Rest Day #6 in Whitefish

July 11, 2026 was our sixth rest day.

It was our first camping rest day but the Whitefish Lake State Park campground is pretty luxurious. We’ve now ridden 3824 km and climbed over 46000m.

A funny thing happened as we were riding to breakfast downtown. As we left the campground, riding with some of the 11 Adventure Cycling riders starting their third day heading south, Andrew suddenly asked one of the riders, “Are you Suzanne?” And he was right! The four of us had ridden Paris to Dakar with Suzanne in 2023 and there she was!

After the photo at the train crossing we had a little rolling reunion and said goodbye downtown as we turned off to our café. What a coincidence!

We had a great breakfast then coffee nearby. I visited the bike shop again to get a spare master link and got to talk to the mechanic who fixed my bike yesterday. Leaving Wytze at the coffee shop, we rode back although Daniel stopped at the golf club to hit a few balls and check out their dining options.

Back at camp we chatted with two young guys who rode from Vancouver and hoped to reach Mexico City by the end of September. I checked my brakes and think they should last until Banff. We had to move our tents out of the overflow area into the main bike camping area, and were happy to find power plugs along with the bike repair stand there. Then I had a really deep nap, the kind where you don’t know where you are when you wake up.

We all relaxed in the afternoon, I waded in the lake, then around 5 we rode to the golf club for dinner. We ate outside, a good meal, with local hazy IPAs all around from Whitefish. Dessert was great too, then we headed indoors and watched the first half of the Switzerland vs Argentina quarter final. We had some port but the game seemed a little lackluster to me. We rode back, I had a shower and got ready for bed.