Day 17 - Two Flats (June 18th, 2024)

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City To City: Missoula - Sula
Miles: 90
Miles Total: 1,082

A picture with Andy


A picture with Ethel


Up the mountain where it had rained hard


Dinner


Our soaking wet tent



We slept more than usual, and luckily missed the rain in the morning.  After packing everything up, we headed off to Adventure Cyclists headquarters in Missoula.  At the headquarters, we ran into the two same guys we saw in New Meadows.  After chatting some, signing the guest book, and getting our pictures taken, we headed off to the cyclist's lounge and got an ice cream dessert.  While talking with man at the front desk, we mentioned that we had stayed with Ethel.  The man immediately jumps with a story about how Ethel a few years back wanted to tour some of Alaska.  One of Ethel's friend was concerned for her and asked whether if she should go alone or not.  to which Ethel had replied that as long as Ethel's friend kept up with her, she was fine with it.
We headed off to for seven miles to return to the Trans am trail.  (Adventure Cyclists have you go an extra seven miles into Missoula because their headquarters are stationed there.) There's this bike trail that we imagined flying by on, but with a headwind and the trail was old and repaired in so many places that it was hard to get going fast.  Then I got a flat, and it started to rain.  After fixing that, and after a ways, Henry got a flat.  And after fixing that we got behind schedule by a lot.  But because we got behind schedule, we ended up missing a huge, thunderstorm.
When we set up the tent that night, it was soaking wet from when we were in Powell.  So, we used our small, but very absorbable towels to dry off the tent.  Mine being the biggest, ended up making the most difference.  Awhile back Henry had commented that my towel was the biggest, and took up the most room out of all the towels, and I didn't need all that fabric to dry off.  Henry then said that his towel was half the size of mine, and our dad's was even smaller.  I had refuted by saying that I only had a normal sized towel, and it fit in almost as small as his.  Plus I had more hair to dry off than he did.  But once I used my towel to dry off most of the tent, Henry ended up being happy with my normal sized towel.
Dinner was ramen noodles with spice beans and vegetables and we didn't linger outside for too long because of the cool weather.

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