Day 2 7/3/2012

West Glacier to BigFork (55 miles)

We woke to pounding rain on the roof of "Rockie".  Surprisingly no thoughts of staying indoors.We left Fish Creek at West Glacier, heading down Hwy 2 through the town of Hungry Horse.  We were pelted by heavy rains and spray from the passing cars and semi's.  We traveled down(when I say down, I mean up down, there's never much down!)  into "Bad Rock Canyon", a very narrow canyon with 2 lanes and about 6 inches of paved shoulder and 10 inches of mud.  Then of course, guardrail and a steep plunge to the swift moving Flathead River.  A very frightening stretch about a mile or so long. "Never again" went through my mind, at least on a bicycle, beautiful canyon otherwise by car!

The next section leading to Columbia Falls had a much wider shoulder, still lots of vehicle traffic though.  For more photos click here

We had a great lunch at Montana Coffee Traders, one of our favorite coffee shops, while sitting outside watching the rain pound.  Then through the Flathead Valley backroads.  No more rain, and beautiful undulating hillsides.








We passed several fields of mustard, and were fortunate enough to see a deer in one field that lept every time Daren rang his bike bell.  Imagine seeing nothing but yellow, then a deer disappearing and re-appearing. Eventually we wound our way out of the valley and up the Swan Hill Dr. to Loraine's house.

There we found Silas arranging an enormous arsenal of fireworks and Loraine madly vacuuming for her weary guests.  We had a very relaxing evening working on blogs, playing games, charging all our electronics while we had the chance, and washing a never ending pile of laundry.