Today, we packed up, hit the road, and then immediately got walloped with rain. Not a tremendous downpour, but a significant pattering. It kept raining for 2 hours, so we just kept riding. When the weather's harsh, time actually passes faster on the road, I think. This figures strongly into my overall thoughts on the tour.
Eventually, the sky cleared and the rain died off. Riding with some sun and no rain, my clothes dried out. My shoes didn't, so when we rolled to a stop at Fort Steele, I had to take them off to dry:
40mi by lunch -- quite a feat, probably thanks to lack of hills and light headwinds.
Fort Steele is one of those historical reenactment towns, like Jamestown or Old Williamsburg. We didn't want to pony $12 for entrance into what I assumed would be a weak imitation of Deadwood, so here's a picture peeking over the fence into the walled off inner town:
We had lunch at the cafe outside of the wall. It was again some touristy food that fed me. Matt tried to get a veggie soup only for the staff to realize that it was veggie and beef soup.
We rode another 20 easy miles before we caught up to a pair of French bike tourists inching up a hill. This is the view from that break:
We pressed on and soon got hit with another round of rain. We passed the French couple on the road in the deteriorating conditions:
Finally, we rolled into Jaffray and up a gravel road to a recreation area camp, which means no running water or firewood.
We scraped some logs (and an axe!) together from generous neighbors and will have some heat tonight. I plan to dry my shoes out.
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