We awoke to the sound of the highway traffic outside our tent and I set about getting things gathered up while Ziven went to use the facilities in the motel room.... The little coffee stand in the parking lot was open and we happily pushed our bikes over for some hot beverages and pastries, sharing a picnic table with a German rider coming the other direction who had already finished riding for the day. He was near frozen and we told him about the motel while he filled us in on the road ahead. Knowing from him that the gravel was smooth and the landscape scenic, we happily hit the road, first going alongside the highway for a bit and then taking a gravel road off to the left and up into the hills. The gravel was indeed smooth and we soon entered a beautiful canyon road that followed alongside a river twisting up and around the hills. Enjoying these calm and almost cozy features, we stopped to say hi to a Tour rider and trundled around, ignoring the darkening clouds.

The canyon eventually ran out and we were ejected onto a large plain where the clouds finally caught up to us. We popped our jackets on and, though the rain was not too heavy, it got a little chilly for my taste. Winding across the plateau, we made decent progress until we finally arrived at one of our few climbs of the day. Passing more Tour riders, we plonked along and, at the top, we stopped for a snack and were able to shed our jackets as the sky brightened. Ziven, ever the entertainer, was goofing off with an old road sign and somehow got it stuck on his cleat clip, though not for long. After extracting him from this and performing minor surgery on a fun little boil that had been on his hand for a few days and finally popped, we concluded this eventful snack break and started the fun descent. The gravel was smooth and I was enjoying myself quite a bit and somehow got ahead of Ziven by a few minutes. This was all well and good until I was approaching a herd of cows that were blocking my path. I thought that they would move out of the way as I approached and so I happily chatted to them, kindly asking them to make way.

Apparently they thought I was there to bring them food and started surrounding me, causing me to panic. Ziven finally swooped in to save me by scattering the cows and freeing me from my bovine prison. My hero! We continued onwards, though I did not learn my lesson on the next descent and once again got too far ahead, worrying that Ziven had crashed or I had gotten lost. Instead, the tent poles had repeatedly fallen off his rig and I had not heard him yelling at me to stop because I was so intent on my audiobook about elderly Swedish bank robbers. We regrouped and the gravel road fed into a T intersection and we met a Tour rider who asked if there was anywhere to camp up ahead. We responded not really and so he accompanied us back a few miles to a pub that was in a small town called Grant. Skeptical of any place with the same name as Grants, New Mexico, we were right not to have too high of expectations.

The place was fine if not a little confusing, with the main entrance taking you into the kitchen and then a series of hallways with hotel rooms leading you to the bar. The owner's daughter approached us to tell us about gift bags they had prepared for bikers and we excitedly listened to her list what was in them: snacks, drinks, electrolytes, bars, toiletries, etc. before she gave us the asking price and we realized they were not in fact gift bags, but rather bags for sale at a ridiculous price. Ziven and I eyed the chicken tenders on the menu but through some miscommunication or, as Ziven would claim, terrible waitressing, the eclectic older woman working the bar took almost 30 minutes to take our order. There were 2 other people in the entire restaurant eating and they already had everything they needed so we were a little confused why she kept evading us. During this time we spoke with a woman from San Francisco who was riding the Tour and staying the night at this hotel. She regaled us with the horrors of Koko’s Claim, a section that still loomed over us as we had to decide whether or not to subject ourselves to it. She explained how it was horrendously cold and snowy and how she had started and been passed by others simply running up the slope with their bikes. This tallied with the online reviews we had seen stating that it was a ridiculous temporary reroute from a few years ago when a bridge washed out and was now a hazard for search and rescue. Feeling even more apprehensive and tending towards not doing it, we chatted some more before calling it on the chicken tenders. We asked to settle up for the sodas that we had bought to stuff into our bags and the lady asked awkwardly if she had wasted our time. Ziven brazenly responded YES! and she apologized. I was too embarrassed by both parties to take part and Ziven, who I later learned was incredibly hangry and mid bonk during this entire encounter, raged about the experience for the next few miles. We do not recommend the restaurant/pub/hotel in Grants.

We trundled down the road talking about the bizarre experience and debated what constituted a Tour Divide “racer” if most of them were just trying to finish and were not real contenders. The stretch of road was flat and apparently notorious for getting very muddy very quickly with any sort of moisture, a fact we confirmed when it suddenly started pouring a few minutes later. We were only a few miles from our goal campground and so we buckled down and fought the gooey mud that stuck to everything from our bottles to ourselves to our tires. Ziven, of course, blamed the timing on our “waitress”. Our turn off the road finally presented itself and we arrived at Bannock, a ghost town-turned state park where we located a campground in a charming little clearing next to a stream. The rain had eased off and we greeted a cute doggy from our next door neighbor's RV, pleasantly talking to the owners about our trip and finding out that they were also heading to Banff, though they would be there the day after tomorrow. After a few huge thunderclaps and flashes of lightning less than three miles away, we decided to move camp to a more sheltered spot across the small campground instead of being the lone structure in the small field near the stream.

We paid for our spot and pitched the tent, anchoring it to trees while the wind whipped around us. The massive cottonwood trees above us shielded our tent well from most wind and rain and we were soon cozily cooking up some dinner as a beautiful rainbow peaked out from behind the rain clouds. I finally ate my mashed potatoes that I had bought at the Walmart in Grants, New Mexico, coming full circle eating them near Grant, Montana, and Ziven made noodles and hot chocolate at our picnic table. We watched a bit of How I Met your Mother and we happily cozied into our beds while the sun sank into the hills.