Missoula - Sula - Jackson, MT

Yesterday morning I left the warm embrace of Missoula.  By the time I finished stopping for excellent coffee, getting supplies (bread, plums, proscuitto, cookies, trail mix, Twizzlers), and chatting with a somewhat erratic Missoula denizen on a street corner for far too long, it was 11:00am.  I still managed to get 80 miles since it was flat terrain and calm winds.  About 30 of it was on a bike path from Lolo to Hamilton, which was very pleasant.  Although the bank thermometer said 90 degrees, if I kept pedaling and hydrating and evaporating I was pretty cool.

The most striking thing about the day was the severity of the smoke.  Visibility was reduced to about four miles.  Beyond that, the mountains just disappeared into the grey/brown haze.  It was unfortunate because people say it's a pretty valley when you can see.  Everything smelled like a campfire and the smoke burned my eyes and throat.  I breathed shallowly because a full inflation of my lungs made me cough painfully.  It wasn't completely miserable, it was just unpleasant.  Later in the day it got even worse.  As I got further into the mountains and toward the fires, visibility dropped even further and the sun was dimmed to a small red disc.  I kept getting nervous because it seemed like the sun was setting and therefore it was time to get off the bike.  At 4:30pm I checked to see when sunset was, and it wasn't until 8:15pm.  Eerie.

The Sula Country Store and Resort has a Conoco station and a restaurant, with campsites around back.  This area was scorched by fires in 2000 (?) and looks a lot different now.  Beautiful vacation homes are built on hillsides completely barren of vegetation except for blackened burnt-out stumps.  I'm sure there are also some foundations of beautiful vacation homes which didn't make it.

I set up my camp in a warm breeze filled with falling ash and finally got arranged in the hammock.  You have to be acrobatic and also patient, for any adjustment requires a balancing act.  Taking off socks, for example, makes the hammock go sideways unless you are careful.  I performed all the manoevers necessary to get into my bag and immediately fell asleep.  Sometime around 4am, I woke up again, freezing.  The temperature had dropped drastically.  I mustered the courage to go outside and gather up my remaining clothes.  I got back in the hammock and flopped around putting everything on while the cold wind blew outside.  Finally I was warm, mostly due to the exertion of wiggling around.  I fell asleep again and woke up an hour later, still cold.  The sun wasn't up yet so I just pulled my hat down lower and curled into a ball.  I drifted off for awhile until there was some light on the horizon, when I got out of the hammock and went to the shower block.  I got in the shower and stood there until my core temperature came back up.  There is an exact moment when your body reaches temperature equilibrium and a fuzzy narcotic sense of well-being sweeps over you.  When I walked out (furtively since I had probably cost them $5 in hot water), a guy was walking his dog and said it was 36 degrees.

After I packed up camp, I stopped in the store/restaurant.  Before I could even get through the doorway I was beset with questions about my bike and my trip.  A fellow named Gordon told me some stories about past bicycle tours he had done.  He and others wished me well.  Everyone was very kind and I left with some really nice vibes.

I climbed up Lost Trail Pass and Chief Joseph Pass, which were nice humps but not drastic.  They take time, though.  I try not to get out of breath and I stop sometimes.  I don't like using all of my energy because I might need it later.  On the other side of the pass I came out of the mountains into the "Big Hole", a large expanse of dry sagebrush prairie, perhaps 30 miles squared, ringed by mountains.  The wind picked up out of the south and blew me into the lane a few times.  The few cars out there were all very polite, though.  This road is on the American Cycling Association "Trans-Am" route and a lot of cyclists come through here.  As I came into Wisdom, MT, I passed Tony, a recently-retired Greeley, CO police officer on a trike headed the other direction.  He said he had just had heart bypass surgery and that this probably wasn't the greatest idea but he was doing it anyway.  He was an enormous fellow and I'm sure he'll at least drop a few pounds doing it.  I wished him well and continued on my way.

I stopped in Wisdom and bought a cherry Coke from the market, which didn't have much in the way of provisions.  The whole town seemed a little bit like Invasion of the Body Snatchers so I headed south towards Jackson, my final destination.  This turned me into the wind, which was picking up.  It was only 18 miles but it was slow going.  Ominous storm clouds came into view and I began to get worried.  Pretty soon there were dark clouds all around me with lightning striking the peaks.  I was sprinting by now, not wishing to get caught in the tempest.  There was no shelter out in the flat treeless expanse and I didn't think sitting in a ditch would be fun for long.  As it began to sprinkle, I pedaled all-out into the headwind, hoping that Jackson was right around the corner.  I was very hungry and was trying to eat trail mix through the packet with my teeth while pedaling furiously to beat the storm.  Eventually, I pulled into the Jackson Hot Springs Resort (a fancy name) and grabbed the last of their cabins as rain began to fall.

