The most amazing thing just happened. Mereywn was cutting her fingernails and as I stood there waiting a fingernail clipping came careening off the scissor blades and wedged itself solidly in my left nostril. I reflexively began to snort wildly to clear my airway and after a few vigorous snortings it seemed to come free though there was still a lingering feeling of its presence in my nose as if one of its smaller brothers was still there.
Well we haven't written much lately so I will start back in Montana and catch y'all up.
Obviously it was very hot, (you can tell this by reading Josh's last post I think he might have been going a bit gooey) and some of the time we couldn't keep riding. So, we found a reststop off the side of the I-90 and hid under a tree for about 3 hours. I recovered quickest when the sprinklers came on to water the grass and I ran around like my nephews would have been proud. Finally we decided it was bearable to head off at about 6pm and just as we were about to pull out another motorcyclist pulled in next to us. So we met Lee, who was from Pensilvania, but spending the summer working in Montana. Lee knew of a good place to camp, so off we went, up into some mountains to escape the heat. Lee was very helpful, with lots of info about Alaska as he had taken a trip there recently. He also convinced us that we should buy some Bear spray, a kind of super Mace which can save your be-hind if a bear decides it wants a piece of you. We had been thinking about this already, so it wasn't a hard sell. In the morning he insisted on buying us breakfast which was very nice - thanks again Lee!
So we carried on, heading towards Glacier National Park, and finally got off the dreaded I-90. On entering Montana we were dissapointed to discover that there are in fact speed limits there. They are not very limiting however, 75m/h in the day on the interstate, and now we were on a minor highway, which in California would be 55, it was 70 daytime, and 65 nightime. Trucks have their own limits which are a bit lower but they mostly ignore them. We almost never travel at the speed limit, tootaling along about 65 most of the time. So along we went, and on a really nasty bend with no shoulder there was a motorcyclist stopped at the side trying to do something around the rear of his bike. We had to go back to help, but turning around was a bit tricky with a truck blasting past at 70+ and not moving over much at all.
So we met Mike, whose chain had fallen off and was now jammed around the rear axle. We helped him shift to a safer spot and got the bike sorted out. He was also from the East coast, and was working in Montana doing forest thinning. He invited us to come and pitch our tent at his forest camp, where we met his work mates CJ and Erin. Mike had cold beer! And then he insisted on buying us dinner so we had two meals bought for us in one day.
The next day we made it to Glacier, and rode the "Going to the Sun Road" which Josh's dad had told us a lot about. It is very spectacular and I can well understand why you didn't want to ride your bycicle over there Donn! Following Lee's reccomendation we went over to Many Glacier, where the campsite was full!!! But they squeezed us in and we got to pitch our tent on a driveway. And here we met Brian, who had a guitar and a harmonica both of which he could play very well.
Josh and I were feeling like a bit of a break, so the following day we hiked up to Grimmel Glacier, and Brian joined us with his guitar. There are lots of bears in the area, so we kept a good lookout the whole way (we haven't got any bear spray yet) and Brian played songs for the other hikers who asked nicely. At the top the glacier was a bit of a let down, (it was tiny and mostly melted) but there was a herd of Big Horn Sheep. We stayed up there for a couple of hours and it was great to see Josh playing guitar again.
Then it was time to leave the states, and we crossed into Canada. We decided to go up to Calgary to check out job prospects, and I went into a few outdoor shops to ask about work. I now have a job offer that I am mulling over! Calgary is booming, so there should be no shortage of work, but finding a place to live might be harder.
Traffic is also bad as we discovered when we tried to leave. We drove up into the mountains, through Banff and Jasper national parks. A National Park Pass for Canada is about twice as expensive as in the USA but we decided to stump up the cash. Leaving Alberta, we stopped in for a couple of days in Prince George, staying with Jeff Noaks who came and helped with the building of the Mud House in Taheke. We took this oppotunity to change the oil in the bikes again. Oh and we bought some Bear Spray, 1% Capsisum with a 5 - 8m range.
