Day Eleven - Montana

Start - Williston, ND

Stop - Kalispell, MT

Today's miles - 611

Total - 7,612

After negotiating my way down the gravel driveway, to the gravel road, to US 2, it was time to head to Montana.  As excited as I was to see my aunts, uncles, and cousins and to ride across North Dakota, I have been looking forward to Montana.  But first I had to get out of Williston.

The oil boom is exploding that city.  Amazingly, they seem to be figuring it out.  There doesn't seem to be much trouble finding oil, or finding people who want to make bonus bucks working in the oil patch, the problem is everything else.  Homes, streets, electrical power - none of that falls from the sky, or even lies underground as decaying biomatter.  People have to decide to build infrastructure, they need to plan it, pay for it, and build it.  And all of that takes time.

Much of North Dakota feels like a very laid back place.  A whole lot of waiting going on.  Waiting for crops to grow and animals to do their thing.  But Williston looks and feels like an ant hill, everyone scurrying and hurrying, all chasing dreams that have more to do with money than anything else.  Not that there is anything wrong with that - but haste makes waste and Williston is haste-ing up a storm.

Ten miles west of Williston I sat in a traffic line waiting for a road construction crew with my bike turned off, checking my email on my phone.  But once traffic started moving again, it was just ten more miles to reach Montana.

Hands down, I would spend a week riding bikes around Montana before any other state in the union.  In the summer.  I love Montana.

I also prefer crossing Montana from east to west.  You begin with the same expansive grassland and farmland that starts in North Dakota but somehow it just seems to stretch on further in Montana.  There is a reason they call it Big Sky Country and you will think that again and again as you pass through.  Starting in the east leaves the mountains in the west calling your name all day long.

I think of crossing Montana from east to west like going to your Grandma's for Thanksgiving.  You arrive at 6:00 AM but know you can't eat turkey until 4:00 PM.  You love being there all day but the anticipation is the best.

Between 9th grade and my second year in college, I spent most or all of the summers north of Seattle with my Dad and his family.  Each summer began and ended with a road trip between Conway, WA, and Wahpeton, ND.  I've driven or ridden lots of different combinations.  I-94/I-90 is the fastest and the simplest.  Plus you get to spend a few minutes by Coeur d'Alene.   The mountain passes are nice, in both states.  US 2 isn't nearly as fast or as easy.  It is old fashioned two lane highway driving, complete with timing your passing, slowing down for every little town that gets in your way, and actually seeing the way people live beyond the Gas Malls on the interstate.  Personally, because of that, I think that the mountain passes are better on US 2.  They come close enough together that you can make it a combo run.  Which I've done.

On this trip I decided to take US 2 the whole way.  It was an easy choice.  I've already ridden too much interstate for my taste.  I started off in Williston.  I have friends from my old church who have invited me to their home in Kalispell - thank you Dwight and Peggy!  And I have always wanted to ride the Going To The Sun road in Glacier National Park.  Got a plan, now work the plan.

US 2 was a fine choice.  

The first time I rode a motorcycle out to Seattle was the first week of May after my sophomore year in college, 1981.  I rode a 1973 Honda CB 750 Four.  (You gotta add the "four" there as it was so prominently displayed on the tank badge.)  I had nothing.  Very little money.  None of the right clothes or boots.  Nothing.  I had problems with a chain that wouldn't stay tight and broken spokes that I had to replace on the way.  It was bitterly cold and raining when I left Tom and Judy's.  I started out on US 2 but headed toward the interstate through Sidney.

I found out there was a snowstorm on the pass so I cut south through Hardin to Casper, then over the pass to Salt Lake City.  I went up to Oregon and followed the river to Portland before heading north on I-5.  The rain never quit falling from the time I left Portland.  I had no money so I had to ride through the night, sleeping in the Iron Butt Motel on rest area picnic tables, freezing half to death.  I finally got to my Dad's at 8:00 AM.  IT WAS AN AWESOME AND AMAZING TRIP!

So I thought about that as I rode down US 2 in the sunshine.  I haven't had any significant rain on this whole trip.  I have all the equipment I could want and a bike that feels like my big chair in front of the TV.  The miles whipped by.

I think about Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance every once in awhile when I'm moving.  Loved the book.  He and his son rode through North Dakota in that book, they even rode through Wahpeton.  Read it.  I'm right on that.  I was doing the Zen thing today...I would look up and another 60 miles were gone.  The wind was fierce and my gas mileage continued to be atrocious.  AND no one had gas higher than 89 octane.  What's with that?  Eventually I got a tank of 91 in Cut Bank.  (Forgot to bring those little bottles of octane booster I left in the garage.)

You pass through some Native American reservations on US 2.  I stopped at Fort Peck and Fort Belknap.  It is good for the soul to notice reservations.  Not comfortable but good.  Far better than just ignoring their existence.  Life is horrible on most of them.  Alcoholism, drug addiction, rape, suicide, diabetes.  Much of this is rooted in trying to change the pain of poverty, unemployment, despair, and hopelessness.  So I stop, get my coffee and stand in line.  I greet people.  And I ride on, praying for everyone who is working to bring a measure of decency, self respect, sobriety, and hope into the lives of the people who remain at the soul of our nation.  Especially those from the reservation who go back to make a difference.

And I ride on.  I was racing to get to Glacier National Park while there was enough sun to ride to it.

I first heard about the Going to the Sun Road when I was a kid.  My Grandma and Grandpa Fay took their camper on a vacation that included Glacier.  Grandpa Fay loved to laugh and little was funnier to him than getting Grandma's goat.  She was terrified on that road and Grandpa Fay laughed the whole time.  He laughed when she was telling the story.  I knew someday I would have to see for myself.

But I was always too busy.  I always just roared down US 2, right past the park, never taking time to stop.  Today I finally made it.

For those of you who have traveled that road, you understand when I say that it is hard to describe.  It is awe inspiring.  Not only the majesty of the sights - glaciers creeping down rocky faces, snow melt waterfalls misting the road, snow-capped peaks, beautiful mountain lakes - but also the human ingenuity that thought to make such sights available to us.  

I wanted to enter the road from the east because I was heading to Dwight and Peggy's house and it was on the way.  It was one of those things that, if I had time, I would ride it both ways just to see the differences.  Even the ride from Browning to St. Mary was fun - twisty roads, elevation changes, and glimpses of the grandeur ahead.

If you haven't ridden Going to the Sun, add it to your bucket list.  Make a plan.  Work the plan.

And thank you, Dwight and Peggy, for your wonderful hospitality.