We’re taking a rest day in Missoula after two days of relative easy riding. Staying with a Warm Showers host that makes his home available to bicycle tourists--last night nine cyclists were staying in the house. Such generosity is very much appreciated. Yesterday we also visited Shali Zhang, Dean of Libraries at the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library at the University of Montana. Shali and I have worked together with the International Relations Round Table (ALA) for years and it was a great treat to see her and visit the Library. She took us out to dinner at the university's all-you-can-eat dining room--and we can eat a lot, further demonstrated by our visits to the Farmers Market and a French bakery this morning. Many baked goods were purchased.
After baked goods, we rode to the Missoula Public Library First thing we saw at the library was a bicycle tool stand and a tire pump, both provided by Mountain Line, a local bus and transit service. Cycling is a big deal in Missoula, maybe due to the natural beauty of the area. Plus, the headquarters of the Adventure Cycling Association and the University of Montana are here. Library staff told us that the library has a tricycle that serves as a mobile library and is out and about today at Missoula’s three Farmers Markets. Hopefully John and I can locate it and check it out. For programming, the library offers the Libraries Rock!! summer reading program, with activities scheduled throughout the summer and an end-of-summer party on July 31st. They have two teen Writers’ Groups, two adult book groups, and five computer classes scheduled in July. I was very impressed with their movie schedule which includes numerous film series: World Wide Cinema; Cheap Date Night; Summer Family Movies; The Great American Read Film Series; and Summer Movie Matinees. Inside the building there is a lot of information about the new library building, ground-breaking scheduled for August, 2018 (next month!). Currently the library only has seating for 38 people while more than 1500 people visit each day. For every book added, one needs to be removed. And a very interesting statistic, one in four Missoulians do not have access to the internet. Missoula Public Library is the busiest library in the state of Montana and has over 700,000 visitors a year. In 2016, Missoula County passed a 30-million-dollar library bond, with the new building scheduled to open in 2020. The bond passed with over 60 percent of the vote, displaying amazing community support for the library. We want to thank Stephen for taking the time to speak with us and congratulate Missoula County on their new library!
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Tuesday, we spent the day in Dillon, Montana (population 4000+). We usually try and take one day a week off of the bikes, mostly to get a bit more sleep, do laundry, and catch up on writing letters and email. We usually wake up around 4:30am, so sleeping until 6:30 is a real treat.
After breakfast and coffee, we headed to the Dillon Public Library. We spoke with Edna, library staff member, and she told us a bit about the history of the library. The library is a beautiful Carnegie building built in 1902, complete with four gargoyles and a turret. The library building is included in the National Historical Register of Buildings. The driving force behind obtaining the Carnegie funds was Mary Perkins-Hooker, a Dillon resident and great-niece of Harriet Beecher-Stowe. Perkins-Hooker was also a member of the second oldest book club in Montana, the Shakespeare Club, which still exists today in Dillon. We also got the chance to speak with the Library Director, Lori Roberts. What an inspiring librarian! In times of budget cuts for Montana libraries, Lori has written and received 6-8 grants this past year for the Dillon Public Library. Lori told us about several of the resources/services that are available with grant funding. The backpack program provides backpacks that include binoculars, fishing poles, park pass for Glacier National Park, and various maps. The grant funds will also allow the library to offer media workshops to teenagers to develop skills with movie making. The library will furnish an instructor, go-pros, a drone, and laptops with media-making software. While speaking with Lori, she told us of two library programs taking place that very night: the Teen Top-Chef Cookout and an outdoor concert featuring Jack and Kitt, an Emmy-award-winning musical duo. She invited us to the community potluck, same time and place as the concert. We did go and had a fabulous meal while watching children dance to the music of Jack and Kitty. A wonderful evening. Thanks to Lori and the Dillon Public Library for inviting us! One of the best things about this trip is all the pleasant surprises along the way. Monday morning, we left Ennis at about 5:30 am and spent the next three hours heading up a steep climb (this was not a pleasant surprise). But after the uphill we had a glorious downhill that passed through the town of Virginia City, Montana, a town like no other. Part of the town was a restored mining town, with different businesses fashioned to represent 19th century Virginia City, a booming mining town. Doors were left open for tourists to check out the stores, complete with mannequins and an amazing number of wares from past years. I mean, like dozens of pairs of long johns, a store full of groceries, a tailor’s shop with about fifty men’s coats and vests. Someone put a lot of effort and forethought into collecting these things and while it all was a bit eerie, I really enjoyed it. And since it was still early in the morning, we had the place to ourselves.
