Blackfoot and Bigfoot

Biker lodgings

To give: JON'S MDA DRIVE

We're in Ovando, Montana, in the heart of Blackfoot country, between Missoula and Lincoln. Some have called this the country's biker-friendliest town, and I don't doubt it. The Great Divide bike race is under way right now, bringing fat-tired bikers to town, and then, of course, -- of paramount importance to us -- we are here, and will get lodgings in the teepee (dirt floor, two cots) for a $5 donation.

For you culture junkies out there, the book "A River Runs Through It," by Norman Maclean, is set right about here, although the movie was filmed elsewhere.

We are passing under big skies and past mounds and mountains, and, except for one upcoming, the Rogers Pass, the big climbs are mostly behind us. Traffic is heavy and we ride the shoulder of the road, which is a flexible thing, broadening and narrowing according to no apparent formula.

We rode from Missoula yesterday morning and stopped for a break in a little town called Potomac, consisting of a store/cafe at which everybody knew each other, and many of them were drunk, just hanging out.  I got aggressive route advice from a lean, scruffy, raffish street man, and when I gently questioned it -- for who could understand it? -- he took a step closer to me and repeated his idea, and I thought, "Oh, dear." I quickly agreed with everything he said and then we left. Only later did I see that one of my water bottles had been stolen by him or one of the other disreputables within. There outta be a law! I thought. But of course there is a law.

We are making slow progress, finding it hard to plan when accommodations of any kind, even campsites, are few and far between. This extends to the availability of water, which is consideration #1. We are also living under chancy weather, and then Tom, long-suffering Tom, is prone to knee pain, and so we are not pressing.

Dean and Arletta

We had fun here in Ovando at the Stray Bullet Cafe talking to Dean and Arletta, at the next table, who were down from Helena to have lunch. They wanted to see our maps and gave us cogent advice on long vs. short, traffic vs. less, and other tradeoffs. Arletta said she had noted the behavior of loons in Montana lakes. Dean gave me a $20 cash donation to my MDA.

Kathy Schoendoerfer

Kathy and her husband run Blackfoot Angler, a store for fishing equipment that has broadened to some general sporting goods and, especially, biking stuff. I bought my new water bottle there today. She has a remarkable collection of bear-in-the-wild photographs she took over the years. These include one of a mama black bear standing tall on her legs, with her cubs around her feet. "That, I'm convinced, is Bigfoot," she said. And another shows a grizzly mom with her cubs, staring at her across a stream.

She said the key to encountering a bear is to not show fear. "Never run away," she said. "To a bear, that says you're prey." She said, though, she does arm herself with bear spray.