Montana Reflections

As we continue our eastward adventure through Montana, our journey is filled with great conversation and mostly pleasant weather.  A map of our journey is included at the end of this post.

Today is Wednesday, June 27. Jay has ridden five straight days with three rides in the 50-mile range, one 70 and another 90 miles. He has two more 50-mile rides before we take a break in Glendive, MT.  From Glendive, the Northern Tier Route places Jay on I-94 for 45 miles.

Jay with Hand Cycling Paralyzed Veterans

Our experience includes meeting a racing team of Paralyzed Veterans of America, hand cycling the same demanding Northern Tier Route. We asked our RV Park owner, Carol, to let us pay for the campsite for the hand cyclists.  Since two riders were Navy veterans, Jay noted that the Marines, once again, had to come to the aid of the Navy.  The Navy men responded, as tradition dictates, “We’re always giving you guys a ride somewhere.” All were thanked for their service and wishes for a safe ride extended.

We also had our share of unpredictable Montana weather.  During the trip to Havre, as Helen started to set up camp at the Evergreen Campground ,she was clobbered by a sudden, heavy rain.  Our RV Park host Roger offered Helen a cabin for the evening as she drove off in a downpour to get Jay off the road.  After retrieving Jay, the rains, of course, stopped and the sun appeared. Go figure. But we still got a restful sleep in the cabin’s beds.  

Beds in Havre Cabins

Turns out Jay and Roger are both Vietnam Marine Veterans and spent time swapping stories. Semper Fi!

We learned from a roadside marker that Montana Route 2, which we are traveling, was once known as the Roosevelt International Highway, named for our 26^th president ,Teddy Roosevelt. Bully! For Jay, the road is a mixture of wide shoulders to no shoulders at all. And a mixture from gracious drivers to aggressive “get your damn bike off

T.R. Roosevelt International Highway

my road" drivers.  Twice Jay has been run off the road. It’s hard to understand the anger motivating such drivers.

Although we are far from home we still follow the news of desperate people pushing against our southern border, seeking a more hopeful life.  Our president, however, appears to be filled with anger, rather than compassion, for “those people” fleeing danger.  Jay, too, struggles to understand why some drivers angrily lay on their horns as they pass him on virtually wide-open empty roads.   What is the source of this anger?

We don’t understand how Evangelical “Christians” can tolerate the separation of children from parents. Internment vs. sustenance.  We are Unitarian Universalists who draw upon all religious teachings.   “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” Matthew 25:35-36.

What has happen to this great nation?  The people we have met have not veered from Matthew’s words.  Let us hope for a return to the true American spirit across this nation.

Route Map across Montana

Cattle Brands

Jay in Big Sky Country

Bike on Side of the Road

Big Open Montana. Lots of land and sky.

Photo Blog

Blackfeet Nation Signage
Click to enlarge any photo

Metal Sculptures of Blackfeet on Horses

Helen in Front of Large Cedar Tree

Jay At Continental Divide

River in Glacier National Park

Open Field with River and Snow-Capped Mountains

Snow Covered Washington Pass

Watch for Bighorn Sheep

Pavement Ends

Our Cabin in Cut Bank

Our adventure today was planned to begin and end in Cut Bank, MT.  After reviewing both the limited camping and motel options between Cut Bank and Havre (126 miles away) and the prediction of thunderstorms, we opted to (1) have Jay ride 65 miles to Chester (2) Helen to retrieve him in the Prius, (3) return to Cut Bank, (4) the next day Helen drive to Havre, and drop Jay off at Chester on the way so he could continue his ride.  Our plan was perfect…save for one major flaw.

In the morning, Jay departed from Cut Bank under clear skies, and with a nice wind at his back he averaged 17.5 miles per hour.  Jay’s course on Route 2 was a straight road with a few rolling hills surrounded by the wide openness of Montana.  

As Jay zipped along he could see dark clouds forming behind him. Clear skies, however, filled the horizon in front of him. His plan was to maintain his brisk pace, out race the storm clouds and find refuge at the designated rendezvous point at the Chester Supermarket per our perfect plan.

Storm Clouds / Pavement Ends

However, 17 miles from Chester, clear and unambiguous signage announced PAVEMENT ENDS. 

The Montana Department of Transportation (MDOT) had torn up nine miles of pavement, leaving only a hard-packed dirt road.  Clearly the MDOT intended to re-pave, making a new and improved road.  But this being Saturday there was little expectation that Jay was to benefit from this noble plan.

Route 2: Pavement Unexpectedly Ends

The road was just too dangerous to ride. Jay called Helen, who was still 30 miles away and informed her of his present predicament. As Jay waited for Helen, the dark clouds he had been outpacing caught up with him.  

