Day 113: Libby, MT to Clark Fork, ID

August 3, 2011

I leave town late after sleeping in, taking my time packing up and saying goodbye to my dad. I'm focused just enough on bike riding that I avoid the slotted metal drain covers that stand ready to grab hold of a narrow road bike tire and throw the rider to the ground, but my mind bounces around to thoughts of family, friends, work, Seattle, Bellingham, and the fact that I have to go back to being more of an adult after I reach the ocean two weeks from now. Phone calls and text messages and emails let me connect with home but keep it at arm's length. I can stay in touring mode that way. But the in-person visits, with the hugs, the big smiles, the real laughs, and the overwhelming feelings of love and pride send all of the walls I've built up crashing down. It happened after St. Louis and today it happens again on a smaller scale. It's a bit of a biking buzz kill, but I decide I wouldn't want it any other way.

I head west out of Libby on the Adventure Cycling Association's Northern Tier route in the shade of rocky cliffs and steep hills that stand thick with evergreen trees, following the bends of the Kootenai River that rushes off to my right, and listening to a stack of Pringles clank against the side of the can stashed in the back, perfectly in time with each pedal stroke. The late start means it's already hot and I find myself wishing for the cool of 8,000 feet.

The guy who owns this got it from some kid back in town. He traded his van for it, straight up. He says he can get 70 miles to the gallon on this hog.

I roll over the top of a hill along Highway 56 and spot the red and blue shades of the classic Pepsi logo a half mile away. That means a restaurant in the middle of nowhere is just up ahead. I love when that happens. The place is called Little Joe's and I walk in to find eight women in their 60s and 70s sitting at a table in the center. All of them wear purple-colored shirts with red hats and sit around and talk loudly about the good old days, when people used to work for companies like Sears and U.S. West and Chevron for life and retire with loaded insurance plans and pensions worth over a million dollars. Then they talk crap about their dumb, lazy husbands.

An old brown dog named Augie sleeps on a leather couch below a big-screen TV in the corner. Five video poker machines sit flashing and twinkling in another corner, because that's a thing that every bar in Montana does. I watch it all from a booth upholstered in black leather and dotted with big brass buttons. It all seems strange, but not quite strange enough—and just then the Cee-Lo Green song "Fuck You" comes on the satellite radio and starts to echo throughout the dimly-lit dining room, where I'm the only person under the age of 55.

Perfect.

I order the most ridiculous thing on the menu: two one-third-pound chunks of buffalo burger, topped with crispy bacon and melted cheese and lettuce, all thrown between a giant hamburger bun. It's hot and juicy and stacked so tall that it's almost painful to eat. But I'm so hungry and it's so delicious that there's no way in hell I'm letting anything stop me. Later, when the pie and ice cream arrive, Augie walks over to the table, plops his head down on my knee, and droops his face into the saddest look of pity and despair, one that could only be cured with a little bit of food.

None of this would ever happen in Seattle. We're missing out.

Wind and heat and laziness team up and I ride slow all afternoon, up and down over small rises and past the homes and cabins that line the shores of Bull Lake. The Cabinet Mountains soon loom up around me, steep and dark green and extending out in hazy layers when I reach a clearing and can look to the east and the south. Soon the Bull River comes into view on my right, with cold water so clear that I can see every rock on the bottom and each fish swimming over top of them. I'm relaxed and pedal with no goal in mind, singing happy songs in my head and sometimes out loud, looking out at the world around me and impressed by the understated beauty of it all.

I pick up a back road before Montana bleeds seamlessly into Idaho. It's as if Montana knows I'm leaving and says, "Alright, fine, have it your way. But I'm going to make it as awful as I can." The bike bounces and clanks and crunches over a narrow country road spotted with more potholes and patch jobs and spots of gravel than clean pavement. In between dodging road hazards I think back on the time I spent in Montana. With more than two weeks inside its borders I come away with a greater sense of the state than any other place I've traveled on this trip.

More than anything else I was struck by Montana's physical beauty—the textures of the mountains and rolling hills at sunrise, gently rolling plains that stretched into the distance forever, churning white and green rivers, pure white clouds set against the brilliant blue of the sky, and deep mountain valleys that made me feel small and insignificant. Much like Wyoming before it, Montana never let me forget about its size. It wasn't unusual to ride all day and see only two towns: the one at the start and the one at the end. And like most of the West, few towns had much more than a thousand people. That fact has really changed the dynamic of this trip over the last month or so. Back east I used to meet and talk to people all day long because I'd pass through a town every five to ten miles. Now the towns are fewer and smaller and the people who live there tend to be more reserved and less likely to strike up a conversation. I'm getting better at diving in and trying to squeeze it out of them, but it's not something I'm good at yet.

The other defining feature of Montana is stressful riding. Almost every road I traveled was a highway, and almost every car hauled ass.

When the terrible road turns less awful I know I'm in Idaho. In the context of the whole trip, Idaho is a speed bump, a one-night stand wedged between Washington and Montana. I will have spent more time in Carbon County, Wyoming than in Idaho by the time I leave tomorrow.

A winding road with no lane markings carries me into the evening. Clouds of mosquitoes back-lit by the sun dance above giant round hay bales and I pedal with purpose to reach Clark Fork, the first town I've come across since leaving Libby 73 miles earlier. I celebrate with cheap beer. America has given me one gift greater than all of the others, and that is an appreciation for the kind of cheap beer that rural Americans drink by the gallon. It's a wonderful thing.

Darkness comes early with the switch to the Pacific time zone. I fall asleep in the tent on a concrete slab under a small gazebo, next to a mid-rate motel, adjacent to the highway. The ground shakes whenever the train passes and it might be the only town in the country where no dogs bark. Four years ago I never would have thought I could be happy camping in a smelly tent in a place like this, but tonight that's exactly how I feel.

Today's ride: 74 miles (119 km)
Total: 5,788 miles (9,315 km)

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