
Mileage - 47.82
Monday morning we head back to the Chicken Coop for a hearty breakfast. We are the first customers in the restaurant. We get an early start, and head out on a beautiful forest road. It feels good to be off the highways and away from traffic.
Kitty doesn't have much experience riding on gravel roads, but with hard packed gravel like these roads the riding is easy. We have some rollers, but no big hills and we make good time to Ovando. We are ready for lunch by the time we get there, so we ride a little out of the way to go to Trixie's, a bar just outside of town. We order the standard Montana meal - a cheeseburger and fries. Neither of us is used to eating a lot of red meat, but when in Montana, eat as a Montanan. That means beef.
Trixie's is a treat. Many of the bars in Montana also serve great food, and that is the case here. The server is also the cook, and there are others in queue ahead of us, so it gives us some time to explore. CC talks with a local who has obviously been at the bar for a few hours before we arrive. Kitty explores the information about Trixie McCormick, who was quite well known in the area as a cowgirl and rodeo performer in the early 1900's. She also ran the local bar, where we are now having lunch. And, as you can see, she had quite a sense of humor.
After we enjoy our hamburgers and fries, we opt for a piece of homemade rhubarb berry pie a la mode. A wonderful way to finish off lunch and get ready to get back on the road. We head into the town of Ovando, and notice a bicycle that seems like it must belong to one of the Tour Divide racers. The Tour Divide began on June 8 in Banff, and is a race along the Adventure Cycling's Great Divide Route, the same route that we are leisurely following. We've read about it, and we know you have to be really tough to do it. We've been kind of following the race, and are excited to meet one of the racers.
As we are admiring the bike, Erik Lobek comes out on the porch. We've been watching the race, and we know that he was in third place the last time we looked. But today he is nursing his Achilles' tendon. He said coming over Whitefish Pass, Red Meadow Pass and Richmond Peak had involved pushing his bike
through about 30 miles of deep snow. That pushing had taken its toll, and he was taking a little time to see if he could recover and keep on. We find out the next day that he has scratched.
We head out of Ovando towards Big Nelson Campground on Cooper's Lake. It's a little off route, and it requires riding up a big hill - but it is definitely worth it. We pitch our tent for the first time and roll out our mats and sleeping bags. We had a big lunch, so we opt for PBJ burritos for dinner. There are signs warning about bears and fines for not hanging our food, so we hang all of our food as best we can. Shawnee and Carlos from Helena are also camping there, and they invite us to join them around the fire they've built. We sit for a spell with them, and then head to our "casita". We are delighted to find that it is quite comfortable and we sleep well, with no visits from bears thank goodness!
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