Donald

Mary and I finally got a rim for her bike (and a new iPhone that was broken while running from hail) and found a way from Butte, Montana, back to our route. We spent our first night back in Twin Bridges, Montana, at a free bikers camp that we heard about. It had a screened in shack that was beautiful, and free books and miscellaneous gear like tubes. It was funny that it happened to be the night of our 26th birthday, and we were in Twin Bridges. To celebrate, we ate canned beans and corn out of cups from a gas station and passed out before nine. It was pretty wild.
We also met a man named Donald we had ran into earlier. He was camping next to an old jailhouse in Twin Bridges. He is about 50, with longer curly hair. He is pretty quiet and freaking beautiful. In the morning he helped Mary fix her flat while I took pictures of him from my iPhone, like a creep. We accidentally stalked him for the next few nights.
The night after twin bridges (the second night) we found a campground and he was there, again. The third night we stopped at a roadside lodge for a beer before going on, but ended our night early when we found Donald there.
On the second night he walked over to our campsite with a half magnum of wine he couldn't finish. He poured it into our empty water bottle and left us alone. Mary videotaped him walking away. On the third night he came over to play Mary's guitar for a while. We offered him some of our whiskey, and he had his own in a Tupperware container that was a lot better. And he played real good, mostly mellencamp. He introduced us to some fishermen he'd just met, who gave us drinks, potato salad and leftover porkchops and then made us coffee in the morning.
Our mutual infatuation with Donald is complicated. It's impossible to explain his mannerism, tone and inflection over blog so I'll be done with that. Just know that we were sad to say goodbye outside a convenience store eating pickles, where our routes parted ways.

Yellowstone was fun, there were a lot of buffalo and stuff. A lot of people. We passed old faithful, but can neither confirm nor deny wether or not we waited for that bitch to blow.

We climbed a huge mountain today, the second highest on the whole route. We've learned that when climbing mountains, the best stress relief is to cuss out cows that stare at you. That shit is funny, and fun. And they can take it. And its better than cussing out each other, which we've tried. Its hard to pedal and breathe when you're crying. Along with that, here are a few other things we've learned:
-Joni Mitchell must've never gone on a bike trip when she wrote 'they paved paradise and put up a parking lot' because that shit IS paradise.
-To deep condition your hair after harsh uv exposure, cover it in travel size Aveda before riding up a pass, then find a gas station sink and rinse it off. You don't even have to make eye contact with the attendant on the way out.
- self-serve camping pay stations are ALWAYS just REALLY HARD ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE to find.
- Instead of buying expensive electrolytes, just eat a family sized jar of pickles. a day.
- sometimes you finish a soda. and a donut. before you find the cashier. Especially at the end of the month, before your Food stamps are renewed. It just HAPPENS.