This place is the only accommodation in Jackson, MT (pop 37).  It is also the only bar, restaurant, and casino.  It has a big lodge with lots of animal heads and Lynyrd Skynyrd blasting at top volume.  My bicycle is parked next to a row of gleaming Harleys.  There was a band setting up (I believe the name was "The Good Ol' Boys") and people were fixin' to have a shit-kicking time.  After having a ribald conversation on the front porch with some gentlemen, I filled my belly with Montana fare and retired to my bed.  I will be going to sleep in the next several minutes or less.



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Missoula isn't all hippies

Is there a reading for "actually burning at this instant"?

Great bike path

If only you could see them

The smoke creates great sunset light even early in the day

Gloom later in the day

The Sula Country Store, where I camped.  Red moon rising through the smoke.

First Continental Divide crossing this trip.  There will be more.

This camp robber was really insistent.  Finally I gave him some bread.

These Canadians stopped at the top of the pass to take pictures of me.

Into the Big Hole

Tony, the retired policeman, on his contraption

Clouds looking nasty over the Bitterroots

Time to pedal faster

This is where I am staying tonight.

This guy is getting ready to play

Thompson Falls - Arlee - Missoula, MT

Yesterday was a fairly difficult ride.  I got from Thompson Falls to Arlee, which is 25 miles outside of Missoula.  It was 75 miles according to Google Maps.  I would have happily stopped earlier but it's just not the way it worked out.  The first half of the day was very pretty, but I left the mountain canyons and got out into some less-forested hilly prairie where it was hot with a headwind. I'm not sure how hot it was but I wouldn't have wanted it any hotter than that. I had sticky salt caking my face and hands. While riding, I rehydrate with water and also this briny electrolyte solution I mix in a water bottle. The salty swill must work OK because I don't feel bad now. I went through about 5 liters (1.3 gallons) of water for the ride.

Early in the ride I passed through a little town called Plains.  I rode past a roadside stand selling burgers, and to my surprise the proprietor started yelling at me excitedly.  I couldn't make out what he was saying so I pulled over.  He ran up and told me that he had heard all about me from some people who had eaten at his stand earlier in the day.  He said he had been waiting for the guy on the crazy contraption to go by.  It really made his day.

In the second half of the day, I rode into a huge cloud of smoke from wildfires in the vicinity.  It blotted out the entire sky and the sun turned red.  It remained like this the rest of the day.  My eyes burned and I put in some eye drops.  The eye drops were hot but it felt good anyway.  I kept the bottle close at hand and periodically sprayed my eyeballs.  My face was so caked with salt and sunblock and grime that I didn't bother to wipe the excess.

Google Maps showed a couple of camping/hotel options but nobody answered any of the numbers I dialed. I was getting psyched up to sleep in the weeds somewhere when a lady called from the campground. She gave me directions so I ate a banana in three bites and ate some melted cookies and pedaled the remaining 10 miles. It was lucky.  Having a shower was delightful.  The sticky salt is all over everything.  My hands stick to the handlebar grips and stick to my water bottles. 

This morning I rode the rest of the way into Missoula.  I stopped at the headquarters of the American Cycling Association to see what was there.  They are a nonprofit organization that makes maps for long-distance cyclists and does some advocacy.  The maps are kind of expensive and I didn't get any of their materials for this trip because I think that Google Maps is just as effective.  In the West there aren't a ton of road choices anyway.  Upon walking into their office, I was given the royal treatment.  A lady gave me a long tour of their facility.  It was surprisingly expansive -- either they do a lot of work or they are good at acting busy.  Then I had a few pictures taken, a Polaroid to go on their wall and another picture for this fellow's portfolio.  He seemed to think that my profile might make a good magazine article.  They weighed my bike, 95 pounds (most modern road bikes are in the low 20's).  Feeling sheepish from all the kindness and attention and free soda, I bought one of their maps.  It is supposed to get me from here to Yellowstone.  We'll see how it impacts my strategy over the next few days.

The rest of the afternoon was spent cruising around downtown Missoula, which has a great network of bike lanes and little car traffic.  It is so nice that I just looped around for fun.  It is a college/hippie town so I was happy to be merely one more oddball.  It seems like a very nice place.  It's sort of a mini-Boulder, but less obnoxious.  It has the standard progressive college town things like tapas and wine bars and sustainable espresso.  It has itinerant hippies with their dogs, one of whom tried to sell me an electric razor at a street corner ("Gosh, I'd really love it, but you see I'm already carrying plenty of stuff").  There are a lot of beautiful and healthy-looking people and lots and lots of bicycles.  It's an alluring place, and I am a little sad that I don't live here.

