For some of my friends, this blog may be a geography lesson as well as a lesson in patience.\u00a0 My passport arrived, and I headed east from Whidby Island, WA on Hwy 20 across the Cascades \u2013 amazing!\u00a0 Hwy 20 is closed during the winter because of snow but has been open a couple of weeks.\u00a0 At higher elevations, though the road was clear and cleaned, the snow was piled higher than my head along the shoulders.\u00a0 I learned that Hwy 20 east is fairly new \u2013 opened in 1972, I think.\u00a0 Before that if you wanted to go to the small communities of Winthrop or Twist, you came east from Seattle on Interstate 90, then north through Wenatchee up to the canyon cul-de-sac of Twisp\/Winthrop\/Methow \u2013 and the natives liked it that way.\u00a0 Once Hwy 20 opened as an east\/west corridor through the Cascades, development ran away with much of the quiet remoteness \u2013 but it remains a beautiful, serene place.\u00a0 Changing plans is an art, and I work hard at developing my skills.\u00a0 So I stayed with Shellia and Curt, friends of my friend Jim, at their home in Winthrop \u2013 ended up staying two nights because it was a beautiful place with intriguing and kind people.<\/p>\n
But by Saturday I had run out of excuses \u2013 no more passport to wait for, no more \u201creasons\u201d to dawdle in that beautiful place \u2013 so I headed east on Hwy 20, turned south at Twisp, rode over the Grand Coulee Dam, to Spokane where I got on Interstate 90 for the short but beautiful ride across the panhandle of Idaho, and then into Missoula, Montana, where I stopped for the night.\u00a0 This is absolutely NOT the route I had \u201cplanned\u201d, but \u2026 the Highway to the Sun in Glacier was closed, and I needed to get south to miss the flooding in Minot, MN.\u00a0 And somewhere along the way, I stopped at a casino\/restaurant\/novelty shop for coffee and to look thru tourist trinkets just as a tour bus pulled up for the same reasons.\u00a0 When I returned to my bike, the 32 Germans from the bus were boarding, and that meant they needed to walk right by my bike.\u00a0 One of them asked and I gave her a post card.\u00a0 Soon I was in the middle of the whole bunch, trying to explain myself.\u00a0 They were friendly but obviously confused by me, a female riding alone on a big bike across a big country.\u00a0 A few of them spoke some English; I speak no German.\u00a0 One man shook his head and explained loudly, \u201cThis is a man.\u00a0 Must be!\u201d\u00a0 Another looked at me sympathetically and asked, \u201cDo you ride lonely?\u201d\u00a0 I smiled and just said, \u201cYes.\u201d\u00a0 Sometimes it\u2019s hard to explain the difference between \u201clonely\u201d and \u201calone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saturday I pulled into a KOA in Missoula, 440 miles later \u2013 and the orange dry bag in which I store my sleeping bag was gone.\u00a0 I walked around the bike several times, sure it was just hiding for a minute.\u00a0 It was one of three bags strapped securely (meaning with 3 bungee cords) on the passenger seat.\u00a0 The other bags were there, not askew, and the 3 bungee cords were still aligned.\u00a0 Add to the confusion that I had checked those bags carefully in Winthrop and again further south.\u00a0 When I dropped the bike in the Sequoias, the bags didn\u2019t come off.\u00a0 But one was gone now \u2013 my best guess is that when I stopped at the casino or for a late lunch, someone decided it would be funny to remove just one & carefully leave the others.\u00a0 But it was 7pm and the forecast was for a low of 37.\u00a0 No sleeping bag was not funny, so I got back on the bike, rode to a nearby sports store, bought a new one (on sale!)\u00a0 and got back in time to set up the tent before dark.\u00a0 The new bag did its job; and I slept well after I put on my hooded sweatshirt.<\/p>\n
This morning I stopped for breakfast and called my son.\u00a0 I was talking with Harper, my 4 yr old grand daughter, and explained I had seen snow yesterday.\u00a0 She asked, \u201cWhat is snow?\u201d\u00a0 The child was born in Florida.\u00a0 I explained that it can get cold, like in the freezer, and that the rain freezes like the stuff on the sides of the freezer.\u00a0 She replied,\u00a0 \u201cLike the snow balls we made!\u201d Last winter it snowed north of their home a couple of hours, and their parents took the two kids up to a ballpark where they gathered enough snow to throw snow balls.<\/p>\n
I left Missoula and soon found a road listed as \u201cscenic\u201d \u2013 Hwy 12 runs somewhat parallel to and north of Interstate 90 and it\u2019s beautiful.\u00a0 It rolls through the plains with mountains in the distance.\u00a0 This is grassland; some of the area is cultivated but grass seems to grow whether \u201cplanted\u201d or not.\u00a0 And the grasses move with the wind, like waves on the ocean.\u00a0 It was gusty in places; when I was heading due east with a northern wind, it was strong enough to jerk my head, repeatedly.\u00a0 My head would go right; I\u2019d bring it back center; then it would pop right again.\u00a0 I hope I got a few good pictures today, but for much of the ride it would have been insane to ride with one hand while taking pictures with the other.\u00a0 Remember that head thing.\u00a0 Most of the rivers were obviously swollen; some were flooding pastures and barns.<\/p>\n
I stopped for gas somewhere on Hwy 12 and then parked my bike to go inside.\u00a0 When I came out a Harley was parked at the pumps, and a woman stood by the bike.\u00a0 We spoke, and her friend joined us.\u00a0 He moved his bike, we talked awhile, and then we rode off together.\u00a0 Ruth and \u201cBones\u201d rode up from their home in Mexico, are simply out enjoying the country, and like me were heading east on Hwy 12.\u00a0 I followed them for maybe 150 miles, at 55 MPH, something I hadn’t tried before.\u00a0 I saw an eagle (how cool is that!), and a couple of deer (still makes me very nervous).\u00a0 We stopped at Forsyth\u00a0 (460 mile day) where we got rooms and then had dinner together.<\/p>\n
Tomorrow, I will cross North Dakota on Interstate 94 to avoid the flooding to the north and then head north to Duluth, MN where I\u2019ll cross into Canada and take the \u201chigh road\u201d over the Great Lakes.\u00a0 I had Planned to take the \u201clow road\u201d, but the weather forecast there is for rain.\u00a0 Ruth & Bones haven\u2019t decided which way they\u2019ll go \u2013 one option is the low road & up to Maine.\u00a0 So if I\u2019m lucky I\u2019ll meet them again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
June 26, 2011 Forysth, Montana For some of my friends, this blog may be a geography lesson as well as a lesson in patience.\u00a0 My passport arrived, and I headed east from Whidby Island, WA on Hwy 20 across the … Continue reading