In Valentine we learned about the cowboy trail. A rail trail that parallels 20 for most of the state. Most of it is unfinished right now. The sections near each town are complete, as are all the bridges. But the long stretches between towns were not. We attempted to use it. When we got to an unfinished section of thick gravel outside Valentine I took my one and only spill. Patti had long since given up falling over. I decided it was about time I found out what the big deal was. Nothing was injured but my pride. We crossed a tall and scenic bridge on the trail. Once this thing is finished I think that cyclists will flock to the area. 20 is pretty good, but a rail trail will be better.

My right clipless pedal started giving me trouble. The rain and mud had rusted out the pedal. The result was that the pedal wouldn't clip in well, and once in wouldn't release. I had to constantly tighten the shoe mechanism from now on.

We had dinner in Ainsworth. As luck would have it the world horseshoe championship was underway. I took a picture of the rows of horseshoe courts for my Dad. It was a rest day, so all we got to see was the courts, and some of the best players in the world warming up.

We got to Basset today. The town had a serious frog plague going on. At night, we walked around town. Frogs were EVERYWHERE. We had to watch our step to avoid squishing the little dudes. We had finally cleaned all the grasshoppers out of our stuff. We didn't want to get attacked by frogs. Fortunately we didn't see any after tonight.

The broasted Jo Jo's weren't quite as good here as they were in Montana. The jalepeno poppers made up for it.