We knew that we would be on the bikes for many hours today due to the long climb and 71 miles. We were looking forward to stopping at the Two Bridges Public Library to relax and talk with the library staff. Two Bridges, Montana, was built around two bridges that cross the Beaverhead River. The Beaverhead, Ruby, and Big Hole Rivers converge to form the Jefferson River in Two Bridges, making this small town (population 400-500) a pretty big deal in fly-fishing circles. On the outside wall of the library is an amazing mural painted by local artist, Jim Shirk. It combines local history/attractions with cowboys, fly fishing, and spine labels. Inside we were surprised to find a stuffed lion. Edith, the library staff member on duty, told us that the lion originally belonged to a doctor in Two Bridges that liked to big-game hunt in the 1920s-1940s. The library has many more trophies housed upstairs and is trying to raise money to create a display open to the public. The library sees many bicycles tourists passing through. The library allows use of the internet and wifi, plus offers free coffee and tea to all visitors. A big stand near the front door features pamphlets of local attractions, plus they have two large book collections of interest to tourists: the Fishing Collection and the Montana Collection. Nick, a fisherman from Asheville, North Carolina, was visiting the library looking for books and maps of the Madison River. Edith, along with three additional volunteers, will be teaching Spanish language classes beginning soon. The library also offers computer classes, children’s reading program, and a movie night once a month. In addition to their book collection, they offer inter-library loan with county library partners, expanding the collection. Local residents often help with couriering the books from library to library, as they travel within the county. Thanks to Edith for her time and the great conversation. We learned a lot about Two Bridges and very much appreciated the uniqueness of this library and surrounding area. Over the past week we’ve been able to visit only one library due to the July 4th holiday and riding through national parks. We spent our July 4th in Dubois, Wyoming (population 1,000), enjoying the parade and eating ice cream. We spent the next three days in Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. We will always remember the approaching backdrop of the Tetons; the herd of elk we rode through at 5:30 in the morning; the sunrises; and Yellowstone’s hot springs/geysers. We will also remember sharing the narrow roads with RVs--that was something.
So, after visiting only one library last week, we were pretty excited to arrive at the West Yellowstone Library today. West Yellowstone, Montana, is home to about 10,000 people during the summers. Population drops to only 1,200 during the winters, perhaps due to its reputation as one of the coldest places in the United States. Last winter, the snow reached above the roof of the library. Housing is difficult to find and expensive. But if you want to live in one of the most beautiful places on earth, you make the jump and move to West Yellowstone anyway- like Steve and Monica, the library staff we met during our visit. Steve moved to West Yellowstone over ten years ago to devote more time to fly-fishing. The library has a great fly-fishing collection, many of the books donated by residents. During our visit we met Warren, a library patron actually tying flies in the library. Outside the library is the community garden where residents can rent a plot for the season. The growing season is short here, with only 30 frost-free days. Garden covers are a necessity. Steve also showed us a section of the library dedicated to Pre-K learning. The library offers two Pre-K sessions a week at no charge and has ‘graduated’ more than 150 children. The Library Director, Bruce McPherson, helped to raise funds for a new preschool in town, celebrating its opening this summer. The library offers Spanish and English courses, free of charge. They have also offered Mandarin lessons in the past, since the Asian tourism industry is booming in West Yellowstone. This small town has six Chinese restaurants and several hotels that cater to guests mainly from China and Korea. The book budget has remained level for the past ten years but Steve tells us that additional books are available through inter-library loan within the Gallatin County Free Public Library system (includes Bozeman Public Library). The shipping of books from one location to another is provided at no charge by a local beer distributor, the Cardinal Company. They figure they need to deliver the beer anyway, why not help with the books? Thanks to Steve, Monica, and Warren for visiting with us and telling us about the library and life in West Yellowstone. We admire your decisions to move to this beautiful place and your part in creating such a welcoming space for your community and tourists such as ourselves. After a day of up-and-down hills and moderate winds, we arrived in Lander, Wyoming, around 1:30 pm. Lander has a thriving downtown featuring three coffee shops, two outdoor stores, and the headquarters of the wilderness education school, NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School). After grabbing some coffee and checking out the bicycle shop, we headed to the Lander Public Library, a branch of the Fremont County Library system.
