Today we woke up early to avoid storms that would hit at 2:00 pm. To start off our day we had to climb out of our campsite near a lake to get to the interstate, I-94 west. We had 17 miles to breakfast in Medora, the base of Teddy Roosevelt National Park. We were 7 or so miles out from Medora when it started to rain, so we hunkered down under an overpass. This break turned into almost an hour long break, most of which I spent shoveling lucky charms into my mouth. After the rain stopped, we booked it to breakfast. The ride to breakfast was uneventful until the terrain shifted from long, shallow hills of grass to rocky hills with very cool colored rocks. Once this terrain shifted, the ride became a lot cooler and more fun. We saw the Painted Canyons from afar. The interstate followed the canyons until we had a beautiful view of the canyons after a climb.
After this climb, we had a long descent into Medora. This descent was awesome, with lots of cool rock formations on both sides of the road. Most of the people in my group agreed that the road was one of the best of the whole trip. In Medora we ate at the Farmhouse Cafe, suggested by Evan (and my mom). The cafe had hearty meals that were perfect for bikers on the go. Perhaps the most interesting part of breakfast was the mechanical bull outside of the restaurant that both Sean and Wyatt rode.
After breakfast, we rode on West River Rd instead of the interstate. This road was beautiful, but there were some very steep rolling hills that sapped a lot of our energy. We had a Gatorade break in Beach, ND. Then we rejoined the interstate, where we reached the welcome to Montana sign. The faster group had placed a bike loud sticker high up on the sign, so of course our group had to one up them, which we did.
We then rode around 15 miles to a house that we reached just in time to avoid another storm. We spent a while there relaxing and playing with the homeowners dogs. When the storm ended, we left their house, and sped through the last 10 or so miles to the Lutheran church where we will spend tonight and tomorrow. The Lutheran church provided a delicious meal of baked potatoes and ham, and they gave each a pint of ice cream from Ben and Jerry’s!