AK49

Once you attain Wisdom there's no use going any further. In this case, if I was a good writer I would have left well enough alone and ended the blog yesterday. I am not a good writer however, so I felt obligated to bring the reader home with me, even though today's journey was over ground we have often tread upon. From Wisdom I headed virtually due west. One more stop before leaving Montana though was a National Historic Site, the Big Hole Battlefield. I had read and heard some of the details of the incident that precipitated the flight of the Nez Perce from the Whitebird (Id.) battle site, the opening battle of the Nez Perce War. I have heard of the 1170 mile "fighting retreat" that Chief Joseph had taken his people on, eventually resulting in his surrender only a short distance shy of freedom at the Canadian border. His words of surrender are powerful, "I will fight forever no more". What I had not heard was the story of the massacre at Big Hole that left ...

Ok, I'm going to copyright that word! A couple of things I had not thought to record, but found interesting anyway. When staying at Poyo's Thai Kitchen and Spare Bed Emporium just outside of Talkeetna, Alaska I learned this interesting fact: In 1997 the town of Talkeetna held its Mayoral election and elected Scrubbs, a cat! Scrubbs has done such a good job she has been re-elected each election cycle since then! Born in April 1997, she was elected Mayor at the age of three months! Like most politicians, her reign has not been purrrrfect. In August of 2013 she was attacked by a dog and ended up in a hospital in Wasilla. After spending several days under heavy sedation she was moved back to Talkeetna under heavy security, where she lives in her room over the General Store. Or does she?  Some think that she actually passed away and that Talkeetna is currently looking through the brush for its next Mayor, perhaps a moose - too big for any dog to mess with him/her. I wond...

I hinted yesterday that my route today would be over a series of smaller highways that might make me a little smarter. And thus it went, my quest for Wisdom. Let me explain, in somewhat metaphorical terms, how my day went. I didn't sleep especially well last night as a series of "thuds" persisted until very late last night. Then again this morning, beginning quite early, it sounded as if the Romanian Gymnastics team was practicing their dismounts. It was not until I walked through the lobby that I realized that, despite being around the corner, my room was directly underneath the stairway to the second floor. The hotel was only two floors so there was no elevator and EVERYONE used those stairs for access to their rooms. Kids jumping, stomping their feet, dragging and/or dropping their suitcases, no one gave thought to the Harry Potters of the world! The riding began with a choice of routes, all of which emanated from Bozeman, or actually Belgrade, Mt. From there the optio...

What more can be said? In the last five days I have ridden the triumvirate of the Northern Rocky Mountains. If you love bare rock that dares to scrape the underbelly of the stratosphere there are few places in North America that can compare to the Icefields Parkway in Alberta, the Going to the Sun Road of Glacier and the highest paved pass in Montana and Wyoming, the Beartooth Pass at 10,947'. It has been epic! This ride is considered by many to be the most scenic, or certainly top 5, rides in the U.S. It came as little surprise that I saw almost as many cyclists today as motorists. The ride surprised me, even with my pre-expectations, by its variety. We started just a few miles out of Red Lodge with small rock outcroppings along a straight stretch of highway; typical scenery for this area. As the road began to climb in earnest so did the WOW level.  Switchbacks? Check! Waterfalls? Check! Sky scraping mountain peaks? Check! High mountain lakes? Check! Snowpack in mid-July? Check! T...

Townsend Montana has changed a lot in 42 years but it is still a noisy little town. The motel I stayed in was, I believe, the only choice in town. They're trying but... They are "expanding" and I ended up in a cabin (seems to be a pattern here) they had just opened to occupancy. How "just" you ask? No curtains! Included in that is the front door which also, unlike the other windows, had no shades. So they came over with a towel and a roll of duct tape to cover it.  The water heater would only work for about an hour before tripping off line. The solution? He brought over a paper clip, partially unwound, and showed me where to insert it into the metal cover over the heater so as to be able to reset it. The a/c unit ran, but did not effectively lower room temperature. I turned it on full tilt, then went to eat and do laundry. When I returned the room was warmer than it was outside. I turned it off and opened the windows. Luckily it cooled off enough last night to b...

One of the very few stories my children may not have heard me tell adnausium is the tale of Townsend Montana. As today was to be primarily a travel day, setting myself up an appropriate distance from my next scenic loop so as not to have too far to ride tomorrow, I tried to pull up a map of Montana to determine where I might stop for the day. Because my stay at TR lodge last night was sans WiFi I was not able to get a map to come up. It was then a choice of where I wanted to go to get WiFi service. My options were the Grand Lodge of Glacier or finding something in Browning, about 15 miles to the east and on my route anyway. My first drive-by in Browning showed no obvious choice, so I stopped at what I thought was a restaurant, only to find out it was a grocery store. The lady in the deli department recommended I backtrack to the Casino, where I could get both WiFi and breakfast. So yesterday I was sublimely lost in Natures tranquility; today it was all the noise and conversations of a ...

 I mentioned earlier about "The Girls", Googles answer for navigating you to and through the strangest of places. On my P48 trip they were my (almost) constant companion, offering up navigational insights, and a healthy side order of humor, almost daily. There are two voices whom I have dubbed Gertrude Pauline Schuster and Gloria Pauline Stewart, both having the same monogram. They sometimes disagree with each other, a couple times Gertrude has started speaking Mexican (when I was near the Mexican border) or French (when I was near the St. Lawrence seaway). They like to put me on Interstates, which I try to avoid, so when I by-pass an on-ramp they go into panic mode, trying to get me on track. That's when the fun starts. But they have their frustrating side too. Like when they decide to not show up for work! They're supposed to feed me navigational instructions through a blue tooth receiver on the side of my helmet. However, they have failed to show up for work on mor...