Gig Harbor Washington to Bar Harbor Maine 2001

Its a beautiful birthday. Woke up with the sun which quickly took the chill off the campground. Had a cup of tea, read my book and watched the deer forage for leftovers. Another cloudless day, a perfect birthday present.

Morning stretch.

We got moving pretty quickly and, after climbing a few ugly hills back to the highway, soon left for beautiful backroads. Garcia was still having problems with his knee. Dr. Gridley prescribed more aspirin and music therapy and Garcia soon screamed past me uphill. It continued to hurt him, he just decided to work through it. Looks like maybe he'll make it.

Cool Bridge.

The route soon left the small highway (SR 200) for a nearly deserted backroad. We crossed a one lane bridge with big warped planks for decking. Very cool. We are definitely in new territory. We're back in the mountains,but they're nothing like Washington's. We followed a glacial valley most of the day. The geology was fascinating and I spent much of the day trying to figure out what I was looking at. I'd read that sandstone had been pushed up by granite and the sandstone strata were at all sorts of angles, then scoured by glaciers. I've gotta take some geology classes.

The route returned to SR200 for a few miles before turning north on hwy 56 for 35 miles without a turn. Sunday was the right day to ride 56. Shoulders were narrow and I'm sure it's full of logging trucks during the week. The people pulling boats home from a long weekend almost made up for the trucks, although almost all gave us plenty of room. A light cloud cover had rolled in that cooled down the climbs but made the descents cold.

This stretch was a real grind. I'd mailed my MP3 player home and bought a small walkman. I borrowed some tapes and enjoyed some music therapy myself. Assorted blues and rock and some Hendrix. I'm going to spend the rest of the trip scouring truck stops for tunes. Maybe a box set of the best of Freddie Fender, Ray Stevens and Henry Mancini.

Hundreds of motorcycles passed us, although they could have been the same ones over and over again. Big bikes with big guys in big leather jackets and big hair. I passed a biker bar where a Hulk Hogan lookalike was standing in the parking lot trying very hard to look like Hulk Hogan. He watched me ride by and all I could think was, "Wuss. Turn your little key and make a lot of noise while the machine does all the work." Real men pedal.

And pedal and pedal...

At the end of Hwy 56 we had the choice of going 2 miles off route to Troy to camp or continuing 14 miles to Libby. We'd already gone 65 miles. Kathryn was fairly exhausted and Garcia was suffering, but Gridley and I really wanted to make Libby. Going off route just wasn't in our nature and Libby it was.

Turned out to be a good choice. The traffic was light, shoulders were huge and clean and, somehow, it was downhill nearly all the way. I blazed the trail, found a good campground and waited by the road. Gridley showed up and took my place while I showered. He was still waiting when I was done and I kept watch while he cleaned up. I made my birthday call home while Garcia rode up like a zombie, then Kathryn rode up looking half asleep.

The kids were taking us out to a Father's Day dinner. I asked the campground owners where the nearest open restaurant would be so we wouldn't have to ride too far. (Time changed in Montana and it was after 9.) They gave us the keys to their van! Woodland RV Park, Libby Montana - stay there! We had a great meal, chicken fried steak for me followed by pumpkin pie with a candle in it. We wandered around a real grocery store restocking supplies. Gridley got me another birthday present - a bag of chocolates like I'd inhaled at his house. We considered taking the van to the drive-in movie - or to Maine, but just came back and collapsed. A bizarre noise woke me at midnight and I figured out it was my cell phone. Lucky I'd forgotten to turn it off. Jake called to wish me a happy birthday and Father's Day. It was good to hear his voice, but I was so tired it probably wasn't much of a conversation.