Though we never had to portage our bikes the way the Lewis and Clark expedition did their canoes, we were loaded down with camping and cooking gear, about 35 pounds each and carried in panniers or on trailers. And, yes, expedition members had a harder time making dinner (hunting deer and bison, for example) on their trek from Missouri to Oregon. But neither is it easy cooking for 17 hungry men and women over camp stoves with supplies bought at a country store.
Then there was the weather. Much has been made of Lewis and Clark being cold and wet in the winter. But what about hot and dry in the summer? When we cyclists from across the country took off in mid-July, a heat wave had just taken hold. It topped 100 degrees on several days; one cyclist left camp one morning at 4:30 a.m., using a headlight to see, so she could reach our destination before noon.
"Weather's supposed to break in two days" was the line we heard from locals for 11 days. It never did. At least our hand-washed clothing dried inside an hour. In the end, we two-wheeled explorers ages 36 to 67 rose to the challenge and had a great time along the way.
In some ways, Montana seems to echo New Hampshire's "Live Free or Die" sentiment. There is no sales tax and speed limits arrived only recently: 70 miles per hour on two-lane country roads. Everyone goes faster. Montana has no open container law, meaning you and your passengers can drink while driving. On some days, we passed more roadside crosses marking where people had died than we passed people.
The route, both in the mountains and on the plains, stirred up images of cowboys, Indians, and Lewis and Clark. The explorers spent almost a quarter of their time in what is now Montana. Signs of the expedition cover the state, from roadside markers, museums, and special festivals to those ubiquitous road signs of the men in silhouette.
