Hi everyone, just a few notes on our two day rest in Billings. It's late and we are planning to leave in the morning. We are heading west towards Bozeman, Helena, Great Falls and then Glacier Park. That's the plan, let's see what happens! As I said on the last post it was boiling here in Billings. But I have to make a correction. Thanks Jill for pointing it out. We have ridden in hotter weather than 114 degrees. We did a mt bike tour from Telluride, CO to Moab, UT a few years ago. On the last day of our ride our friends Bill and Jill met us in Moab and we drove back to OH-IO. But Hap & I decided to take ONE MORE ride. I had always wanted to ride the slickrock trail in Moab. The only problem was it was 120 degrees. It was an awesome ride. I think we had velcro on our tires. It was worth the heat. When we went to bed on Friday night it was 107 degrees outside our room and 92 degrees inside our room. Remember the no AC thing?? But we had a fan! At 3 am I finally got up and took a cool shower and drank a bunch of COLD water. I was finally able to sleep some. The temperature outside never got below 89 and inside below 86! As most of you know I have a neck and back problem that requires me to get steroid shots in my cervical and lumbar spine. I get them every 5 months and had them the week before we left. I also get massages once sometimes twice/ week. And see a chiropractor twice per week. When we called the university to see if we could stay at the dorm, I asked the girl who answered if she happened to know a massage therapist. She said as a matter of fact yes I do. She is my neighbor here is her number. Another God-instance??? I scheduled appointments for both of us for Sat. morning. Sat we had breakfast in the dorm. It was great. $5 for all you can eat. Then we went off for our appts. She was only about 9 blocks away or so. Julie is a massage therapist that spends about 10 months/year working in the British Virgin Islands. She was home this week for a class reunion. She doesn't take new clients because she has her regular clientele. She gave me a fantastic massage. My neck and back really needed it. Hap also needed the work on his upper body. He has alot of stress because he has to man-handle our 180 pound bus around. After the massage we went back to the dorm, just in time for alot of the American Lung Association's BIG RIDE cyclists to come in. http://www.cleanairadventures.org/big_ride_across_america. They were staying in the same dorm. There was about 45 of them. It was great to have other cyclists to talk to. They are riding coast to coast from west to east raising money for the American Lung Association. After spending time talking we rode to a bike shop for some spare bolts for the front rack and Hap used one of their widgets to tighten the bottom bracket. We stopped at Albertson's on the way back to get some dinner fixins. We had a mexican salad, fresh tomatoes, cucumbers and salmon. It tasted really good. After dinner we spent more time talking with the riders about their adventure so far. It looks like it is a great group and would be alot of fun to ride with. A big storm came through as we were eating. We could see it for miles. It was a very spectacular lightening show. Then the rain and wind came! I was hoping they don't have tornadoes in MT. You know that old saying about stay away from the windows during a storm? It was really hard to not watch the heavy rain and the trees being bent over to the ground. It was pretty spectacular. Just outside our window we saw lightening strike something that through a bunch of sparks. The water was flowing down the street like a river! But the good news......it cooled everything off finally. It was great! We rented "The Last King of Scotland" and watched it on the computer. It was a great show. Then had a wonderful nights sleep without any bugs, heat, rain, wind, firecrackers, Hap (he was in the other bed.........). OK so I'm just kidding about the Hap part!
Sunday morning we got up and fixed our usual oatmeal and peanut butter for breakfast. They had a small kitchen in the dorm. It was a wonderful cool morning. We had searched the internet and found a church about a mile away. So at 10:15am we headed to the service. Only to discover they were on their "summer" schedule. Ooopps.....note to self.....call the church for service times. We rode around alittle searching for another but found the same thing. Oh well, I guess we weren't supposed to go today. We went back to the dorm. Hap planned to clean and check the bike out and I planned to do some shoppin for our new babies. Nothing new on the babies. The twins are happily playing soccer in Tiff's belly and Heather and Scott's baby is waiting to tell us if we have a he or a she. It would make it alot easier for this GrandAunt to buy baby stuff. But don't mind me.....if you don't wanna know.....it's ok with me......I'll just wait.......It doesn't bother me.............. Once Hap got started on the bike I took a taxi to the mall and spent most of the day looking at the baby stuff. After all, I'm not carrying anymore "stuff". We are planning to mail things tomorrow. I also stopped at GNC and loaded up on our supply of vitamins, cytomax replacement drink and endurox recovery drink. I think the number of vitamins we take is directly proportional to Hap's age (or something like that!). I don't really like to have the extra weight of the powder supplements but riding in this extreme heat can't be good for us. That's my story and I'm stickin to it. My captain rode to the mall and picked me up. We stopped at Albertson's again for dinner fixins and supplies for the next few days. Tonights dinner was spagetti and brocolli salad. After supper we had a nice chat with Dr. Hattler. Dr. Hattler is one of the Big Ride Cyclists. He is also a transplant surgeorn from the University of Pittsburgh. The U of P is one of the premier sites for transplants in the world. Since Dugan is edging closer to his transplant, I was very interested in the opportunity to find out more about transplants. Dugan has been going to the Ohio State University for his testing for the transplant. He is still not on the list yet. I think it is really a difficult situation for Alpha patients. You have to be sick enough to get the transplant, but healthy enough to get the transplant. But on the positive side we know how hard Dugan has worked to stay as healthy as possible. We KNOW he will have a great outcome. Many, many years ago I promised Dugan that when he got his transplant we were going to buy him a shiny new blue bike. He is holding me to that promise! Maybe our next tour will be across the US with Dugan, his new lung (or lungs) and his shiny new bike!! Until next time.