A heavy rain slammed into him.  The wind was so strong that the rain “fell” horizontally. As Jay tried to find limited shelter in the large metal road sign announcing the end of the pavement, a local farmer in a pickup truck stopped and offered Jay a lift to dry and safe location.  The people of America have such big hearts and seemingly appear just when help is needed.

Jay’s good Samaritan, Tracy, had married into the Smith family who owned 10,000 acres, through which the pavement-decapitated Route 2 ran.  Jay was dropped off at the Galata General Store and Motel, also owned by the family. There he struck up a conversation with the most congenial Jerry Smith, Tracy's father-in-law, a 5^thgeneration Montana farmer. 

Helen and Jerry at the convenience store

When Helen arrived, great conversation continued.  We learned that way out here in this part of Montana that hugs the border of Canada that decisions far away are impacting American farmers. Jerry informed us that the price of wheat has dropped $1/bushel and he has lost $150,000 due to the tariff war imposed by Washington. We all agreed that American farmers can out-produce farmers anywhere in the world and should be used as an asset and not a bargaining chip. I guess you just need to be pelted by a hard Montana rain to the see the sense of it all.

More Photos

Our Route

Wide Open Montana
Click Photo to Enlarge

Where's Waldo

Making Our Way Through Montana

It’s been a while since our last blog.  We have been on the move with Jay riding 45 – 75 miles a day. We have had our share of rain and a few technical and equipment problems.   A map with a summary of our travels is posted at the end of this blog.

Campsite at Devil Creek C. G.

Thursday, June 21 was a non-ride day since we needed take care of an equipment problem. It’s evident that Jay is a curse to air mattresses. Last night his third air mattress deflated, leaving him sleeping on the hard, cold ground.

Camp Hosts Sandi and Ray

While we ate breakfast at a small roadside café with our Devil Creek USFS campground (Essex, MT) host Sandi and her husband Ray, she told us the only place to buy an air mattress was in Kalispell. Kalispell is a big town where we earlier found the only Toyota dealer for miles around that could perform scheduled maintenance on our Prius. We agreed with Sandi’s assessment and after breakfast we drove the 60 miles back to Kalispell.

Beautiful vistas abound in and around Glacier National Park 

One of the major goals of our journey was to experience the beauty of this great county and learn people’s stories. Sandi and Ray are among the national treasures of this land we had hoped to meet. Sandi grew up on an Idaho ranch with no indoor plumbing. She broke horses, milked cows, mended fences and generally lived the life of a rancher.  She said that she was forever grateful for her wonderful ranch-centric life. Ray worked 27 years in health care administration, retired, then spent 12 years driving trucks loaded with gold ore. That’s how he met Sandi, who was also a truck driver at the time. They’ve been married 13 years and love the life they lead: Montana in the summer and Arizona in the winter.

The road block had this sign posted.

Jay’s 65 mile ride to Cut Bank, MT today put the mountains behind us, including crossing the
Continental Divide at the Marias Pass, the southern bypass in Glacier National Park. After climbing the steep Cascade Mountains in Washington, Jay opted to ride the bypass route rather the 48-mile road aptly named The Road to the Sun to the Continental Divide. During our visit to Glacier N. P. we learned that the Road to the Sun was still closed due to snow. Yikes! It’s late June and snow is still blocking mountain roads. After 30 years in the South “snow issues” in June just does not compute with us.

We are learning so much on our travels and establishing a new and deeper bond with this great nation of ours.

The Day the Phone Went Wonky

Bad Medicine Sign

After a day of recovery, Jay was sufficiently recovered from his sore biker “bum” to get back on the road.  He had a short 45 mile ride from our Sam Owen US Forest Service campground near East Hope, ID to Bad Medicine Campground, about 20 miles south of Libby, MT.

Before pedaling out of camp Jay shouted to Helen, “See ya in Montana!”  The soaring climbs of Washington State Northern Cascade Mountains have been replaced with roads of gently rolling hills. The landscape includes

Montana Cabinet Mountains in Background
click to enlarge

long open fields held in what can only be described as the embrace of beautiful distant snow capped mountains. Our first experience with Montana has been perfect…well almost perfect.

When Jay rolled into our Bad Medicine campsite, a dark cloud let loose buckets of water.  We scrambled to set up our garage (tent extension) and hang a tarp over the picnic table. Unfortunately, the rain claimed the last bit of working life in Jay’s phone.

The phone had shown some earlier signs of not operating properly. It appears our Montana rain shower finished off the phone.  Now what?

Rain was predicted for the day, so we decided to head to Libby, MT in search of a Verizon store. What are the chances in a 147,00 sq. mile state with barely 1M people that a Verizon store would be a short drive from our forested campsite. Well...bingo!

