I'm Bound Away 'Cross The Wide Missouri

The first local person we met in Wolf Point yesterday was a panhandler named Terrence. He asked where we had started our travels.

"Seattle," we said.

"Seattle?" he repeated, dumbfounded. "Do you know how f___in' far that is?"

He got a dollar from each of us. It was probably worth it for the laugh.

We crossed the Missouri River this morning. It wasn't so wide, really, maybe a quarter mile across.

As we pedaled south, the sky ahead of us was dark and foreboding. We stopped at the end of a driveway at the top of a hill to put rain covers on our panniers. I stowed Buddy in a pannier and put my rain jacket on top of my rack. All of this was a precaution.

It seems to have worked. We rode over wet pavement and got spattered by a few raindrops, but mostly the storm missed us.

We stopped briefly to stretch at Sand Creek Road. A pickup truck turned in at the intersection. The driver rolled down his window.

"Lost?" he asked.

"No," I answered.

"Well," he said, "it's a good place to be lost."

We stopped for the night in Circle. The restaurants are all closed, so we went to the grocery store to buy food to cook in camp.

While I stowed groceries in my bags, BJ went into the Mini-Mart to get some information about the town. The clerk, Heather, told him we could camp in the city park.

"There's a sign there that says 'No Overnight Camping.' Ignore that. That's for RVs who don't have their own tent. We want them to go to the RV park. Bicycles and motorcycles who have their own tent can camp there. If anybody gives you a hard time, tell them Heather at the store said it's all right."

So far the only person to give us a hard time was Joshua, a preternaturally self-confident young man of about 10 years of age. Joshua and his friend Chance were playing in the park while we were eating dinner. Joshua strode up and sat down at our picnic table.

"I see you guys are camping out," he said. "Are you homeless?"

We assured him that we were not homeless, just taking a bicycle trip. He told us that his mom works at the Sheriff's office and that he was on his way there next. He shook our hands when he left.

I think it is safe to assume that the sheriff knows we are camping in the city park.