the fourth of july

I woke up today, and my legs did not feel rested and refreshed. They felt like lead. It wasn't too big of a problem as we had a pretty gentle, easy ride of 55 miles from Billings to Hardin. It was the perfect temperature and was amazing weather for bicycling. It went pretty quickly, and we were all in camp by 11 am.

This worked out really well, as it was the 4th of July, and we had some celebrating to do! It was actually one of the greatest 4th of July's I've ever had -- I got to bicycle, go to the rodeo, eat an oreo blizzard from Dairy Queen, swim, had an amazing dinner, and saw fireworks. Does life get much better??

On our way through town, we saw signs for the Big Horn County Rodeo that was happening later that day, so we showered over and headed over (and if we had cowboy hats, we would have donned those too!). They began the rodeo with a prayer and singing of the Star Spangled Banner. While they had the traditional bucking broncos...



... they also had several less than traditional events including the sweetheart race, ...



... the baby race, ...



... and pole bending.



Unfortunately, the children did not excel at the "kids on calves" event...




One of the coolest events was one I'd never heard of before -- the Indian Relay Race. Unfortunately, I wasn't clever enough to remember that my camera had a video mode until this event was over. Each rider made three laps around the track riding a horse bareback. At each lap, they'd switch to a new horse, and the way they hopped off of one horse and sprang onto the next, with no saddle to assist with the process was amazing!



One of the (female) bicycler friends I was with joked to another (male) about making a bet on which rider would win the race -- she said "If the blue team wins, I'll make dinner; if the red team wins, you make dinner". Dinner was being catered for us that night, so it wasn't a very meaningful bet, but a man who was sitting with his wife on the row in front of us overheard the comment and remarked "It’s so funny what women will do to get out of making dinner for ya”. I had to bite my lip to keep my mouth shut.

On the way back from the rodeo, we stopped at Dairy Queen, and I got my first ice cream of the trip -- an oreo blizzard. It was heavenly. The campground had a pool, so we went for a dip in the afternoon, and Beyond Basil once again catered dinner. They make the most amazing salads with all kinds of fun flavors and ingredients -- like dried banana chips in a wheat berry salad... different, but definitely amazing! Later in the evening, we saw a few fireworks, but we go to bed so early (I'm talking 8ish), so we didn't get to see too many.

All in all, it was quite close to the perfect day. The only small glitch was, once again, my tent. I thought that getting away with not having to put up my tent on the days we can sleep on the floor inside buildings. It turns out, I forget everything I've learned about erecting the thing each time I have a break from putting it up. Today I went to put it up, and started by putting in the stakes to hold things still. Unfortunately, I put them into the little holes where the tent poles go instead of the loops for the stake, so I had to start all over again. Kathleen was watching it all and wondered aloud how many times it would take me before I put it together correctly the first time. I think she's started taking bets on the matter. I sure hope she's not holding her breath though, because I'm not certain that this is going to happen in the 48 days of the ride!