Friday, August 22, 2014

Progress

Some days, you spend half a day in a nuclear reactor.  Sometimes, you spend a whole weekend in Vegas.  (Did I mention that I did not so much as put 10 cents in a slot machine while I was there?)

Some days, you gotta cover some ground, friend.

Today I left WWW and started getting some serious East happening.  That's where I live, and after 2-1/2 weeks, it's time to start thinking about getting there.  The scenery today went from basically desert (Scrub Steppe, technically) to rolling wheat fields, to alpine forest.  I'm staying along Flathead Lake below Kalispell, MT, and it's full-on mountains right now.



I stopped in Lewiston, ID to get a t-shirt at Hell's Canyon H-D and ended up having a cup of coffee with a grizzled old fella out of Texas who was getting a tire changed.  We were of a similar constitution and spend a good deal of time talking about the things and places we've seen.  Other than that, it was pretty much hammer down. 

I have the GoPro mounted on the handlebars, I am very skilled at getting the regular ol' digital camera out of the left-side pocket and shooting while on the move, and I've also grabbed a couple cell phone shots that way too, but it scares the hell out of me so I try to keep that to a minimum.  For a number of reasons, this is not the end-all and I do have to stop for random, unexpected pictures now and then.  But the point for you to take away here is my goal was to get to a spot 425 miles away with no sightseeing stops planned.  And, I did just that.  I also lost an hour to Mountain Time, so I didn't get in until after 7.

Since my room is directly across from the laundry, I took that as a sign, even though I did not plan to do wash for the final time for another day or two.  I threw it in and sat in the hot tub and let my muscles relax while everything dried.  I may have to do a pair of jeans or two once more somewhere along the line, but other than that I'm golden.

Rooms are expensive again in this part of the world (after setting the "cheap" record for the trip last night at the Super 8 in Walla Walla) since I'm nearing Glacier National Park.  That's where I'm headed first thing tomorrow, over Going-To-The-Sun-Road, and wouldn't you know it, I'm finally going to get there, and it's forecast to be a whole day of rain.  Oh, well.  It's much easier to pack for rain and put the suit on at the hotel than under an underpass somewhere.  Life goes on.

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