Day 5 Farragut to Olny-ish

The next morning, we didn't hurry too much to get our stuff together.  We knew we were headed towards Glacier, but weren't sure where we'd end up.  We both decided to grab one last shower, because who knew when our next chance would be?

I'm fairly certain the bottles are just empties left over from the previous evening.

I waited a little too long to grab mine, and had to wait in line for a shower to become available, but it came soon enough and it felt great.

 

We packed our stuff and headed out, but stopped by the bathroom on the way before hitting the road.  We rode back past our site on the way out, and saw the camp hosts scrubbing it clean--literally scrubbing.  I guess they thought that we'd partied too hard, and it had been too much debauchery for a family friendly campground. It was a bit embarrassing, and we got the hell out of there.

Since we hadn't seen the lake in our whole stay, we decided to take a look before leaving the park.  We went to a scenic overlook, and learned that Lake Pend Oreille (pronounced "pond door-ray") is the 5th largest lake in the US, and is deep enough to apparently facilitate submarine maneuvers.  So needless to say, the thing is HUGE, and it was strange that in all our cruising around the park, we hadn't seen it before then.  In any case, you can only look at a lake for so long, so after getting a good eyeful, we headed out. As it turns out, we would spend a lot of time seeing the lake for the rest of the morning anyway.

Lake Pend Oreille 

We stopped in Sandpoint, ID for some breakfast and found a good place, Connie's Cafe.  It was a nice day and not too hot yet, so we decided to eat on the porch.  The food was great, I had the Country Breakfast, which was biscuits & gravy, with another biscuit, and some eggs and sausage.  It was good rib stickin' food.  I should also add that Sandpoint, seemed to be filled with lots of attractive ladies.  When I think of Idaho, I typically think of small towns and farms, and not really a boon of hot girls.  Well, Sandpoint definitely proved me wrong.  There were hot girls aplenty, but we were just passing through, and there was no room on our bikes anyway so it wouldn't do any good to linger on it.

We headed off eastward and then north along Bull River Road, a road that some guys had recommended to us at breakfast.  It followed along a lake, and they raved about how great it was for motorcycles.  When we located it on the map, It looked good to us too, but when we cruised the road, we weren't all that impressed. Yeah, it was better than straight and boring, but as far as motorcycles go, or at least sportbikes, it was pretty sedate.

By the time we got to the end of that road, we were getting hot, so pulled over at a rest stop.  There was an old timer there on an old trike, a chopper made with a VW engine.  It looked straight out of the 70's and so did he.  He was cool, and we just chatted a bit about riding and motorcycles and such.  He too also raved about Bull River Road, saying how it was one of his favorites of all time and such.  It makes me curious about buying a cruiser, maybe roads automatically become more exciting when you have a slower, less nimble machine?  In any case, he geared up and soon headed off, wishing us a good trip and warning us to keep an eye out for deer.

Our route took us along Lake Koocanusa, or Cookin' USA as we dubbed it.  Looking at it later, I see that the name is  actually a conjunction of Kootenai (the river it dams), Canada and USA, since it  crosses the border.  The road was smooth and scenic, and we were able to go at a pretty good clip along the length of it.  

Taking a breather somewhere in Idaho. Or maybe Montana.

We stopped along the way for gas at a small general store type place in the middle of nowhere.  While I was getting all my gear situated, an old farmer came and talked to us with a very concerned look on his face.  He asked us where we were headed, and Chuck explained that we were taking side roads and such.  Hearing that he seemed to grow more concerned and said that staying on the main highways is safer, and that we should be on the lookout for deer, regardless.  Seeing as that was our second warning in a few hours, we agreed that we'd be extra vigilant.

Not too much later, as luck would have it, we were going at speed and I was riding point, when I noticed a familiar four legged shape by the side of the road.  I flashed my brakes and immediately started downshifting and braking.  Chuck followed suit. A doe was standing on the side of the road looking at me with that "duuuuuuh" look that deer like to give when they see a vehicle.  I'd almost come to a stop and honked my little weenie motorcycle horn, until she snapped out of it and proceeded to run across the road.  A moment later, two fawns hopped out of the woods and followed mom across. The deer hadn't caught us off guard, really, but it was a wake up call.

The light was fading and we knew that the conditions would just become more deer filled, so we agreed that it was time to look for a place to camp for the night.  The closest "town" was a place called Olny, so we figured we'd stop there and get some provisions for the night.  This was also bear country, so we didn't want to eat any meat or anything, and just planned on getting something to snack on.

We pulled into Olny, which was a small cluster of houses and other buildings by the train tracks, and one store.  I think that Chuck and I can both agree that the Olny store was the most surreal experience of the trip.  Most small towns, when a motorcyclist pulls up to a store, packed for a long haul and covered in road patina, he can expect a little chit chat about the trip.  The lady who was running the store, a dour woman in her 50's or 60's, couldn't have cared less that we were on motorcycles, or that we were on a trip.  In truth, she seemed annoyed to actually have customers.

And the store itself was weird...some things like drinks and chips she had a decent stock of, but for most of the goods, there was only one of each item on the shelves.  You want Froot Loops?  Well you're in luck, because we have one box left!  A can of soup? Yes, we have one!  The goods were all arranged neatly too, labels out and parallel with their neighbors, as if it were a museum of common consumer goods.

We got some pretzels and some waters for a cool $10 and proceeded to GTFO.  Since we were in Montana by now, we figured we wouldn't have much trouble finding an unpopulated area to set up camp for the night, and we turned off when we saw a sign for National Forrest access.  It was one of those roads where we'd think that we were miles away from anyone, but then a house would appear around the next bend.  Eventually though, we came to a gravel road, which is a good sign for that you're getting farther from civilization. We turned down it and and looked for a site to camp.

We found a spot to with wheel tracks leading into the woods, and Chuck set off to investigate.  He was communicating via the Sena and commented that it looked promising.  I saw him disappear behind a little hill, so headed after him.  Just as he was telling me it looked like we'd found our spot, I felt a clang and heard the dreaded "BLAP BLAP BLAP" of my exhaust again.  I'd scraped another rock and disconnected the muffler, just like last time, only in less dire circumstances.

I was slightly bummed about it, but after seeing how easily Chuck fixed it last time, I wasn't too concerned.  In any case, we'd found our site for the evening because we sure as hell weren't going anywhere now. I cut the engine and Chuck came to give me a push down the hill to our site.

It turned out to be a pretty good site, though in retrospect, we were a little too close to the road, even if it was only gravel.  It was mostly flat, and we were close to a stream, although the only part of the stream that was easily reachable from our site was a stagnant green pool. We set about building a fire pit with rudimentary tools (e.g. a couple of branches).  Neanderthalish as our methods were, they worked. We saw that we weren't the first people there, there was evidence of a previous fire, as well as many small trees and branches that had been chainsawed.  We gathered some fallen wood and chopped it up into manageable pieces with The Choppah.

Not a bad spot.

Pretty discreet, but still visible to the eagle eyed passerby

We had a good night of snack food and whatever libations we had on hand.  We actually agreed that the fire turned out to be unnecessary, as it was actually a fairly warm night since the clouds had rolled in.  Before too long, we covered up the fire with the dirt we used to dig the fire pit, and went to bed.