It's hard to leave such a town and go camp on the outskirts, so I got a Hotwire hotel room.  I took a long shower, used all the products, charged all of my electronics, and washed all my wadded and mildewed clothes in the sink.

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The beginning of the day outside Thompson Falls.  This is actually a long downhill (hard to tell the perspective).

Found this on the side of the road.  My guess is that they threw it out during "Chicken Jamboree".

It started getting hot.

Smoke cloud

Red sun through the smoke

Another odd road find.  I didn't keep this one, but I did keep a carabiner, a bungy, and a nice strap.

My photo is the latest addition to their wall

Downtown Missoula

Can you really just make your own car and drive around?

Hope, ID - Thompson Falls, MT

Last night the deer returned and ate my Fritos.  I heard a soft clop-clop outside my hammock, and then a -crunch crunch- as he helped himself.  I got out and shooed him off twice, then finally hiked my gear up and put it in the park restroom.

Usually in the morning I tune into Elizabeth Cook's show "Apron Strings" (pronounced "Aypron Strangs" in Appalachian), which is on Sirius 60 Outlaw Country.  She makes me laugh and plays good music.  Tune it in if you get a chance; it's on at 10am-2pm ET.

This part of Montana is incredibly beautiful.  The Clark Fork is a big, wide river.  It's in a big, wide valley with big trees and big views.  I had a gentle tailwind on the ride (as I have for the entire trip).  Later in the day the pines baked in the sun, and gave off their scent.  There's not much going on, just a few ranches and hunting/fishing-oriented businesses.

I stopped at a rural post office and a guy asked me if I had a Cuban flag.  I laughed.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful.  I was ready to be done, as I had flakes of white salt on my face and was starting to get dehydrated.  I stopped at the Conoco for dinner (mmm) since the supermarket was too far to ride.



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This was going to be a big cinematic production but then the car showed up and I had to pay attention to the road.

Coming into Thompson Falls, where I'm spending the night

At the end of a trail leading from my campsite

Five-star accomodation

Newport, WA - Hope, ID

Today was a mixture of highs and lows.  On the positive side, I wound up at an extremely pleasant campground.  The woman who runs this RV park is from Boulder and she asked me if I knew some Vail ski patrollers that she knew.  The park is right on the lake and I watched the sunset from a bench near the beach.  Lake Pend Oreille is a big lake, maybe as big as Tahoe.  It's the remnant of a huge glacier, I think.  Really nice.  There are lots of vacation cottages and marinas and such.

This campground is so nice.  People walked by and were amazed by my hammock, and the neighbor just sent his kids over to see if I wanted some steaks.  He took pity on me since he watched a deer come over and eat the rest of my bread while I was away.  I saw the same deer eating from his table earlier.

The morning started a little rough.  As I left the Newport Kampground (good riddance -- hope I didn't get ringworm from their shower), I took a back road to avoid Hwy 2 traffic that Luigi warned about.  The back road started out OK but it deteriorated into a hilly, unpaved and unsigned maze.  There was lots of trash on the roadside -- diapers, bottles, cans, bags of who knows what.  Hand-lettered "Keep Out" signs were in abundance.  I thought I heard the strains of Dueling Banjos.  At one point I was chased by two slavering dogs.  I was able to sprint and shout and use my Doggy Dazer and finally they turned back.  But the adrenaline propelled me for the next few miles.

Not too enamored of Idaho so far, I finally made my way to Sandpoint.  It's a nice lakeside tourist town at the foot of the Schweitzer ski area.  I got my chain cleaned at a bike shop and also got an improved therma-rest and blanket.  More crap to carry but it's better than waking up at 4:30am shivering.  I asked directions from a woman who, after hearing my story, offered to put me up in her family's cabin.  It was 15 miles north of town and I was heading east.  Perhaps I should have taken her up on it; it seems impolite to turn down such generosity.  But I wanted to pedal on, and I actually like the routine of setting up camp and fixing the little equipment issues and writing my blog.  It's amazing that people would do that for a stranger, though.

More people quizzed me on my bike.  The answer:  It's a Rans Stratus long-wheelbase recumbent.  It's great for touring because it's really comfortable and easy on my back.  At the end of a long day you don't feel like you've been beaten up.  The long wheelbase and steel frame really absorb the bumps.  It's burly enough to carry all the gear.  It's fast on the flats and slow on the climbs.  My uncle Mark gave it to me for my first bike tour, and I am sold on recumbents now.  I wouldn't use it in city traffic because it has the turning radius of a bus and you have to think ahead about what you're going to do.  But for pedaling hours on end, the comfort is unmatched.

I left Sandpoint after a couple of hours and had a very pretty evening cruise to this place.  So the day turned out OK after all.  I passed a sign that said 160 miles to Missoula, so I should probably be there in two or three days.



