Note: all is well from a truckstop in central montana...days behind on email and blogging. maybe ill get caught up tonight if the cell coverage is this good.

Day Six: Sandpoint to Sandpoint, or, "I don't roll on Saturday." Zero miles.

A well deserved rest after a tough five days. If they get rest days in the Tour or the Giro, then I don't feel bad. My mom brought her vintage trailer, Miss Montana, and my sister brought her pup, Ike. We pretty much ate food and sat around the grassy area sandwiched between some railroad tracks and a beach on Lake Pend Orielle. This was a summer hang out for me as a kid, as we trailer trashed on our property just 20 minutes away by boat (10 on a good one). Gone is the rope swing behind main street to make way for a highway extension, but the buildings remain old and classic western, with façades aimed at a ritzier or boozier clientele that don't even need to snowbird far from the ski resort that looms above town. My parents will likely join this community when they retire.

Washed clothes, caught part of a match at the irish pub for lunch, and avoided the sun as my ears were blistering. I also likely spent too much time on my mom's wifi laptop (thus the pictures updated for each post). It was everything a rest day should be: relaxing with your bare feet in the grass, carbo/protein loading, and sitting around with your family, yelling expletives when the trains roll by every 30 minutes. You can't offend if you can't be heard.

We were pleased to have the ol gang together in Sandpoint for the day off, and they likely won't be around for the next one. Also, my dad and I have trouble admitting we want another one, because we're silently competitive.

Day Seven: Sandpoint to Libby, MT, or, "goin' up goin' over to montana"
100.4 miles.

The above may be a poor choice for a quote because we were riding flatland and not cresting Lookout Pass on I-90, but Montana is 'up' no matter how you view it. We actually were on a potholed sideroad, riding side by side when we realized that the transition from paved to dirt must have been the state line. We were in the thick of of a conversation about fathers, grandfathers, who taught us to fish or ride a bike, and other tidbits that only come about on father's day. My dad has mentioned that a major challenge for him this year with his father was to find and ask the questions that would make the most of their limited time together. Not quantitative but qualitative. It's interesting to find out what those questions were, and think about what I would ask given a limited timeline, or why I would hesitate in asking them right now. We called Grandpa Fuller from Hope, Idaho (the east side of the lake). He sounded more distant than ever, but his words of love and blessing for our little adventure made me crack a teary smile. That's all I want to say.

We enjoyed a half day of sun, a lightening storm, and father's day dinner at a cheap steakhouse-like joint (with two other groups of cyclists...so we knew it would be worth it). We then walked across the street to the camping plots behind the chamber of commerce, where bunnies had done their deeds in droves and made it difficult to walk to the bathroom without killing one. I would have taken pictures, but rain began, and would continue for 18 hours.