Helena to Butte - will it ever stop raining!

After our arrival into Helena we decided to have a sleep in!  The bike shop wasn’t opening until 10 and we wanted to get the bikes checked over before we left town as there weren’t many options in the coming days . The guys at great divide cyclery were awesome, I got a new chain and back brake pads and he cleaned my running gear and cassette which made it just like a new one for all of 5 kms out of the city until we hit the mud! We climbed out of the city and followed quite a good gravel road for about 35kms until we headed into a rather muddy rough bush track but it wasn’t too hard to imagine a track like that back home so we all managed to ride/ push our bikes through that section quite well. Then we had a 20km ride back down to Basin.
Basin was a cute wee town of 300 with a pub, a pizzeria and a church. We had a number for some cyclist only accommodation and it was awesome ! We were soaked through and had all our fingers and toes crossed that we would be able to stay at the accommodation as we hadn’t been able to get hold of Rhandi.  We went to the pub and managed to get hold of a friend who gave us Rhandi’s address so we rode off to her place and were delighted to meet the most lovely lady who set us up in a wee furnished flat that was perfect! Never have I been so happy to be in a building!! We dined at the local pub and had great food and beer and it was a lovely way to end a busy day. 







Today  was a hard day, it wasn’t physically hard, the terrain was easy ( if I can use that word!) the rain was steady but not heavy and the track wasn’t too muddy in that you couldn’t bike it. But emotionally it was a hard day today as I struggled to rein in my thoughts of my family and what they were up to without me. Most of the time when I think of them - which is a lot, I think of the silly wee things they do that makes me laugh and I think of how proud Scott is of me doing this but every so often you think a bit too deep and the emotions spill to the surface - today was one of those days. 
Maybe it was the easy terrain and not having to grind up a mountain or maybe it was the fourth day of biking in constant rain that did it, but whatever it was it’s not good to dwel too much on what’s happening on the other side of the world and what your missing out on or you’ll miss out on whats right in front of you.
Once we got to Butte I called home and spoke to Ava and Zach and they had some exciting things happening today with school - a tournament in Invercargill for some new sport I’ve never heard of and I miss out but Scott gets to go which is actually really nice for the kids. 
So anyway I worked my way out of my funk and we discovered some interesting things about Butte. It’s an old mining town that still does have a bit of mining going on, it is also where the state rehomes/ rehabilitates inmates. So there is quite a bit of cultural mix going on ! 
We are hoping the weather is going to be better tomorrow if only for a day and are heading towards the Montana high country lodge. 











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