August 18, Wisdom to Dillon, Dillon to Sheridan, MT 38 miles

Oh my god! It’s 27 degrees when we wake up. We’ve been up most of the night listening to coyotes howl and the sheep in the field next to us being nervous. No way to get started. We head back to the Big Hole Crossing Restaurant and hook up again with the woman who owns and runs the place. As we order breakfast and talk with her about the problem of getting started she ends up hooking us up with a local from Dillon who has just come over to Wisdom to deliver some salt to a rancher and is headed back to Dillon in his pickup. After a little talk he’s glad to haul us to Dillon and we’re glad to take him up on it. We break camp quickly, load up his pickup while he has breakfast and then skip ahead 65 miles and 30 degrees of temp with him. Another blessing. (Also while getting breakfast I talk with a young guy riding west on the transam route, he has been averaging 90 miles a day!)
After he drops us off in Dillon and we regroup with snacks we decide to head off to Twin Bridges on Rt 41 and have a ripping good ride for about 25 miles. We had a nice little lunch in Twin Bridges’ lost most of the truck traffic which is going or coming to/from ID and then grind out the final miles to get to Sheridan, MT where we find a cheap but very nice motel room at the Moriah Motel. A decent dinner and we’re good for the night. Tomorrow we have to do one more climb to get to Yellowstone. In Sheridan we’re at about 5100 ft and have to get over a 6900 ft pass just beyond Virginia City and will then descend into Ennis. We have two days to get to West Yellowstone and have a shot if we can make the climb and then put in a long softly uphill day. We’ve had a chance to do laundry, dry out the tents, etc and will get an early start in the morning.
This is an awesome experience.