All roads lead to ... Pompey's Pillar National Monument?

What an amazing coincidence happened today!  I was at the Pompey's Pillar National Monument, where William Clark carved in the rock his name and the date when he passed by there on the Lewis & Clark expedition.  This is one of the only bits of extant physical evidence of the Lewis & Clark expedition.

In the visitor's center, while I was chatting with someone I had just met in the parking lot there who happens to own the Harbor View Cafe in Pepin, Wisconsin (which I passed by on this trip but had not stopped to eat at the restaurant), who should walk up and grab me by the shoulder but Paul the canoeist from the campsite in Minnesota that was so overrun with mosquitoes that he and his friends invited me to tag along to eat at the Olive Garden rather than being stuck trying to eat at the campsite with the mosquitoes (as described in this blog post from June 24).

Almost one month and about 1,000 miles of pedaling later, we randomly chanced to meet again!  Here's a picture of me with Paul and his family in the Pompey's Pillar visitors' center:

Pompey's Pillar itself was also pretty neat.  There were great views from the top!

 View of Pompey's Pillar as you approach it

 View from the top of Pompey's Pillar

Another view from the top of Pompey's Pillar

I've been following the Lewis & Clark Trail for a while now, and, while I've never been particularly interested in that expedition before, the exhibition at the visitors' center at Pompey's Pillar may have tipped the scales and sparked my interest to make me want to learn more than just the tidbits from a visitors' center exhibit.  I downloaded a copy of The Journals of Lewis and Clark and will give it a try.  It certainly fits the "travel" theme of my reading list, and I've just finished a couple of the books I was reading so am ready for a new one anyway.

Tomorrow I meet my brother in Billings and will take a week off from bicycling while we tour Yellowstone etc. by car.  I suppose I'll keep up with the blog, though.

The Yellowstone River

After a relatively short ride today mainly on ridges overlooking the Yellowstone River valley, my campsite is right near the river.

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Longest mileage of the trip

Nothing particularly remarkable about today except that I rode 85 miles which will probably be the longest for a single day on the whole trip. Thank goodness the wind was mostly at my back and it was good weather if slightly hot.

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Back from the edge of the world

I got more adventure than I bargained for on my detour to see Fort Peck Dam. The marina/campground that I was staying at turned out to be down a seven mile road that included sections of deep, loose gravel; sections of sticky mud they call "gumbo"; and sections of sand. Thank goodness my guardian angel for the weekend Ralyn happened to drive by in her truck and told me to throw my bicycle in the back of her pick-up and she'd give me a ride.



The campground was lovely, however, and worth the difficult access.



The next day, Ralyn gave me a ride up to and tour of the dam itself and the interpretive center, which included a small natural history museum as well. This is the area in which many big dinosaur skeletons have been found.



After that rest day off the bike, I had a tough ride today directly into the strongest and most relentless wind yet. I could see storms passing by me on the right and on the left but I made it without getting rained on at all.

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