D15: (June 9th) Sidewinds, headwinds, and country roads (Shelby to Choteau MT.)

Our digs at the Best Western we had some really good Wifi, and they had a pretty decent hot breakfast (amazing bacon!!), so we opted for a lazy morning and did some blogging and took our time getting out of town.

The morning greeted us with clear blue Big Skies - and wind. From the west, at about 15mph gusting a bit higher.  

We started out with a decent climb out of Shelby to the south, on a frontage road named Marias Valley road - fairly steep to start, but once on top it was a very pleasant road with I-15 roaring off in the distance to our right.  




And then we reached the Marias Valley and a pretty stiff hill on the south side to get out of it.  Oh, well. At least we were sheltered from the wind while climbing it! (about a mile long, with grades ranging from 6-8% - not what we call "touring tandem-friendly"...)

Once back on top again (and thoroughly pitted out), this road transitioned to a road called the "Old North Trail", and transitioned to gravel.  The county had recently graded it, and freshened up the gravel - which is great if you are a car, but not so great on a loaded touring tandem (kinda mushy and hard work), so when we got a chance, we crossed to the west over I-15 and resumed our southward journey on a much friendlier frontage road of the paved variety.

We then made it to the town of Conrad, where we stopped at a (you guessed it!) Town Pump for a sandwich and some Gatorade.  An ambitious gull (yes, there are California Gulls in MT) lobbied us for some of our potato chips, but we could not spare the charity (or the calories) this day.

1st of many straight, straight roads...

Our Camp Host?

Proceeding southward again, we traveled for another 14 miles of climbing (up to 4000') to the southwest, then turned arrow straight south for another 18 miles right into Choteau. 

The Mountain View campground was right on the way into town, and we had the cutest little campsite with WIND BREAK fences around it!  It also had a little electrical outlet (to charge lights, Garmins, headsets, phones) and water spigot.  And the campground had some really nice shower facilities (free to campers) too!  Two thumbs way up! 👍👍





We set up camp, hopped on the RV2 to go grab a sixpack of Lewis & Clark IPAs, and a couple green salads, then returned and made dinner: Mac & cheese with tuna (yum!), the green salads, and Pepperidge Farms cookies for dessert!

It was such a pleasant evening with no threat of rain, that we took the rainfly off the tent after dinner in hopes of seeing stars that night - but we were so ready to sleep, I think Brigitte only saw them once in the middle of the night when nature called for her to get up.  I still have yet to see the stars so thick you can't pick out the constellations - but I know they are there! 😀



Stats: 58 Miles, 1,991' of climbing, and some more of that darned wind (mainly sidewinds, but sometimes on the forward stbd quarter...)