Today we had another long ride, this time in rain showers. Sean and I left the Lodge in Rising Sun around 6 :30 am and easily got to Saint Mary.
Very early in the ride with Lake St. Mary in the distance.
From there we headed south on Hwy 89 and were met with a seven mile hill. It seemed about a 7 % grade. At that point it started raining stronger. I can remember thinking that we were in for a "long day" riding.
There were a number of rolling hills along Hwy 89. We had passed Nancy in this section and she warned us about cows on the road. When we came to an intersection on Hwy 89 with the mileage right to turn we did not see a sign showing it was "Starr School Rd." I check my GPS and confirmed we were on the right road. This is the start of the Blackfeet Indian reservation. There were some cows out wandering around the road.
Cows wandering on the road
About 6 miles along Starr School Road Sean said he could hear some weird noise coming from my bike. A short time later my rear tire was completely flat. There was a piece of glass that entered the tire. We pulled over near a bridge. It took about 10 minutes to fix and we were on the road again. Sean noticed a herd of horses in a gully below us while I fixed the tire. I couldn't fully inflate my tire to the high pressure I like because I was using my small hand pump on my bike.
We then continued east on Starr School Rd. We saw a few areas with run down houses. Once we got to Browning, Blaine and Thea were parked in a shopping center parking lot,which also doubled for our lunch stop. It continued to rain lightly during lunch. I got to use the tour pump to get my tire fully inflated.
Others started rolling into the lunch stop where I learned that several other riders had flats too. Ken W. had 3!
After about 20 minutes at the lunch stop Sean and I got back onto Hwy 89 heading south. The traffic seemed busy for at least 20 miles. As we moved south we came upon the southern end of the Blackfeet reservation. There where statues making the reservation. It sprinkled of and on all for several more miles.
A few miles farther, we turned left onto Hwy 44 due east to Valier. We had about 20 miles to ride on this stretch of road.
Sean and I were the first ones to arrive at the B/B. Blaine gave us a walk through of the place. Sean got his own room this time and Blaine said even though I have to sleep in a game room with 7 other guys, he pointed out a small room off of the game room that I could use.
For dinner we walked to the Panther Cafe. Everyone said the servings were big and I did feel stuffed.
Once we walked back to the B/B we played pool for a while before bed.
Leaving Blackfeet Reservation
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