Friday, July 9

Ah, yes, the adventure continues. Somehow I thought I liked Washington State. Wrong! What they don't tell you about Washington state (or I forgot) is that between the two beautiful border mountains (east and west) is a whole pile of nothing - I would call it high desert. Oh, they do grow some stuff there like vegetables, corn and lots of alfalfa, but it's all because they irrigate the crap out of it. So, that section of the country was 98 degrees today. I can't say it was windy - kind of gusty, but it did start to remind me of a furnace and brought back bad memories (you remember my Wyoming experience). We spent the day on the bike from 92-98 degrees. Hot. Anyway, I have now decided that I have seen Washington. Been there. Done that. Don't need to do that again.

We left the ferry parking lot at 8:45 a.m. and arrived here in Missoula, Montana at 6:15, but with an hour time change it was 7:15 p.m. In between the yucky part of Washington we had mountains (I guess I should call them foothills), the dry stuff and then more foothills (to a girl from Minnesota/Iowa they look like mountains to me). The foothills were very pretty. When you get by Coure 'd Alene, Idaho, it's beautiful. I'm sure you've all heard about that area. No more needs to be said - it was lovely. When you get to Montana (I have decided I like Montana), it gets really beautiful. It's forest and foothills (more like mountains to me), but with huge, lovely meadows/pastures that are filled with ranches. Also, the trees are absolutely huge. I would say gigantic, but I leave than for the giant redwoods in California, so huge will have to suffice. The thing I noticed that's different from Alaska is that the forest here is just huge trees - no bushes or brush and it's only evergreen or cedar trees. In Alaska, it's all kinds of trees with tons of brush and stuff stuck inbetween the trees. Very different, yet both beautiful. The thought I came up with is Montana is beautiful and rugged. Alaska is beautiful, wild, majestic and fierce. I can just see the settlers coming up to the foothills/mountains in Montana and going, "Oh, poop, how are we going to cross them?" Then, those settlers coming up to the mountains in Alaska say, "OK, let's go back now." (Yes, I have a lot of time to daydream on the back of the bike.) Anyway, I hope you get the difference. I reiterate, both beautiful.

So, we put in almost 600 miles today - from Bellingham, Washington, to Missoula, Montana. We have another big day tomorrow. Deciding right now how far we need to get.

Back to the ferry - yesterday (Thursday) we a great day on the ferry. It was gorgeous weather (even the captain said unusually amazing). So, we spent time on the decks, enjoyed the great scenery, read some great books and saw humpback whales, orca whales, sea lions and eagles. It was a great day. By the way, they allow you to take your pets on the ferry; however, you must keep them locked in your vehicle (like in the dungeon under the decks) and you get to take your dog out of the vehicle to relieve himself three times a day for a total of 15 minutes each time. Not nice, but a lot of people did it.

I have a few "did you know" type things on my mind......In upper Canada (like the Yukon and northern British Columbia), the restaurants have an open can of evaporated milk for you to use in your coffee rather than cream. There are tons of flowers in Alaska - along the roadway and it's like the people are obsessed with them at their homes. They plant lots and lots of flowers. In most of Canada and Alaska, when you order a bratwurst (they call it a sausage), they cut it in half length-wise to cook it and serve it that way on the bun. We met a lady who travels to Alaska every year for the last 30 years, and she said the road (the bad one I told you about) is the worst it has been in 30 days. She said she personally saw a huge RV with a car behind hit those bumps and the car came unhooked from the RV. Yikes. We spoke with one couple and, unknown to them, the window of their pull-behind RV popped open on the bad road and their RV got full of dust when they went over the construction (the signs even say "Beware of Dust" in construction zones). They spent two days at a campground cleaning things out. One guy on the ferry hit a bump in the roller coaster part of the road and bent the rim on his motorcycle (about the size of a baseball). He kept driving. The last one is Duane and I saw an over-sized pop-up camper (only saw 4 total pop-ups) that was braced underneath with a metal brace. The guy driving didn't know it, but his brace was all bent to crap and his pop-up was almost touching the ground. Yup, the road was bad!

Well, that's enough for now. Tomorrow we have Wyoming?!?!?!? Thanks for checking and thank you for your continued prayers.

Gayle- BOTB