Helen Completing Her Application
Standing a Salad Bar in Restaurant

The Verizon store did not open until 10am, so we had a nice breakfast at the Antlers Restaurant.  Helen needed to complete an application for her bid to be on our church’s ministerial search committee. With only limited battery power left on our computer, our server offered an outlet near the not yet in-use lunch salad bar.  When you’re on the road, you do want you must.

After breakfast we headed to the Verizon store. Chase was behind the counter and clearly was on top of his job. He and Jay chatted. Both former Marines, both did boot camp at Parris Island, SC, both spent time in Okinawa. Semper fi…things are going to work out.

After close examination, Chase declared that Jay’s phone was “wonky.”  Jay agreed.  After reviewing new phone options, Chase pointed out that we had an old Verizon voice/data plan.  With a few clicks, he updated our plan. Now even with a new $20 24-month charge for a Jay’s new phone, we pay less per month than before. A silver lining in the otherwise dark clouds that fill our big Montana sky.

We will head back to our Bad Medicine campground for this evening.  Biking riding back to Libby, MT and a new campground will resume tomorrow.

More Photos

Welcome to Montana

First Look at Montana

Watch Out for Bighorn Sheep

Chase "our hero" at the Verizon Store

See Ya in Idaho

Jay and New Found Friends
(Johnny and Jim not shown)

On June 12, Jay’s 67th birthday, we woke at our lakeside campsite near Kettle Falls, WA.  Before Jay left we took some photos of Jay’s newest friends Dan, John and Mike.  They are senior riders (59-70) who met each other on the road.  They are travelling various distances, but last night, along with two other companions, Johnny Walker and Jim Beam, Jay and the boys just hooted and chatted the night away.

As we have mentioned before, the purpose of this trip is to see America and share stories with the people we meet.  We are so close to the Canadian border (sometimes under 10 miles) and Jay has met many Canadians.  One conversation was just after the G-7 conference brouhaha over the refusal of the US president to sign the joint communiqué and his dissing of the Canadian Prime Minister.  The Canadians expressed confusion and a sense of sorrow that America seems to have drifted into an era of cuckoo isolation.  We are not far behind in our observations.

Jay’s 97-mile birthday ride put us in US Forest Service Pioneer Campground in Newport, WA, a few miles from the Idaho state line.  Earlier we had selected a KOA campground, but Helen’s advance scouting deemed that campground rather poor and too far off the course.  She switched sites based on a recommendation from a ranger at a US Forest Office.  Jay has mentioned several times how great it

Welcome to Idaho Sign

is to have Helen provide support (SAG) on this ride.  She does a lot from campsite selection, food shopping and setting up the campsite long before Jay finishes his ride.  He’s a lucking boy.  She even bought him cheesecake for his birthday!

Helen at Breakfast Table

The next morning when Jay was on his bike ready to ride, Helen shouted from the Prius, “See ya in Idaho!”  After nearly two weeks we are finally leaving Washington.  We started on the coast where Jay followed the Olympic Discovery Trail, then picked up the Adventure Cycling route in Anacortes, WA. That route traces WA-20 across the state and over four major mountain passes.  Tough riding!

We opted to spend two nights at the Sam Owen USFS campground about 20 miles east of Sandpoint to give Jay some recovery time. His bottom is bit sore from his long birthday ride and he has an upset stomach.  He consumes a great deal of local water and that may have brought on ill effects.  He’s okay but a little rest and some “butt medication” should get him back on the road.

“See ya in Montana.” Our goal is to be in the Glacier National Park on Monday or Tuesday.

More Photos

View from our Campsite in Kettle Falls, WA

View of Road as Jay Rides

Jay's Bike and view of Road and Mountain

Sherman Pass to the East of Republic, WA

6% Downhill Grade Next Ten Miles
The Uphill was just as tough

World's Largest Ball of Paint

An installment of American Roadside Attractions

Attraction: World’s Largest Ball of Paint

Location: Alexandria, IN

Date Visited: May 21, 2018

Signage for World's Largest Ball of Paint

Our first response when we read about Mike Carmichael’s 5,000-pound ball of paint was the same reaction you just had when you read this sentence.  “Get outta here!”  The ball of paint, on which we applied coat 26,020, started in 1977 with Mike encouraging his small son to paint a baseball blue.  Well if one is going to paint a baseball, one coat just will not do.

Mike is a professional painter, so extra paint was always at the ready.  Family members including his wife Glenda soon shot past 5,000 coats of paint then 10,000 and so on.  The paint company Sherwin-Williams provided him with sufficient sponsorship for one year so the ever-increasing ball of paint could be housed in a stand-alone building suspended from steel I-beams.   The sheer weight of the suspended “ball” has deformed it to an oblong shape.

