Rainy finish

Friday 5/18 Day 28
Today will be know as he road kill day. And I think I need to blame it on my buddy André. Ever since I talked with him about the subject a couple of days ago more and more animals have been appearing but today was the worst!
Maybe it was he fact that I was on another old historic highway. They usually go through the country far away from anything, have no shoulder, and have many blind spots, this one was no different.
This morning I talked with Mike before I left and said this was the best route down to visit Little Bighorn National Battlefield. He cooked me a huge breakfast this morning including eggs and a waffle which of course helped with the calories for today. I said my goodbyes early morning and started off in the rain. I was hunkered down for the first few miles till I got out of the city. That means rain jacket and pants were both on along with my glasses to help keep the rain out. It worked pretty well and my shoes have some sort of gortex lining because my feet were dry.
Once I got to the old highway the rain was pretty light and I was super hot so I went back to normal biking gear.
So I'm on the old highway and I saw 12 dead deer, five or six birds, three snakes, and to fat cows. Some times there was just bones and sometimes in the cows case they were bloated and upside down. Soooo weird! Never saw a dead cow before. But I hope today was the worst part of the dead animals on my trip and I hope it stays that way. Besides the dead animals the highway was great! I was by myself on the road for most of the day. The goal today was at least to make it to Hardin MT but I was looking to camp fifteen miles south near the battlefield. Only problem there was no camping near the battlefield. So I was in for some ninja camping tonight.



Once I made it to Hardin I had my first experience at a library on my trip. It was nice to type a blog on a computer and not on my iPod. Once I was done I walked outside to rain. The next hour would be the wettest riding I have had. There were puddles all over the road and it was a pretty heavy rain coming down. As I went down the road I passed a train and the conductor honked his horn for me as I passed. I couldn't stop smiling and laughing, had a realization during this time of how great life can be. I felt so peaceful while riding these last few miles in the rain. My last mile into town was on a dirt road which I ended up walking and it led me to an abandoned building with a shelter on the lawn. I parked under the shelter and set up my camp there. I had some dinner and slept without a tent tonight due to the shelter.