Beginnings

It's hard to believe, but we're finally on our way!  We want to thank all of Jody's coworkers/friends who made it possible for us to do this extended ride, a dream about 10 years in the making. (To skip directly to the photos, click here!)

Welcome to Glacier!

We left on Sunday July 1st, and had a pretty uneventful drive(almost ran out of gas before Spokane) to West Glacier in Montana.  

There, Uncle Bruce, Barbara, Buck, Tara, Rhett and Maggie Joy and Loraine were there to greet us.  We braved the pouring rain and had a great dinner while planning our first day of riding with Bruce.

Monday July 2nd, Bruce and Barbara drove us to the unpatrolled, uncrossable, Canadian border on the North Fork Road just outside the border of Glacier National Park. But before that, we had to stop at the famous Polebridge Mercantile. They have the best sticky buns I've ever had!(not gluten free, oh dear!) 

The ride started out foggy, but no rain, then beautiful. The road went from gravel to paved(think Seattle pothole paved X100) on and off with undulating hills. We crossed many raging creeks and kept the North Fork of the Flathead River to our left the whole ride. 

One section was newly graded with gravel, so pretty squirrely. They also coat these dirt roads with magnesium sulfate to keep the dust down(tough to get the combo out of gears etc). They've had record rains here, so all streams are fast and full. No bears or moose, but we saw a mountain lion and a fox, and many chipmunks. We stopped again at Polebridge which is about 20 miles from the border for lunch, then headed back to camp another 27 miles away. Beautiful riding, even the 6 mile climb. One incident of a bee getting stuck in my arm and stinging me four times, otherwise unscathed.




Sarah went on a ride around West Glacier and is getting stronger every day!




Loraine took Silas to her home in Bigfork. Along the way he worked his grandson magic, and managed to convince her to buy more fireworks. We bought quite a bit before we left, never enough for  a 12 year old!
We had a wonderful dinner at Belton Chalet in West Glacier, and after going over the best routes for our ride with the ever knowledgable Bruce, we crashed hard(to sleep I mean).