June 28 Geraldine, Montana 69 miles 7:01
What a day! Every inch into a strong headwind. More up-and-down terrain. We had a paceline in the morning when there was some flat terrain between the ridges. A paceline is a row of riders each taking advantage of the windbreak, the "draft", provided by the rider in front. The leader does the heaviest work because the leader has no one to draft. The leader position rotates among the riders every mile. This crowd couldn't agree on how to rotate, back to front or front to back. Back-to-front may be the custom among serious riders but it flopped for us. The rider advancing to the front is going faster than the rest and would drop the other riders, then have to slow down to let the others catch up. Front-to-rear worked better because the second rider, now becoming the leader, was already at the right speed. The rolling terrain tended to defeat the paceline. On flat ground, we could all settle into a steady and equal pace. With heavily-laden bikes, our comfortable riding paces were different for each rider going up or down hill. The paceline would get scattered all over the grade.

Lunch in Ft. Benton. Ft. Benton was the farthest point steamboats could reach on the Missouri to take supplies to the miners and ranchers. Gunslingers and miners, gamblers and fancy women, muleskinners and mountain men mixed on its streets. Dodge City and Tombstone killers are more celebrated, but Ft. Benton claims to have had the bloodiest street in the Old West. The railroad arrived in 1913 and put a stop to the fun.

We threw ourselves down in the grass and shade at the entrance to a farm. The farmer's wife came out to talk and gave Michele and Dave cookies. She warned us that Geraldine would close at six. We barely made it. We had a chance to buy chocolate milk (our recovery drink of choice these days). Roy, incurable optimist, always goes into the store and asks "What kind of india pale ale do you have? What's your darkest beer?" The answer is always the same: "You want Bud or Coors?" We camped in the city park. The mosquitos drained Dave. He doesn't have a tent. He zipped himself into his sleeping bag for protection, but you can't stay there for long when the nighttime temperature is maybe 75. Once he had to unzip to cool off, the mosquitos were on him like fur.