35 miles

Today we both overslept, which actually felt okay. We rolled out of Makoshika state park and discovered that there was a dinosaur/creationist museum in Glendive, which seemed too good to miss. We headed to a bakery called Trinity Bakery (probably a Christian reference, now that I think about it), to kill time before the museum opened.

The museum was roughly what I expected—lots of somewhat campy exhibits, a few real fossils, some big dinosaur cast skeletons, and almost every placard making a smug point about how Noah’s flood explains how dinosaurs and people were alive at the same time. Altogether, it was an entertaining way to spend the morning. A cultural experience. 

After that, we made our way toward Wibaux. I felt sort of restless on the bike today. We rested for a few minutes in a little park once we reached town, stretching and talking. Suddenly a woman appeared out of nowhere, I guess from one of the nearby houses. She asked where we were going, and handed us a big Ziploc bag full of brownies. She told us they were left over from a recent church function. They were fudgy and soft and delicious, a wholly unexpected treat. Praise be to Jesus, I guess.

Next, we headed to the Beaver Creek Brewery to have a beer, and on our way in, a couple that we had seen at the bike shop back in Lewistown spotted us. We chatted with them for a long while as we each drank our beer-and-a-half. I forgot their names. He is retired from the oil fields, she sells interior lighting remotely. They are from Texas and they travel by RV, with Harleys and regular bikes in the summer. They are headed to Theodore Roosevelt National Park / Medora tomorrow, just like us. Maybe we’ll see them. I hope we do.

We were invited to camp out in the yard of someone who knew the bartender. It’s only a block from the city park, so there is a bathroom and water fairly close. The clouds of mosquitoes when we got there were worse than I have ever seen. They were fully swarming me as I hurried to set up my tent, and then they all perched creepily on the netting once I was inside.

We will begin crossing North Dakota tomorrow, where the temps will be in the high 90s all week.