Had a wonderful night in Dillon with my first couch surfing night. Kurt guides back-country tours through the mountains of Wyoming and Montana and Eve is a soil scientist with Natural Resources Conservation Service around here. Again, I learned more about the area than I even remember to write down.
Kurt is the first person I have met who did the bikecentenial Transamerica ride in 1976 that was the precursor to the trail and maps that I am using today. He recounted a woman in Afton, Virginia who was known by everybody who traveled the route from 76 to at least 09. She had a water spout in her garden and would run out with cookies when she saw cyclists filling up. He also recalled a time in Kentucky when his group was sleeping in the basement of a Baptist church in a dry county. A couple friends tracked down some moonshine and saved the group from the dirges of a dry county.
I had made peace with the fact that today was going to wet and miserable. Thankfully I was picked up by quite the renaissance woman. She ran a cattle ranch with her family, worked at a local ski resort, and ran the motel in Wisdom- my destination for the day. After driving through pouring rain and over a couple snowy passes we entered Big "Hole", a Montana colloquialism for valley. I got a room to escape the frigid rain and walked down the street to find food. At The Big Hole Restaurant I tried rocky mountain oysters for the first... and last time.
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