Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
6
Downhill From Here
Saturday, August 13, Saint Mary, Montana
I
was almost killed on the way into Whitefish.
U.S. 93, which I rode for most of the fifty-some-odd miles southeast from Eureka,
traces a pretty enough route, through woods and ranchland and some exurban home
tracts, but the road isn't in great shape, the shoulder doesn't exist for long stretches, and
even when it does it's narrow and often chewed up. You have to ride on the edge of the
traffic lane, and there is too much traffic, fast-moving traffic, including trucks, ever to
get comfortable. There are no alternatives, so 93 is nonetheless a regular route for the
long-distance cyclists who decide they want to tackle this part of the country.
Just outside of Whitefish, a regional tourist center with a strange, half-lumberjack,
half-hippie air about it—a lot of ponytailed guys with fishing poles—is a stretch, infam-
ous among cyclists, where a couple of blind curves are spiced with an especially crappy
road surface and a bed of rocks to land on when a careering truck forces you of the
shoulder, which is what nearly happened to me. I managed to stay upright, but the close
call sent me into town a little shaky, and when my motel room turned out to be a closet-
sized space with a tiny window opening on an alley—I was lucky to find a bed in town,
the clerk told me—I had a hard time taking my usual solace in having put fifty rugged
miles behind me.
Plus I was coughing badly. My acid reflux problem has begun asserting itself in the
past week, I assume because I haven't been watching at all what I've been eating, just
shoveling in everything in arm's reach, including all the acidic foods that do the worst
work on the stomach: tomato sauce, orange juice, coffee, chocolate, beer.
Acid reflux manifests itself different ways in different people. A lot of my fellow suf-
ferers deal with agonizing heartburn. With me, it's as if occasional drops of the acid that