Mike and Helen painting the ball

A photo of a core sample taken by the folks from the Guinness Book of World Records was used to validate the ball’s authenticity so it could be entered into the record book.

To call Mike’s ball of paint a “roadside attraction” is to torture the term “roadside.”  We travelled quite a distance from our interstate route, down two miles of dirt road until we hit another paved highway and then Mike’s house.

Ball of Paint in Building on the Left

The standalone paint ball building is next to the Carmichael’s home. As we drove up Mike and Glenda came out and unlocked building.  Mike shared some small talk.  He pointed to the long list of countries from which earlier painters hail and statistics on the number of times a particular color had been used.  There was every expectation that we “came to paint.” He asked, “What color do you want to use?” The ball, now orange, was still tacky from the last painters.   We were the third that day.

Helen Pointing to our Name on the Wall

We gleefully applied our green paint with small rollers on long handles.  It took about 15 minutes with Mike adding some assistance.  

When we finished we signed the guest book and were dutifully given personalized certificates attesting to our application of layer 26,020.  Helen then added our names near the ceiling of an interior wall of the building.

When we left we had to clean some green paint off of Nando’s tail.  It appears he wanted a piece of the painting action as well.

Helen Painting the Ball Green

Helen's Official Certificate

Jay's Official Certificate

Prospectors' Day Video

We noticed that the video we embedded in our blog of the Prospectors' Day parade in Republic, WA did not show up in the email feed.  We are going to try again to share this video via a hyperlink. Hope this works.

Here's a snippet from the original blog that introduces the video.

Keeping the spirit of Prospectors’ Weekend, we stayed dry at the Klondike Motel as the rains fell. 

The intent of this trip was to see America. Listening to a local high school student start the weekend parade by singing the national anthem as Boy Scouts held the American and Republic town flags could not be more Americana. Of course, there were fire trucks in the parade, and given this was a frontier mining town, one float included four pretty gals properly dressed for their can-can number. 

Prospectors' Day Parade and Shoot Out Video

On the Third Day He Rested

Washington Mountain Passes

After Jay completed the third of the four climbs over the eastern Washington State mountain passes (Washington, Loup Loup, Wauconda and Sherman), he rested.  We have taken a weekend respite in Republic, WA (population 1,073).  Our planning in this section of the cross-country bicycle journey is three-dimensional: distance, elevation and weather.  Rain this time was the big factor in getting off the road.

It was also a perfect time to be in Republic. This weekend was the Prospectors’ Weekend, celebrating the early 1900’s when the town was the center of local mining operations. The celebrations included a parade, a gunfight shoot out on Main Street, and Saturday night dancing in the street with live music.

Not to be outdone by Republic’s town fathers, we had our own adventure on our way to this mountainside town.

ATV Jamboree Attendees

On the day Jay climbed over Loup Loup Pass, we planned to camp in Tonasket.  The next day was a 27-mile climb to Wauconda Pass and Jay wanted to camp in Tonasket to be as close as possible to the start of the climb. Helen drove to Tonasket and discovered that camping was in an RV gravel parking lot with an overflowing chemical toilet.  We switched our campsite destination to the wonderfully lush Conconully State Park.  Upon arrival we learned that this park was ground zero for an ATV (all terrain vehicle) jamboree. We enjoyed our chats with participants and wished them well as we drove out the next morning to drop Jay off at Tonasket.

Our 16 mile drive to Tonasket, per our car’s GPS, took us on a dirt road along the edge of the Conconully Reservoir.  After 8+ miles of driving on a rough dirt road, an ATVer we encountered pointed us in the direction of an asphalt road. Yeay!  But 200 feet from the asphalt road, we ran out of road, period.

A stream had flooded a section of the road and erosion had carved another section of the dirt road into

Driving into Flooded Road

oblivion.  We admit our next decision was a bit foolhardy, but we were not about to drive back on that dirt road.  We navigated the flooded road section and used rocks to build a ramp over the washed out section.  ATVer…humph!  We are Prius tough!

Jay was grateful to rest after three straight days of mountain climbing. Keeping the spirit of Prospectors’ Weekend, we stayed dry at the Klondike Motel as the rains fell.

The intent of this trip was to see America.  Listening to a local high school student start the weekend parade by singing the national anthem as Boy Scouts held the American and Republic town flags could not be more Americana.  Of course, there were fire trucks in the parade, and given this was a frontier mining town, one float included four pretty gals properly dressed for their can-can number.

On Monday Jay rides over Sherman pass and on to Idaho. After one day there we head to Montana.

Video and More Photos

Helen and Nando at Conconully State Park

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Road

Rock Ramp We Built

Wauconda Pass

Helen at Conconully Park Campsite