Before we talk about today, I need to back up to yesterday. I arrived in the town of Helena MT. It's a good size town, lots of big chain hotels. However, this weekend is Helena is a softball playoffs, a rodeo and a motocross even. Needless to say, not a lot available in the way of a room. The first five hotels I stopped in were all booked, Best Western, Holiday Inn, Super 8, Motel 6, Comfort Inn. It was starting to look like I was spending the night at the Burger King parking lot. There was a Howard Johnson's, lets give that a try. I walked in and asked if they had a room. Shelly, at the desk told me the entire town was sold out. However. she must have felt bad for me. She said that she had one room left in the basement. No AC, no heat, but it had a bed. SOLD!! I made a joke about having to stoke the fire in the furnace every hour in exchange for my basement room. Shelly had a good sense of humor and fired back with "not if your out by six AM". Then came the name and address part, I bet Shelly that she could not pronounce Poughkeepsie. She fired back with, my last name is Bharadwaj - Slam Dunk - she won.
The room was actually not that bad, it had a window and it was cool and dry outside. I got a good night sleep. I only had one issue with the room. Since it had not been used in a while, the clock was wrong. I was so tired, I never gave it a thought. I got up up at 9:30, went to get some breakfast, and everything was gone. It was 10:30 - checkout at 11:00.
A little late start to the day, but I was still going to make it to Washington even if the big one came - what ever the big one was.
I headed out of town on highway 12 west.
Stopped for some fuel and some eats at this very nice little store.
A quick Stop at Montana University
Just before I got to Idaho, I came around a corner and found a wedding to crash.
What a cool setting for a wedding.
Another State, Another Time Zone...
They must note have that many lawyers in Idaho, as you cross the Rockies, no guard rails. It's hard to tell from the photo, but that is about a 50' drop off just inches from the pavement.
Awesome camp site, complete with a beach.
It seams like every gas station, convenient store and Laundromat has a casino in in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho.
The guard at the Casino liked my "dead man" that hung out on my bike.
Right after I took this photo, two things happened.
- One, I saw a Bald Eagle swoop down and pull a large fish out of the river.
- Two - the back end of the bike got really squirrely - I had a flat.
I was 50 miles from the WA border, and fifty miles from cell phone reception. The sun was down over the mountains and I was loosing light fast. I got out the tools, found the tire repair kit and went to work. Dead smack in the middle of the tire was a tiny tiny silver dot. Not bigger then a needle. Poured some water over it and it did not bubble, it shot the water right up about 1/2". I found my leak. Patched the tire, used three CO2 cans to get it up off the ground and now the sky was black. Put on the flashers and headed down the road for the 50 mile trip at 20 mph.
Well, I picked the right spot to have a flat, about a mile down the road, I came around a turn and found a bar with a really nice "Total Comfort" Goldwing in the parking lot. Sitting at a table next to the bike was the owner of the bike, Brian. Great guy, he had a compressor on his bike and I pumped up the tire to 46lbs. Watched it for an hour, bought Brian a Coke, and got myself a diet. Brian also does not drink when he rides. Turns out, Brian's wife is the bartender there.
After a good chat and an hour, the tire was still full, so I thanked Brian again and heading down the road at 45mph for the fifty mile trip to the Washington boarder - I made it......
Got to love that "Pocket Tire Plugger" I got from amazon.
Today I plan on getting a few new CO2 canisters and a Portable 12V Compressor.
Enjoy,
Duane
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