So, we needed a day to figure out what to do about my rim, and the winds were 35mph headwinds in the morning. The timing stinks being this close to Glacier National Park, but a rest day makes sense.

We tried every business in town, but couldn't find a rim for my bike. I did find a 20 inch kids bike, but I was not quite sure how to swap out the axle since it was only a single speed. I was hoping for a 7 speed rim all setup.

And on this day, they finally rested......................well that and avoided another insane day of wind, tried to find a new rim for Chris, then tried to fix his rim enough to get them another 72 miles.

I hope it works. 2 rims should be waiting for them in Babb, MT on Monday; 1 shipped from Hostell Bike Shop and one I shipped to them from Chris' house (because TJ's rim is questionable).

Dear Mother Nature,

I enjoy your beauty, all around us. The trees, fields, rocks, the occasional flower (occasional anything in Montana really). Also, I try to keep you nice and tidy by picking up trash and I don't do anything wrong to you, anything, ever. So, I guess the question I'm getting to is, Why are you so mean to me? Why? I try to bike 20 measly miles from Shelby to Cut Bank and what do you do?, you make a 38 mile per hour wind in our faces. I want to bike to Glacier on the Going to the Sun Highway, what do you do?, you fill it with thirty feet snow drifts, in the middle of JULY! I mean seriously, think about it. You expect too much, way too much.

Today we had just another one of those bad days. Roger woke up and informed the group that he caught the cold that has been traveling around the group. It was supposed to be hot and the wind would not be in our favor. We tried to get going quickly to try to get some miles done before the heat. We quickly made breakfast in the mini kitchen and headed out.

We were not on the road long and we saw an airplane buzzing by just to the side of us and not very high over our heads.

Today we planned a short day to recover from the abusive day yesterday. Also, we were hoping for a hotel room so we could have some AC.

We ate some travelers oatmeal at the Kremlin city park and hit the road.

Okay, so we were on our way for another typical day. Grass, grass, grass, and more grass. Yeah, there was a headwind today, and the heat, but we were prepared to slowly slug our way through it. Our goal was about 55 miles. Then the curve ball.....road construction. Then a second curve ball, bike problems. Then back to the road construction. The heat and headwind were not enough.

Just a quick note, we crossed paths with these guys on day 19 of their trip. They have a photo and comments about us. They were a pretty cool bunch of cyclists.

http://ephdetour.com/

What a way to start week 4!!! I'll leave the details to our group to post but the basic description of today was AAARRRRHHHHH....................................road construction!!! They are really tired from biking through what was like miles of loose gravel. That will take a toll on anyone, but add 40 to 75 pounds of gear and it becomes exhaustion. They had hoped to go farther today but were just too beat up to go on. They are camping tonight in a city park. Someone opened a metal building with picnic tables for them to cook and eat in. They said they would leave it open for them through the night incase of storms, though non are expected. They have more road construction tomorrow too. They called it a night about half way through the stretch they are on now.

We woke up from a pretty good nights sleep and went downstairs to the cafe. Unfortunately for Katie and TJ, this hotel doesn't have free breakfast.

Roger has become quite the nerd, doing some reading at breakfast on TJs Ipod.

As we packed up, TJ found that his Jolly Ranchers had fused into a Giant Rancher in yesterdays heat! He tossed them. Notice, the beard is really coming in nicely.

Okay, so Shady Rest campground was almost perfect. We had a great little fenced in area with grass for our tents....the weather was nice, the night was cool but not cold. Laura and I almost died of allergies though, as did Katie. Their is some tree in this area that is driving us nuts. Hopefully it goes away as we get further West. All 4 of our tents fit nicely in this litlte area.....although the gnats have been terrible. We hid in the tents as soon as we walked back from dinner. The locals say that the gnats have never been this bad; I have even seen a few walking around with automobile air fresheners attached to their clothes and hats (apparantly it keeps the gnats away).