Chris’s first cycling day!!! and first time he’d cycled with loaded panniers, ever. i cycled behind him leaving missoula, watching the wobble and remembering wavering round the hotel carpark in el paso. the temperature dropped 20 degrees today, which was great for chris, as he’s not a fan of heat, but left me feeling distinctly chilly. 80 degrees, yikes, where’s that fleece!! spent the next couple of days heading north on highway 83, camping in national park sites, invited for “smores” by a neighbouring family out for the weekend (marshmallow, graham’s crackers and chocolate melted in the campfire, so delicious you’l want s’more) and chatting with bikers at a viewpoint. beautiful black harley’s with seats like armchairs, backs stacked up with camping gear. they do thirty to the gallon. ” with gas prices so high, it’s the only way to travel”. one group lived in alaska and trucked the bikes south every summer, then road home by a different route. “it’s how we recharge”…. the bikers are great, always friendly and almost always wave. we are part of some two-wheeled fraternity on the road…..eating bagels in the morning, a big eggy breakfast meal somewhere on the road and tortillas in the evening. chris is amazed how much more i’m eating. be interesting to compare the energy embedded in, say, 3000 calories with a day’s worth of harley davidson petrol . . .