Then ever more westward, finally turning north onto the Cassiar Highway. This was an important moment, as we have been saying for over two years that we were going to come and ride this road, and finally there we were.
We took a side trip out to Stewart, and crossed the Canada/US border to stand in Hyder Alaska. Then that evening at the campsite we met Harlan who was from Washington State, and he told us that there is a place in Hyder where you can view bears in the wild as they come to fish the spawning Salmon. So we caught a ride with him, and went back into Hyder. We saw two Black Bears, and two Grizzlies, one of which had three cubs. Mostly they wern't very good fishermen, but the mother bear had her technique sorted and fed her babies. There were many Bald Eagles hanging around hoping to get leftovers.
I'm out of time now, but we have made it up to Whitehorse, with only two more bear encounters, and helped only one other person at the side of the road but I will have to tell you all about that next time!
Hi we are in Calgary now and I only have 7 mins internet time left. We are looking at Jobs and the cost of living etc to see if we might want to come back and live here after Alaska. So Uncle Paul we are actually not that far from Edmonton afterall!
Calgary is booming, help wanted signs everywhere. Time to go and buy some bear spray now.
'To appreciate the beauty of the west you have to get over the color green'. It's true, you do. You also have to get over towering mountains, glaciers, rivers, valleys, little streams flowing over ancient granite, cool forests, fertile flood plain, windy coastline. The West has none of these things. The landscape is just overbearingly flat with straight roads and short grass.
The beauty of the west is in the animals, people and experiences, a 40 year old man with a single shattered tooth is not embarrased about it but desperate to share the experiences of the road. A pronghorn that stamps around for a moment offended that we are camping in his desert and then, bored, runs away. Just after sunrise the desert is cool and bright for few minutes before the sun strikes. A bird that can fly backwards, floating in the wind. Little prairie dogs barking in the evening and the fat old sun going down in the sky.
Of course this is all very hard to appreciate at 114 deg. I think that beauty probably goes and hides under a rock until the sun sets when this happens. So it's lucky that we missed out on todays forecasted temperature by riding into an enormous prairie fire which blotted out the sun.
Another post! We are in another library, this time in Billings and it is 100 degrees f outside and rising, way too hot for me. Yesterday as we left Rapid City it was still getting hotter, and we had to stop at a rest area and eat our lunch in the foyer of the bathrooms where there was air conditioning. It wasn't very cool though, I'm sure it was still 85 in there, so it took me a long time to cool off. Just before we rode off we soaked ourselves with water, and Josh even filled his helmet. We both chose to ride without our gloves.
So we survived until Buffalo, where a sign said 101f but there was no stopping until we had escaped up into the Big Horn Mountains, gaining about an extra 600ft of elevation gave some relief. And better yet we found a grassy campsite by a stream, so there was much froliking in the cool water.
Today we have succumbed and are not wearing our heavy pants. We have got our gloves back on however as my hands got quite sunburnt and Josh's are sore too. We are always being passed by people on cruiser bikes wearing shorts and T-shirt and no helmet, and they must think we are mad to be wearing so much. I used to think they were mad to be wearing so little!
Wyoming has changed a little since we were here 3 weeks ago, mostly there are fires. 40,000 acres burnt near Gilette in the past couple of days. We saw a fire just starting as we crossed the border into Montana and ever since Dayton we have been riding in a big cloud of smoke. That's about 100 miles and we still have not got to the fire yet which has aparently been burning for 3 days. I think it is no coincedence that these all seem to be right next to the Interstate.
The newspaper tells me that temperatures in Alaska are in the 60's. San Francisco is at about 75 - maybe we should have stayed there! If we can get to the north western corner of Montana it should drop into the 80's.
Upon leaving Monroe after a nice stay in real beds,about 5 miles out it began to really pour, 40 miles later M's bike stopped. Assuming wet electrics we stripped it down and started hunting with the voltmeter. Should have checked for spark first but the plug socket was buried... silly. We jump started the bike, packed up, stalled, pushed for a while, unpacked, jumpstarted again, and 10 miles later another stall. Eventually we discovered that the breather hose goes through a tiny eensy weesny little hole which had a drop of rain water in it (and probably other crap). This was preventing air from entering the tank and that was preventing fuel from leaving the tank. It was an easy fix but it took a while to figure it out.
