Williston, North Dakota - Okay, Montana wasn't THAT bad. But frankly, I'm just glad to see it in the rear-view mirror (or the proverbial rear-view mirror, since I lost mine yesterday somewhere along BIA Rte. 1.)

That may seem a little harsh, but the Bitterroot state has not been kind to me of late. Granted, Montana started out in spectacular fashion thanks to the wonder of Glacier National Park. But after that the wind started. It blew in my face. It blew in my face some more. It slacked off briefly, then blew in my face harder. Finally, for about two days straight, it was basically a sustained gale, shooting directly at me, threatening to pick my bike up and send me and Toto back to Kansas. I spent a good deal of time on the bike cursing the fates and demanding to know how hard it would be for the wind to just be to someone else's detriment for a while. As I mentioned in the last post, there's nothing more frustrating than pedaling your butt off to go 12 mph.

That being said, Montana wasn't as dull as I anticipated. Granted, the landscape was pretty unchanging, but I discovered it was still often able to hold my interest. For one thing, it was more colorful than I expected: green fields interlaced with brown fallow ones, blue hills and fading in the distance, fields of goldenrod or other wildflowers rimming the highway. And though there was some long, flat, straight points, there were also numerous hills, some of which stretched along the rivers in attractive lines of symmetrical bluffs. There was even a brief portion yesterday that resembled the Badlands. Were it not for the wind, I expect I would have found it all rather pleasant.

This is probably why North Dakota (and I'm a whopping 20 miles in) has so far come across as more likeable than Montana; the friendly weather. I suppose friendly is a relative term, however, as it is currently 95 degrees outside. Bleah. I will say one thing for the headwind: it kept me from overheating.