"Entry for Friday, 1 August 1997

Glacier National Park

Last Modified on 9/3/97 at 3:57:54

Day's Narrative: The motel tonight doesn't have phones in the rooms, so I'll be posting this tomorrow night with that day's log.

Today we were only going about 25 miles so I used some of this morning to adjust and check out the bike in the motel parking lot. The bike carrier on the back of the truck makes an excellent workstand.

A man staying at the motel came up while I was working. He was a retired farmer from Laurel, MT, in town to visit his son who works at a lumber yard nearby. He also has 3 other sons, and 4 daughters or as he put it,"We have four boys and each one has a sister."

He had never seen a multi-speed bike before, except that when his son was small he had a two-speed. In the process of going over the bike I discovered that the rear tire sidewall had been split by a rock or glass and I had to replace it. I showed him one of the tires and mentioned they cost $25 each. He said, "For one of those skinny things?" We talked as along as I lubed the chain and he helped me align the rear wheel and adjust the luggage rack.

So, it was an interesting hour or so that we talked about Montana, farming, children, bicycles, and the such. Near the end he mentioned some of his logger friends say that spotted owl tastes kind of like chicken.

He was an interesting fellow.

I left for Coram about 10:00 and got to the Evergreen motel here around noon. The desk person at the Motel 8 in Kalispell helped us get a reservation here, since everything within the area of the Glacier National Park entrance 3 miles east of here is booked.

I am now convinced that logging trucks are not the biggest danger on roads in the northwest. I think the recreational vehicles are. At least the logging trucks are driven by professional drivers. With the RVs (which I now call RBs -- Recreational Behemoths) you have no idea what kind of driver that person is. What makes the logging trucks so scary is that they are loud. The RBs are quiet. I call them the silent killers.

Connie and I spent the afternoon driving through Glacier National Park (see photo). Wow! In Montana scenery is where it's at. Lake McDonald which takes up a huge part of the area along the Southeastern entry road is incredibly clear, unusual to those of us used to the muddy Rio Grande --too thin to plow, too thick to drink.

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© Ray & Connie Poore, 1997