Day 33: Darby to Missoula, MT

67 miles, 986 ft ascent / 1664 ft descent, 4:46 saddle time,.

Sunset over Clark Fork River in Missoula MT

My Garmin died today, so my Strava posting did not include the total mileage.  Four of us stayed with the WarmShowers host Curtis last night.

From left to right: Brian, Erick, Guy, me and Curtis

 We departed at about 0700 and met Kevin for breakfast at the Studmuffin bakery.

Breakfast at Studmuffin in Darby (Kevin is on far left)

Our ride was mostly downhill today. Darby is at 3991 ft and Missoula is 3200 ft.  It was nice not to be crossing a pass today.  Everything was going great until about 20 miles outside of Missoula when a front blew through and we were suddenly in a strong headwind.  It was probably steady at 15 to 20 mph with gusts of 40 mph.  It literally nearly brought me to a standstill a couple times.  Brian, Kevin and I formed a pace line and took turns pulling into the wind.  As quickly as the front blew in, about 40 minutes later it was gone along with the headwind. 

Brian and I had dinner at a great restaurant, The Stables.  It was somewhat expensive, but the food was really good.  The first photo was sunset as we were walking over the bridge that spans the Clark Fork river.  Tomorrow Brian and I are taking a rest day.  We will meet Kevin for breakfast and then run some errands and do some planning because we are about 974 miles from the end point in Astoria, so the end is near.  At 60 miles per day it will take 16 riding days, but I will take about 3 or 4 more rest days and it will take me 2 days to ride from Astoria to the airport in Portland, so there are about 3 more weeks left in this trip.  

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