Day 17 Phillipsburg, Montana

SUNSHINE!!! Today we rode from Missoula to Phillipsburg, Montana and we can finally say we saw the sun.  Even though we cannot say we went the entire day without rain, 99% of the day was sunny.  There was only about a ten minute time period where we saw some rain drops, but when that sun was out, team morale was extremely high.  I remember one of the cyclists stopping at my first crew stop and without getting off the bike yet, yelled, “BIKING IN THE SUN IS SO MUCH BETTER!” Some of the song choices today included, “Surfin’ USA” by the Beach Boys, “We Ready” by Archie, and my favorite was “Soak up the Sun” by Cheryl Crow.  

Since being on the side of the road can be pretty boring at times, in addition to cranking up some music that parallels the day, we like to make up some games to play.  We recently bought some jump ropes to entertain us and it did not take long to look up some tricks on youtube.  We also like to brew up challenges for the cyclists when they get to our stops.  At the beginning of the trip, we gave them brain teasers and riddles, and I must say some of the cyclists hated me those first couple of days because they could not figure them out.  Now we are in the phase of food challenges.  Today at lunch, we had the baby food challenge – one pace line versus another.  There were three people on each team, the first guy had to eat carrots, the second guy peas, and the anchor was not allowed to see what he had until the first two had successfully eaten their entire jar.  It was neck and neck, but one team had a slight edge going into the anchor.  Once the anchors saw they had the chicken baby food, one of them gagged.  The other anchor, however, took two swipes with his fingers and it was gone.  It was the most amazing and disgusting thing I have ever witnessed.  If there were not profanity words expressed by the participating teams (because of how mad they were they volunteered for this challenge), I would post the video I recorded.  We definitely know how to make fun activities out of what little we have.  

Once we got into Phillipsburg, I was in awe.  I never thought I would see a town so small.  I really thought I was in the old west.  Every year, the teams that come here go to a famous candy store, and I bet you can only imagine what it was like to have 28 college guys in a candy store – yes we all acted like we were five in a candy store.  It is one of our teammate’s twenty-first birthday today, so his mom generously provided money so we could all get A POUND of candy.  The store was also really cheap, so it made it that much better.  After we got our bags of candy, we headed back to lodging to get ready for a dinner in “downtown” (which really means the only non-residential buildings within a twenty mile radius).  It was a pretty relaxed night with just a dinner and no friendship visit, but it was definitely fun.  We are staying in a high school gym, so there are constant games of H-O-R-S-E and knockout.  Well I am going to go show these guys how Indiana plays basketball.  Thanks for reading my blog!