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Great journal of a great adventure, Mark! You have a knack for meeting people that I envy. Thanks for writing this one up.
2 years agoThanks, Jon! Cheers!
2 years agoFantastic, really enjoyed this Mark. Cheers!
2 years agoMajestic!!
2 years agoI just fell yesterday in a nearby thrift store, I tripped over a floor level change because I was trying to stealthily film a person playing one of the accordions for sale. I made a real clatter and some empty 8mm reels rolled around me. The accordionist stopped playing. Immediately everybody in the store I was trying to avoid got up in my business to make sure I was all right. My knee hurt and so did my ego but all is well today. Never happened. Nope.
2 years agoHi there Mark. I've been reading your journal and recognized so many common experiences from my tour through this area a few years after your tour. Like you, I rode on the west side of Lake Koocanusa, unlike most Northern Tier riders. It is hillier but, as you noted, quieter, almost traffic free and full of deer. (I had the great bonus of seeing a mountain lion on that road.) I even stayed at the MacGillivray Campground.
I stopped at Glacier Cyclery in Whitefish for a new tube. I think that might be the one in which you met "The God of All Bike Mechanics." It's a fine bike shop and it was surprisingly busy. As busy as they were, I watched as they took on the repair of a tandem from a couple of hippie-type bike tourists on the spot.
I'll be watching to see if you get to see Glacier N.P. through the smoke. When I road up to, and over Logan Pass, my views were obstructed by rain and fog.
Yes, and there are spots where there are multiple crosses, at dangerous curves, for instance, or where multiple people died in the same accident. We grew up knowing who some of the crosses represented.
2 years agoDo they each represent a traffic death in their respective locations? There seemed to be an inordinate number along that road in 2007.
Also, thanks for the clarification!
These are all over Montana and each represent a traffic death. (I'm from Libby, by the way)
2 years agoIt really has changed. I'm also working on my 1982 journal, and am realizing how things were WAY different with that trip. Jeff Lee (a great poster in CycleBlaze) called the 70's and 80's the "Golden Age of Bicycle Touring." I think there's some truth to that.
Of course, as I get older, these modern comforts ARE nice. :-)
It’s interesting to look at the gear list from the 00’s because of the electronics. iPod shuffle, eh? Pocket PC? And not really getting away from it all because you’re carrying a cellphone. All that’s really changed, hasn’t it? I’m not one to spend a lot of time reading gear lists, but I might look at the ones from older trips more often now because of the time-capsule quality.
2 years agoI'll be interested to read your accounts of the climb(s) over the mountains the next few days.
I rode the Northern Tier the other direction in 2008, and I camped at the Eagle's Nest on my next-to-last (87th) day:
https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/littledebbie/day-87-koa-campground-near-winthrop-wa-to-eagles-nest-rv-park-near-concrete-wa/
I think my favorite stop was when we took a break at a place called The Big Biscuit, the owners were in the shop and an older gentleman began telling outlandish stories from his childhood. He had Rich and I in tears of laughter, later on the owners let us stay at their home
1 year ago