6/16/08 from Chester, Montana

The Pandas are very excited because they suddenly began to encounter some other species of cross-country cyclists yesterday afternoon!

At first, there were only signs.... Two left a mysterious note in Chaos's helmet while we were in the cinema. As an aside, going to the cinema is our favorite activity second only to eating mint chocolate chip ice cream. Why? We get to sit in a dark room, not getting either sunburned or rained/snowed/hailed on, we get to eat popcorn (salty and absolutely the best food ever, except beer and of course ice cream), and we get to relax and forget the difficult ride to come. Anyway, I digress. First we got this note from the mysterious cylists who were still on the road at 5 p.m. while we pandas were enjoying "The Incredible Hulk," starring Edward Norton and Liv Tyler. Then today, when we were seeking shade from the scorching midday prarie sun, we came to a seemingly abandoned motel, The Galata Inn by the Lake. Ha. Lake. Where did they come up with that one? Anyway, we found about a foot of shade on one side of the motel, so while Cate and Sarah were making sandwiches, Liz went around back to, uh, enjoy the view. And there was a touring bike and a tent with lots of stuff inside it! But no cyclist was to be found.... How mysterious. We hope she was not abducted.

Finally, we met some other real life cyclists! First we encountered a pack of seven fully sun-baked, minimally clothed, dread-locked hitchiker/bikers, who as it turns out had mostly run out of money and were trying to make it to Seattle primarily by dumpster-diving. Our favorite outfit was, from the bottom up, bike shoes (no socks), rainbow spandex, dreadlocks. I looked over at Sarah whose sunscreen was not fully rubbed in, and then at Cate and myself with our matching bike vests, and I think we got a little intimidated. We did not linger long enough to ask them the questions we really wanted, such as, are we likely to fall asleep while cycling on Route 2 through Montana or will it actually get interesting again someday? And, after a while, do shirts become optional and when will we know we've reached that point? When that time comes, where can we find rainbow spandex?

The second group of cyclists we met were much easier to talk to. Also very brown, but this time a group of young friends cycling from Wisconsin to Anacortes on the Northern tier. They assured us that North Dakota will be fun, and that the camping from here on is decent and mostly free.

We will be on Route 2 until further notice, applying and reapplying sunscreen and hunting for mint chocolate chip ice cream cones.

Check out the new pictures and the map links!

- The Pandas