When we arrived, we met Anita (Lander Manager) and Terry (Library Staff). Anita was kind enough to spend almost an hour with us, telling us about the town of Lander (population 7400), the library, and giving us a behind-the-scenes tour of the original Carnegie section of the library. The Carnegie library was completed in 1907, with two additions, one in 1977 and the second in 2009. Each addition kept some of the best details of the previous building(s), creating a beautiful meld of three different architectural styles. The Carnegie section is now used as a public performance space and houses the Friends of the Library’s perpetual book sale, known as the “Book Nook” (with an additional location downtown). The library has four meeting spaces available to the community and is booked over 100 times a year. Lander Public Library sees a lot of bicycle tourists passing through as well as many tourists on their way to the Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Park. They also have many people that live seasonally in the area to attend a camp, work, or enjoy a summer-long rental. The wifi is available 24 hours-a-day, inside and outside the building (with benches provided). Like many libraries in Wyoming, Lander Public Library has recently experienced some budget cuts that resulted in lower staffing levels and a reduction in the programming budget. Faced with the budget cuts, Landers Public Library is collaborating with other community and non-profit groups to create and support library programming. The Wind River Farm to Plate non-profit organization provides the Seed Library at the Lander Public Library and offers free workshops. The local radio station, KDLY, has featured Anita a number of times on their ‘Coffee Time’ morning program to promote the library. Lander Parks and Recreation presented a $6,000 grant to help support the Summer Reading Program and the Library Friends group raised $12,000 (with matching funds of $12,000) through the Lander Community Foundation’s Challenge for Charities. And my favorite library program was the Bike-to-Work event on Wednesday, June 27. Supported by donations from the local bike and sport stores, patrons that rode their bikes to the library received a small gift, had their photo taken, and were entered into the drawing for larger bicycle-related prizes. Another example of libraries connected with bicycles!! Our thanks to Anita and the staff of Lander Public Library. A beautiful town that loves their library! Sunday, July 1 was a day I will always remember--the day I rode my bike against headwinds with gusts of up to 40 mph. The 15-mile stretch south of Jeffrey City, Wyoming, was one of the challenges that make this an adventure and not just a vacation. The winds don’t just seem to come at you, they swirl around you, over you, through you. They are all you can hear and you don’t dare look away from the road in front of you. Good fun, those winds.
We spent Sunday evening in the Jeffrey City Community Church along with nine other cyclists. There was no grocery store in town so John and I scraped the bottom of the food bag to make dinner, breakfast, and lunch for the next day. And a true mystery—we left THREE chocolate puddings in the fridge Sunday night but woke to ONLY TWO! We shall call this The Mystery of the Chocolate Pudding Bandit. May the lord have mercy on their soul. Carbon County Library System (Wyoming): Saratoga Library, Sinclair Library, and Rawlins Library.6/30/2018 This blog isn’t really about the Carbon County Library System (Wyoming) since we missed the opening hours of all three above libraries. We did peek into the windows of the Sinclair Library (more about the town of Sinclair below) and saw a neat and welcoming library, open to the public Tuesday, 3-5 pm and Thursday, 3-6 pm. This may not seem like a lot of hours but when one considers that Sinclair is a town of 400+ people and only 13 miles from the Rawlins Public Library, it is a wonderful thing this library exists and is supported by the county.
Sinclair itself is a town worthy of a visit and some description. From a distance, the town looks like something out of Mad Max, since much of the town consists of the Sinclair oil refinery. It also includes a historic downtown, constructed according to the design of Frank Kistler, the founder of the Producers and Refiners Oil Company (PARCO), in 1925. PARCO was the original name of the town until Sinclair Oil took over the refinery in 1942 and changed the town name. The PARCO Historic District is truly original, featuring the PARCO Inn, built in Spanish Colonial style with 66 rooms. The fact that we saw almost no people this rainy Sunday morning added to my fascination for this unique combination of active oil refinery, company town, and past-glory historical district. But the really interesting attractions were in Rawlins--interesting if you enjoy the macabre. We arrived Sunday morning in a cold rain. After eating our third breakfast, we headed out to Rawlins’ two museums: the Wyoming Frontier Prison Museum and the Carbon County Museum. The Frontier Prison features many photos of past inmates, descriptions of their crimes, and a miniature working model of the gallows (including doomed prisoner). There were photos of the prison baseball team and concert band, plus dates of execution for some of the more notorious team/band members. But the really eerie stuff was at the Carbon County Museum. I won’t write about it here, but I’ll just leave this link for the curious: OMG that is some weird 19th century stuff. Yesterday was our first day back on the bicycles after traveling for a week. It was a grueling ride due to high temperatures, too much sun, hilly terrain at some points, and wind. I think our bodies were also adjusting to the altitude, lack of sleep, and not enough food and water. Highpoints of the day included breakfast with April and Jeff in Frisco, Colorado, and spending the night with Ellen and Dave in Hot Sulphur Springs, Colorado. After 68 miles, I literally dragged my bike to their front door where I was greeted with cold drinks, fabulous meals featuring elk burgers and sausage, and the use of their car to drive to the nearest town to resupply our groceries. Plus a comfy bed, bath, and great company. Thanks to all of our Trail Angels for your help and support.
