Riding the White Line

June 17, 2024

Bigfork to Polson; Cold, Wet, Tense

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None of the weather reports looked good for today-all the services forecast rain in the middle of the day and highs only in the upper 40’s. Based on that information, we decided to leave fairly early to try to beat the worst of it. As the driver today, Rich chose to sleep in rather than joining the rest of us at Pocketstone right at opening (7:00 am) for breakfast.

We rolled at about 8:15; the clouds were low, covering the surrounding hills and the temperature, according to my weather app, was 43 - pretty cold for us thin-blooded Californians. But it wasn’t raining, yet. Nevertheless, Jim kept predicting that we would be rained upon and so we all wore full rain gear right from the get go.

Our route took us down Hwy 35 along the east side of Flathead Lake. It is a 2-lane road with minimal shoulder and a moderate amount of traffic. Jim tried to route us off the highway wherever he could, which amounted to less that 5 miles total; the rest was on the highway.

Our first detour followed a small road which quickly turned to gravel and then turned into large rocks going up a steep hill. Jim turned on his motor and disappeared over the top. Amber and I both struggled and eventually walked up the last 1/3. Fortunately, the one other diversion was a nice paved residential road but it was just a couple of miles long.

Back on the highway we struggled with the traffic. Most of the drivers were courteous and would slow down for a break in oncoming traffic to pass but a few were impatient. I tried to compensate by riding as far to the right as possible but most of the time, the shoulder was about 3 to 12 inches of crumbling asphalt. Often a steel barrier occupied the shoulder which posed a hazard for catching a pannier. Most of the day I rode right on the white line or slightly to one side or the other.

When we were 7 miles in it still wasn’t raining and while we were stopped for a short break, I considered removing my rain pants, because I hate riding in them. “Look around,” Jim says; “We are going to get rained on.” It did look threatening, just like it had all morning so I ended up leaving them on. Sure enough, within 1 minute of resuming the ride, it started to rain and it never stopped for the rest of the ride.

I spent the rest of the ride watching my mirror and radar, while trying to stay out of the lane but also not riding off the edge, as the traffic wizzed by. We had 3 episodes of dumbshits in diesel pickups blowing coal at us and 1 episode of a dump truck passing Jim close enough that he almost was clipped by the right side mirror. Nonetheless less, we made it to Polson, wet, a little cold and relieved to be done.

It wasn’t a good day for pictures; Amber took a few, which I’ll include, and I took a couple at our motel.

Here I am on the beginning of the gravel diversion that went wrong.

This is the view out our window from our Polson motel room.

This is a budget motel, however it has a few interesting fixtures. One is a rain shower fixture:

Here I am playing with the electronic wall mirror.

The forecast for tomorrow looks like more of the same-I hope it is wrong.

Today's ride: 32 miles (51 km)
Total: 177 miles (285 km)

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