Road
trip start about 830, we head into Sumner to fuel up then took the back
roads to the valley freeway until we reached highway 18 cutoff although
Gary was riding right past it when I hollered over the CB (we have
headsets)… I asked him where he was headed he said he looking for the
highway 18 exit, DUH!
As we traveled towards Kent we hit some low
clouds so I was glad I pulled on my leathers at the house… by the time
we got to Tiger Mountain the sun was shinning again, it never stopped
until sunset here in Libby MT…
The route as noted was really an
excellent choice with the weather right around 85 degrees until we
dipped into the valley just before sulfur spring at that point someone
turned up the hear, I could have used a cooler jacket, something other
than my denim jacket to keep the sun from baking my red-haired-pale
skin... also puffy pants to the list of thing I would like to have to
keep my junk comfy.
We rode through Coulee City, in to Spokane
then up the 95 to Bonner's Ferry, took a hard right towards Libby when
someone turned heat way day... although I could feel the heat radiating
off of the back of my neck the coolness brought some relief...
I
found myself struggling with the tunes most of the day... i have XM
radio which worked fine outside of the tall trees, valley's and
mountains... i had my ipod wired to my AUX port but the head set just
wasn't close enough to my ears to give me good quality sound, I wonder
if a 3/4 helmet with a face shield to keep the rain off of my face would
work better?
Funny thing... I found myself making comments to
Omar about this and that, his rebuttal was almost always ''Yes it is!''
so I started counting, I'm up to 33 of those for the 473 mile stretch...
I'm guessing these at least that many a day for the rest of the trip!
Diggin' these headsets...
Day TWO
We
left Libby the home town of my racquetball partner Steve Hartmann, born
and raised there… took the horse shoe championship rating right from
under his pop at the age of 17…
The temperature at the bank was
showing 54 degrees I opted for my leather coat and jeans from the start
but an hour out of town I pulled over to put on my chaps and heavy
gloves… along the route we pulled over to stop for the rain clouds as it
seemed we were chasing them into Kalispell… the roads were damp but not
soaked.., you could smell the road… Happy to have Rain Gear once
again...
Just outside of town was a small restaurant called ‘Bo
jangles’ so we stopped there for some grub… it was still pretty cool so I
left the garb on for the time being… while we pondered the ominous dark
clouds east of us we asked the waitress if any of them knew what the
conditions at Logan’s pass were… one little cutie suggested dialing 511
so we did so… overcast with rain… I left the decision to Omar since I
had ridden over the road to the sun, he opted out… we followed the 83
out of Kalispell along flathead lake, it was a nice ride, sunny skies…
too many bugs, I think if I had that ½ or ¾ helmet with a face mask I
would have needed peel-offs due to the spattering of insects on my
glasses! Gear Bucketlist addition noted...
By the time we got
to Seely lake it was warm enough for denim jackets only… meaning we
removed the leather not all of our clothes ‘except’ for our denim coats…
oddly the honies young and old were thick in this little tourist trap
like town, I talking 8, 9 and 9.5’s of all ages, it was a shame to
leave…
Further down the road we hit the outskirts of Helena when
the O-Man spotted a place for a cold beverage… it was good to relive
the keester for a spell while we had a couple of beers… we finished
there about 1pm following the 12 out of town towards Harlowton… about 10
miles from Helena we ran into construction, a pilot car we had to
follow for miles at which time Omar said ‘’I have to pee, bad!’’ a few
more miles of that before we took a right onto a dirt road… I stepped
behind a tree while he kept lookout, then it was his turn… about
mid-stream some old grandma type rounded the corner and spotted Omar
wang-chunging on the tree… she snickered, hooted then drove by at a slow
pace laughing out loud...
After we fueled up in Townsend I
followed my GPS (from my cell) when all of a sudden we were headed onto a
dirt road… so without further ado I made a decision, good, bad or
other… miles later were ere on the 90 headed east dodging some big
clouds… somewhere around reed point I downloaded the weather channel
app… spied a dark rainy cloud the size of Washington headed our way…
roughly 6 showers later we were idling into Billings to get a room for
the evening…
Yet, there’s no denying it: Unless you plan to ride exclusively around the Southern United States, you’ll face some chilly winters. And even before it...