Today was easier. We had a 20 mile climb this morning but you know what they say- what goes up, must come down. Today’s ride included a nice downhill and we coasted the last ten miles into Walden, Colorado. Walden is in Jackson County, Colorado-- 1500 square miles with 1200 people. It is the only county in Colorado with no stoplight. The local sawmills and mines shut down when the railroad stopped coming to Walden, leaving the community with few jobs and expensive housing and real estate. The biggest employer is now the Federal Government due to the nearby national forests and wildlife refuges. And how do I know so much about Walden and Jackson County? Because we talked to Kathy (Library Director) and Kathleen (Library Staff) at the Jackson County Public Library. Kathy’s family has lived here for six generations and she knows Walden. She has a lot of good things to say about her community, especially what a great place it is to raise kids. The library serves a safe place for the local children. Many of them come to the library after school until a family member can join them at home. The library does host a lot of TransAm cycling tourists, mostly to use the computers. The computers also get a lot of use from the community since many Jackson County residents do not have internet access in their homes. The library receives no budget for books or computers, instead they rely on community donations to provide both. The library has been in the current building since 1977. Interesting fact-- the very first library in Walden was in the back room of the community church where women left books for one another’s use. The Summer Reading Program is a big hit this summer. 36 kids have signed up—that’s over half of the students enrolled in the elementary school. The summer reading incentive for reading twenty hours or more is a bus trip to Laramie, Wyoming (65 miles away), to see a movie. John and I were excited to meet other bicycle tourists at the library. We talked with TransAm cyclists, Lauren and Walker, about their enthusiasm for public libraries. They are both using libraries along the TransAm route to apply for jobs, revise their resumes, and just get a break from the outdoors after a long day of riding. Lauren says that she wasn’t a big user of public libraries until this tour. Now her days are filled with cycling, swimming pools, public parks, and libraries. Thanks to Kathy and Kathleen for talking with us about Walden, Jackson County, and your library. And thanks for the tamale, it was delicious! Today John and I cycled over Hoosier Pass (elevation 11,539 feet), the highest point along the TransAmerican Bicycle Trail. We ended our day in Frisco, Colorado, where we left our bicycles and bags in a friends’ condo (thanks Jeff and April) and rented a car to drive to the ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans. These magic metal boxes with air-conditioning and music! Currently we are traveling southeast at 74 mph! Amazing.
In New Orleans we will be refueling with beignets, café au lait, poboys, seafood, bread pudding, croissants, baguettes… New Orleans is a great city for food and we are hungry. We’ll be returning to our bikes in Frisco early next week and continuing with the second half of our cross-country adventure, seeing the western states and more libraries. Today was one of the most strenuous days of riding yet. We cycled from Cañon City to Hartsel, Colorado, a distance of 57 miles with 6,000+ feet of climbing. On days like this, we prepare ourselves mentally for traveling at 3-4 mph and bring lots of food and water. After cycling for ten hours, we pulled into Hartsel (population 60) around 4:40 pm. One cool thing about Hartsel--Adventure Cycling’s Great Divide Route intersects with the TransAm route here, making for one big cyclist party! It’s not uncommon for the town café (Highline Café and Saloon) to host 7-20 cyclists overnight, allowing us to camp behind the Saloon.
Entering town, we’re looking for the library. And there is the street sign—the universal symbol of someone reading a book—pointing down a gravel road. We follow the sign to the Hartsel Community Library, a charming library in a historic 1899 building surrounded by a picket fence. John and I were disappointed to see that the library was closed on Mondays but stopped to take pictures and peek in the windows. We talked to a couple of people in town and they told us that community volunteers operate the library and that the books were donated through various sources. The library recently received a grant to update the interior and peeking through the windows, we saw a very welcoming space, decorated for the upcoming Fourth of July celebration. For a town of only 60 people, this really demonstrates Hartsel's recognition of the value of libraries. If you are ever traveling through Central Colorado, stop in Hartsel to eat at the Highline Café and Saloon and visit their library. Bring money for a malt and maybe a few books to donate to Hartsel Community Library. |