I woke up to find a mule deer wandering through my camp. She seemed pretty okay with me until I got on my bike, then she tore off at an impressive pace. She had some freaky tail thing happening. I don't remember the mule deer in Yellowstone having two-foot long white tails, but maybe I just didn't notice...
As I mentioned yesterday, I have assloads of time to reach the coast. So I slept until noon. I consider that late. 10:30 is about normal, and constitutes the natural order of the universe. I hope my next boss understands that, but I kinda doubt it -- unless I work as a bartender or a porn star. Email me if you hear about anything like that.
So anyway, I packed up and rolled out and blah blah blah blah blah......Yes, I know. I'm getting tired of typing that over and over too.
I did run into three riders that day -- Mike, Debra and Elke?, riding from Missoula to Jasper on the Great Parks route. Debra had a huge basket on her rear rack, and her dog Sundance rode along with her. I could tell she was a dumbass freak from the start.
So I chatted with them for a while, but one of them had some freaky-deaky body odor, so I made an excuse or two, then raced ahead. For once I was glad not to have a tailwind. Christ.
It was overcast today, with intermittent rain, but the scenery did start to get nicer. Here's a shot I managed to snap before the rain started:
The ride became a long downhill after I passed the cleverly named Summit Lake. I briefly considered pushing on to Bigfork, which would have been my longest day in a while, but a cute restaurant in Swan Lake caught my attention. The campground there had a shower, too. That's all the incentive I need, especially after my brush with the unwashed.
I set up camp by a faux waterfall in the campground, but it made me feel like peeing all the time. Few things can convince me to move my camp once I'm set up, but the idea of constantly having to pee -- while sleeping in a waterproof tent -- is enough to get me cracking.