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Goodbye Washington

Pend Oreille River

Sunset ride around the lake

The proprietor has yellow prune trees.   I ate 15 or so.  They were amazing.

The camp-robbing deer

Good living by the lake

Yes, I posed myself for this.

Colville, WA to Newport, WA

Today was a fine day.  After a good night of sleep I left Colville and headed south.  I decided to take a shortcut over a little-used pass because I heard there was a lot of traffic on Hwy 20 which would have been my regular route.  It turned out to be a good decision, much to my relief.  Shortcuts often do not turn out well and this one had bad reviews over at crazyguyonabike.com (where I borrow a lot of trip information).  It was reputed to be very steep and brutal.  But I took it slow and it was fine.  It was one of the prettiest passes I've seen yet.  It wound through a healthy forest with very few cars and very little noise, except for my occasional groans of discomfort as I pushed up the hill.  I was really happy to have done it, and was rewarded by the customary downhill at the end.  During the downhill I took a large dragonfly to my left eye at about 40mph.  I'm glad I had full-coverage sunglasses on, and that the lenses are plastic.

At the bottom of the pass I met Luigi, who was coming from Washington, DC.  He was going as light as possible and said he's been on the road 30 days.  I remarked that 30 days was very short.  He explained that he averages 120 miles a day, which is insane.  He alluded to some rough storms in North Dakota.  He also said he was fighting a headwind the whole trip, which is the way it goes when you ride east to west.  Headwinds can totally destroy your morale, so I felt for him.  His blog is at luigilaraia.blogspot.com if you'd like to read his story.  He is a recently-diagnosed leukemia patient raising money for leukemia research.  He is not in remission.  He was an animal, for sure.  

The rest of the ride was a mostly easy spin along the Pend Oreille River into Newport.  There I stopped at Safeway and got some dinner items.  As I sat outside enjoying a well-deserved cold Coca-Cola, I drew a crowd of people asking about my bike and what I was doing.  It's a real crowd-pleaser.   

After loading up on chow, I pulled into the "Old American Kampground" in the middle of town.  I took a 20-minute shower, not because I needed to but because I had to do all of my laundry while showering.  The Kampground is full of RVers.  The RV set seem like nice people, but I think they ought to have some sort of certification before operating something the size of a locomotive on the highway.  

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I went by 49 Degrees North ski area on the pass.  I thought about going up to look closer but the access road was steep, and I didn't need any "extra credit" at that point.

Who doesn't like this sign?

These are the ones you have to watch out for.  This was taken seconds after she pulled in, jumped the curb, and backed down off of it.

Kamping at the Kampground.  I half-expect to see Yogi Bear.

Republic, WA to Colville, WA

Today was pretty tough.  I awoke freezing at about 4am.  It turned autumn all of a sudden.  I crawled out and put on all my clothes, but still couldn't get warm.  Finally around 5am I got up, walked around, and hung out in the park bathroom because it was warm.  Later I went into the laundry room because it seemed like it might be questionable to stand in the bathroom for no reason all morning.  Finally the sun came up and I was warm enough to head out.  Keith and Shannon, my hosts at the Winchester RV park, gave me a fleece and some big socks for my trip.

The pass is the highest year-round maintained pass in Washington at 5575 feet.  I started climbing and felt OK for awhile, but just got hot and clammy as the ride went on.  My shell was dripping on the inside and I got nauseous.  It was very cold at the top and I put on all the clothes that I could.

Got into Colville, checked into a motel because it's next to the fairgrounds and I wanted to go to the fair.  I walked over and browsed through the exhibits, which included an unbelievable number of cute animals.  Most of the animals were handled by the kids who came from all over the area.  There were horses, cattle, donkeys, goats, rabbits, chickens, geese, turkeys, ducks, guinea pigs, iguanas, tropical fish, pigs, cats, and dogs.  In the dog show area, an 8-yr-old boy with an official badge asked me very professionally if I was enjoying the fair and if I had any questions.  I asked him if he had any animals in the fair.  He said he had a dog, a rabbit, and a pig.  He wanted to show me his dog, which was obviously his favorite.  We sat and pet his dog for awhile until I felt a little awkward and left to get some candy.  Sorry kid.

There were lots of older kids there too, dressed up for Friday night.  Hats were at just the right angle, jeans were squeezed into, text messages were flowing.  I left after it got dark and returned to my digs to plot tomorrow's leg.



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The start of Sherman Pass

 Coming down, down, down to the Columbia River

Tried out the weigh station, but couldn't get anything to happen

Pedaled with coffee for about 3 miles.  Thanks, Jackie!

This awesome crane was moving stacks of trees around.

This one eats well.

What's it's name?  "Butterfly!"

Hi, my name is  Jane  Samantha.