We decided rather than having breakfast at the gas station a few miles down the road we’d make the trek to Missoula for a proper coffee/pastry at Black Coffee on Spruce Street just north of downtown. With no coffee to fuel us it was a long 15 miles for sure but well worth it. We spent the day checking out a few bike shops, having lunch, more coffee and enjoying the trails and sights in Missoula. At one of the bike shops we met Chris, a fireman who along with a few of his buddies was riding coast to coast. They’d started in Portland about 2 weeks ago and were having lots of trouble with flats. Turns out none of them were cyclists, they basically went into a shop and bought some bikes, through all their stuff in HUGE pannier bags and headed east. Chris’s bike had been fitted with new, tougher tires at the bike shop where we’d met and his bags were in a heap at the front of the shop. When he saw our bikes and packing set-up he couldn’t believe we were traveling so light. I picked up one of his 3 bags and discovered it weighed nearly 50 pounds (just one)! “Did you see the movie WILD?” I asked him. He had. “That’s you.” Good thing he had a sense of humor. If you’re interested here’s his blog link; https://pedalingpilgrim.blog/.