Day 21. Malta to Glasgow, 71 miles

I rolled over at 4:30, grabbed for my phone, and looked at the weather. It was still promising high winds from the west and no rain. Need I say that made me happy? This meant I could take my time getting out of the motel, so I did just that, dallying until about 6:30, when I hit the gas station, stocked up on snacks, and was on the road.

The mornings are getting warmer—today it was 55 when I woke up—as I very slowly descend toward sea level. I climb a fair amount each day—it rocks and rolls to the tune of 1200 feet of climbing the two days after Cut Bank and 3000 feet that awful day known as yesterday—but I’m always losing a little more elevation than I gained. Glasgow is around 2100 feet.

I knew going into the day that Saco, MT is the mosquito capital of the world; I’d read about it on some of the blogs of other NT riders during my research. Yet somehow I failed to remember—despite reminding myself before I went to bed—to leave the bug spray out of the panniers when I packed. Or to put bug spray on! Oy gevalt.

This meant I rode the first 26 miles to Saco proper without stopping. Every time I tried, they swarmed me. Every hill I climbed where I dropped below 8-9 mph they swarmed me. And once they latched on they could withstand a fair amount of wind (“aggressive,” a lady in the gas station called them); I slapped three off my calf at 15 mph. It rained a few times, both some sprinkles and a few minutes of big fat splatty drops, which I didn’t mind because it was warm and would turn sunny again just a few minutes later. But this was me passing through the weather, not the weather passing over me. My alleged tailwind was nowhere to be seen, the alfalfa treacherously still (though ever richly sweet!), even as the morning went on.

I stopped briefly in Saco itself, which maybe sprays or something, because I was able to eat a snack and escape a few minutes of surprisingly chilly rain on a bench under the extended roof of the closed library.

Saco consisted of a small grocery store, the aforementioned library, and a defunct motel. A man in front of the grocery store asked if I had experienced some mosquitos, and I owned that I had, and he asked—proudly—if I was aware that Saco was the mosquito capital of the world. He seemed a bit chagrined when I said I’d read as much.

Perhaps because I didn’t get bitten, perhaps because I was still chilly and wet, I once again neglected to get the bug spray out of the pannier. It wasn’t until 14 speedy miles later in Hinsdale (small gas station/convenience store), where I bought some pickled carrots (!!) and Nerds and used the bathroom, that I saw their bug spray display and thought to ask the cashier how much further east this went on. HOW MUCH MORE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. She said it got better by Glasgow, where I am sleeping tonight, so I went outside and put on my damn bug spray. And it was better. DEET is magic potion, y’all.

And my tailwind kicked up, and that was grand. I was making such good time I stopped at a random rest area 16 miles from Glasgow to kick back, eat a snack, and let the wind pick up further to carry me into town.

While I was there a guy named Chris—clearly also a cyclist, since he noted the tailwind that was heating up—started chatting with me about my trip. He and his lovely family were driving from PA to Glacier, and after we talked for a while they kindly invited me to join them for lunch. I had avocado! And hummus and cucumbers and CSA carrots they’d brought from home. Heaven. They were a delight and asked all sorts of questions: it was fun to talk about the trip with folks who didn’t warn me about the dangers or shake their heads at my foolishness.

The last 15 miles into Glasgow turned out to be southeast, so I didn’t get the full tailwind advantage I believed I had earned, but as we all know, the weather don’t care. I am once again moteling it—it’s too hard to persuade myself to set up camp in near-90-degree full sun. Once I’m in the Midwest I hope to return to more camping, but for the moment I’m comfortable with motel life.