It took the best part of the day in fact and by the time we left we only had time for a few more miles before stopping in the most expensive state park in the world $35 for camping with no showers. But don't worry we didn't pay :) We had many racoon visitors, so cute ambling around during the day, so very persistent at night :)
Minnesota I-90, east Minnesota, is pretty bad. There are holes in that road you could stow a King James Bible in. Mereywn tried to clean her wing mirrors in the Badlands this morning by breathing on them and rubbing but no matter how quick she was she couldn't rub before the fog was dry.
We are here in Rapid City, S Dakota getting a new chain for M's bike and hiding in the library until it is ready as it is 93 degrees outside. I saw a cool store today '#1. Pawn & Gun'. Rapid City is a gambling town.
There are only a couple more long days until we hit the cool juicy mountains.
We have now experienced a "Cousins Reunion" Wisconsin style. It was really fun, and a family of 10 children sure can produce a large third generation. The reunion was at Josh's Uncle Paul and his wife Kay's house. They have a very beautiful house, and with all the preparations they were making we offered to come over the day before and help tidy up the outside. Paul was still reassembling the upstairs bathroom he has been re-doing, so Josh was his assistant and forehead wiper, while Mary, Aunty Sue and Josh's cousin Joey got stuck in outside. After we swept the leaves off the patio it was so hot Mary jumped in the pool to cool down, and I even enticed Josh downstairs for a dip.
People traveled from all over Wisconsin and furthur to attend the reunion, and Joe and Sally, Josh's grandparents, came over from their apartment. Sally has parkinson's, so this was quite a big outing for her. Joe is the youngest of his 9 siblings, all of whom have passed away. Great Aunt Marie died at 99, and lived in the family home in Fort Atkinson until her death earlier this year. It was decided therefore that on the 4th of July holiday, the cousins would meet to attempt to clean out the house.
Somehow I found myself getting out of bed at 6am (There's a 6am???!) to go to Fort Atkinson. It was fun for the first 6 or 7 hours, but what a huge job. The next morning we were up at 6am, and off to Sullivan with Uncle Matt to have an annual inspection of his hot air baloon. I was so tired I fell asleep on the goods lift on the back of his truck!
This all paid off when on Thursday evening the weather came right and Josh and I went for a ride in the balloon. Matt had planned it so that we would fly right over Monroe, but when he sent up a test balloon the wind had changed and we were going to go the other direction. So we flew over farmland and saw all kinds of wildlife. Landing is quite exciting as you never know quite where you will end up. The ground crew follows by road, and when Matt spies a good place to land they have to go and find the landowner and get permission. We then spent the evening convincing Mary she really wanted a flight, so then we were up again at 6am to set up the balloon. It was planned that the other passenger would be Joey, but he was unable to make it out of bed! Josh took his place for his sencond turn. I rode along in the Chase Commander with Teresa as Cheif Ground Crew.
The weather was holding, so Josh and I turned out as crew that evening, and Matt took Paul and Kay up. I would have still been good in the morning again, but everyone voted to sleep in! A big thanks to everyone who came out to help crew so that we could fly.
Since then we have taken a tour of the local brewery, which was interesting and included free samples, and as today is Teresa's birthday I made a cake to celebrate. Happy 18th Teresa!
The final Uncle, Peter is arriving tonight, and John has driven down from Hudson again to see him, so tomorrow Mary and all her siblings will be together.
This is a photo dump.
view out the tent in Cape Blanco state campground in Oregon. 
Dr Thunder! Ooooh! Yeah! 
John Day Fossil grounds, Painted hills Unit.
Toketee falls hot springs Oregon. 
A road, a very long road.
The Nose. There are 7 climbers in this picture. Can you find them all?
California sunset.
Yosemite meadow.
