Day 6

We rose to a new day. I, however, rose bent over, with a slightly S-shaped spine. I was eating L’s prescription pain pills for her knee like they were tic tacs and then getting someone to help me throw my leg over the saddle to get on the bike.

Every single morning, we would check the trip bible and compare it with the GPS for our projected daily mileage. The actual total when we arrived at our destination would always be 30-50 miles longer. We could not figure out where the extra miles came from. Today’s total was projected at 430, a long day by our standards. K and I looked at each other dejectedly.

Today was the best weather yet. We started in light jackets then changed to a vest and t-shirt at the first gas stop and a short sleeved t-shirt only at the second gas stop. This is how a day on the motorcycle usually progresses, but our trip so far had not borne this out at all.

We would have loved to drive through Yellowstone, or at least Bear Tooth Pass leading to Yellowstone, but we had no time for side trips. We drove directly west to Missoula, then north to Kalispell. L and I were excited for that last leg, because it leads right by Flathead Lake, this spectacular (I know I’m reusing the same adjectives. I should have packed a thesaurus) body of water on the way to Glacier National Park.

We got about 10 miles north of Missoula when all progress halted. We were stuck in construction traffic, and the sun was now beating down. The road was torn up down to the dirt, so we picked our way through pitted gravel and ate the dust of a half mile-long line of cars in front of us. Sweat ran into the dust on our faces and made mud and misery.

A 10-mile stretch of construction took us over an hour and a half. Time crawled, and our odometers hit the “daily total” of 430 miles before we even got to our much-anticipated lake. By the time we saw Flathead, we were all so tired of riding, that we didn’t pull over to look or take photos or anything. We rode on like it was a job. Like one of those first jobs you ever had that made you decide maybe you should go to college after all.

We found our campsite and collapsed in a beautiful spot right beside a river. I had fantasized for a hundred miles about pulling off my boots and sticking my feet in that cold, glacier runoff stream. But when we got there, I knew there was no way my back would permit me to navigate down the rocks to get there. A cool, coin-operated shower in a tacky RV park wearing flip flops to protect me from years of built up shower stall grime was the best cleansing of my life. It cost a quarter. I would have gladly paid 50 dollars.

Trip Recap: 480 miles, 2 states: Still Montana (it is a big state). Sorry, nothing funny to write about today.