Cactus Flower Tales

We will arrive in Bozeman, MT on Sunday, 15 July to set up our bikes and get them tested and ready to roll!  The PAC riders will be headed towards us on Monday from Butte, MT.  We will most likely head towards them to get in a ride and turn around to head back to Bozeman to start the 'real ride' on Tuesday.  Here's the link to the full itinerary, we will be doing days 10-25!!! A total of 16 Days, approximately 1,877 miles, 51,470 feet of climbing, an average of 117 Miles/Day.  The riders doing the Total NTC PAC  Tour have 3,569 miles and 94,480 feet of climbing!!  Animals!!!

http://pactour.com/Resources/2018Northernitin.pdf

We have been trying to do a lot of riding but working full time makes it very difficult.  We really thought that having planned it over six months ago we would have plenty of time.  Unfortunately, we both had some major projects assigned to our regular 'day jobs', hence why you can probably hear the tension in my writing!

We were prepping for our last day at home for 17 days today.  The usual stuff but one of my favorites is feeding the birds.  I put out fresh sugar water for the humming birds, lots of meal worms for the blue birds, grape jelly for the orioles and lots of the 'normal stuff' safflower, nyjer and sunflower hearts, suet and other blocks for the myriad of birds that come in.  I washed the two bird baths and filled them with fresh water, all the while birds were coming in to check out what I was doing, if you are nearby you have to think I'm crazy as i talk to them and try to get the chickadees to land in my hand.  After taking care of the birds, I wanted to scan the milk weed plants and to my utter surprise and sheer delight was a monarch caterpillar!!! 

This leaf is going to be delicious!!

Everyone was enjoying the milk weed patch!

Bozeman, our 11+ year old, super sweet Rhodesian Ridgeback, is not having any of this back and forth packing business.  I kept asking him, "where's the birds?, Where's the squirrel?"  He clearly has responded, "You aren't fooling me, I know you are leaving me and I'm NOT playing your game." He's so smart!!  We were incredibly sad to drop him off at camp today.  The girls were glad to see him and will be able to let him out hourly too!  Thank goodness for Club Pet!!!

Hmmm....what in the heck is this?  Well, in the days ahead you will see but for now, it is a few stitches for reinforcement of the Horn!  ;-)

Staging stuff takes a lot of space!!!  Our bags weighed in at 35lbs and 36.5lbs, under the 40lb weight limit, but we would like to get them lighter than that!  Good thing we will be using lots of SPF and chamois butter EVERDAY!!!

It was a week of ingenious ideas for dinner which resulted in a nice cleaned out fridge!!!  Although, what will we eat at 3:00am before we head to the airport?!?