Today was a great example of the definition of Funcut. The morning was cold, real cold. The forecast said 38 degrees but on the bike at speed it must have been close to freezing. I had almost every piece of cold weather gear on and my heated grips set to magma level. After only a few miles I could tell my fingers were going to go numb. Pointer fingers, left middle, and both thumbs gone. Reaching up for either the clutch or brake levers I do as little as possible because in the short time it takes shift or brake the hand grips feel like ice when my fingers return to their positions. This went on for about two hours or so.
We found out yesterday from a nice lady at a gas station that Montana’s weather right now is abnormal. Usually the wind comes from a particular direction, but because of a front from Canada the wind and cold are moving in a counter clockwise direction. Because of this we changed or intended route twice today.  Looking at the map vs the weather direction we had a choice, stay in Montana for the rest of the day and freeze tomorrow too or make a tactical withdraw to Idaho. This is where the funcut comes into play.
After lunch the temperatures were slightly better, but we were still at a high enough elevation that once we were moving it was cold. Realize when I say cold I mean uncomfortable, not it’s a little chilly and I want to complain. We change direction for the second time today to escape that Canadian weather and reduce our elevation.  The funcut gods smiled upon us and the rest of the day was epic.
Landscape wise Montana was beautiful, they aren’t kidding about this area being big sky country. Wow it was cool. I think it appears bigger than ‘normal’ because you can typically see mountains in the distance and that makes you appreciate how far you are seeing. But I’m no scientologist so I have no idea how it works.  After the funcut we were treated to awesome rock formations, rising temperatures, another amazing river, towering rock walls, and just enough room for farms to squeeze into the same valley. Check out the 360 for a little taste. Today there were more wows and whoas than any other day this trip. We were in awe. It was amazing.
Something else that comes along with all that water and farm land are hella 😉 bugs.  This is in my opinion the worst part of riding. There you are bopping along, big stupid grin on your face.. then POW! It can be as minor as a pin prick or like a marble hitting you in the face. It’s jarring to say the least and always not when you expect it . And you better hope there isn’t a stinger attached to that little bastard. To us this isn’t a big deal what is a big deal is the dark passenger comes to play. This is the name we’ve come to use when a bug some how escapes exploding against our face and makes it’s way into our helmets. You can feel it’s little gross body moving across your head basically doing whatever it wants. Sometimes you can smash it against your skull by moving your helmet around. Sound gross? You’d do it.  The absolute worst type of dark passenger finds your ear. You can feel it slowly making its way towards your ear, you beg it to stop. You try not to focus on it. Try. That’s when it starts either biting or worse it tries to get into your skull. Once they get in the level of distraction is indescribable. The eye on that side of my head starts to water and that aweful tickle. Yarrr! Part of you begs for it to eat some of your poison wax so it dies and the other part of your brain is trying to keep you alive. It’s terrible. Typically I ride out this aweful experience, but yesterday’s passenger was so bad I stopped and physically killed that one.  Kat did the same today in that epic valley.  Little bastards.
Time to celebrate the day. Have an amazing weekend.

Beautiful start this morning. The sun was in the perfect position to make the river next to us shine a silver so bright it was hard to look at. This was one of the most rapid filled rivers we’ve seen. It must have been pretty dangerous because we saw zero people rafting or really anywhere near it.
We didn’t gas up this morning because we knew there was a station near the edge of our range. Also, when we start the day with a full tank we typically don’t make our first stop till we are almost out of gas. This makes for a long first leg of the day, sometimes too long. So we are feeling pretty good about our genius plan. What could go wrong?
We find the gas station, the pumps have a sign on them.. Never good.  They say check inside with the clerk first. Right as I notice the pumps have no power, Swampkat sees the reality sign in the window.  Great. We’ve come to far too go back.  Our only hope is a sign we saw prior to pulling into the station. Next gas 30 miles. I’m down to 3 chicklets of fuel. Remember that gum that tastes like soap called chicklets?  That’s where the name comes from. We can probably make it we decide, not as though we have a choice.
As we ride I almost immediately lose a chicklet and my reserve light comes. Now I’m counting the miles, who cares how pretty this is I need gas. Another chicklet gone. Oh shit. We’ve now driven over 30 miles. Pucker factor, engage. Another chicklet gone. I’m reading bingo fuel. I let Kat know. He’s bad off as well, but still has a fuel reading. Now I’m looking at every bit of road judging it’s ability to support the bike with kickstand down. Lemme tell you, it is not looking good. I make a plan with Swampkat. He can’t stop when I run out, it’s too risky.
About 20 minutes go by, Orion is giving me her best. Then on an incline the image of a gas pump appears.  30 miles? Try around 60+. We turn down this dirt road and at first see nothing. After a few longgg seconds we see the back end of a fuel truck and he’s currently filling the pump. It was a Sinclair station, we were saved!
We ate while the truck emptied both of it’s containers. While eating we were looking out the window at this big pine tree nearby. It looked like dust was being blown off of it. It wasn’t dust though, it was pollen, f*cktons of pollen.  It was coming off of this tree in sheets,  almost like how hard rain looks. Both of us laughed, we both have allergies and beyond the trees near us were literally thousands more. This morning when we loaded up we noticed both bikes completely covered in yellow pollen so we shouldn’t have been surprised, but I’ve never seen a tree shed pollen to that extent.
Bellies and tanks full, we set off. We followed rivers almost all day. We made it into Montana today,  it’s my first time.  So far it’s been beautiful and the roads were mostly fantastic. The forecast says there will be some rain, so routes will have to be adjusted but we got this.
Internet is hit n miss, so the data heavy uploads will be a bit sparse till we get nearer…well anything.
Your week is almost done,  you guys hang in there.

As you may have guessed, today kicked ass for us. We started the day rounding lake Coeur d’Alene. It’s huge and what surprised me was how almost it’s entire shoreline was ringed with docks. They were everywhere. The road was excellent, nice and curvey, and without a soul in site. That’s the beautiful thing about riding during the week, especially on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Everyone is in hell I mean at work, so the roads are empty. Especially way out here.
Around lunch time we stopped to eat at this place called the Hoo Doo Mountain cafe. Once we got or gear off we noticed the place was closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays. As we were taking a little break in the parking lot, we heard the rumble of a bike starting up. A few minutes later from around the corner of the cafe appears this big blue bike. He rides directly up to us and turns off the bike. We chat for awhile, it turns out him and his wife own the cafe. You’ve probably by now figured out why the cafe is closed. This guy has it figured out. His cafe is on a known motorcycle route, so it’s open for the busy days and closed on the amazing driving days. Needless to say we were both a bit jealous. He gave us the name and location of an amazing route, that we will save till we are joined by our third. You will meet him in a few weeks, his work name is Aaron, but I I’ll call him Trip from here on out.
As we continued our day, now on the hunt for food, we stumbled into this place called Fuzzy’s B&G. Sitting near the door.. Treasure maps!!  It is called Come Ride With Us and is full of motorcycle roads and businesses that cater to people in our situation. Look it up if your interested, there is too much stuff in it to get into here.
In the afternoon we rodeback passed WSU and into the hilly windy area. Still windy, but a lot more mild when there isn’t a storm. We dropped down to the snake river valley, then rode along Lewis and Clark trail. I kept seeing the signs for this historic trail, but kept wondering how active they were in the actual trail breaking aspect of their adventure. I don’t know, but I can’t help but think they were back in a tent somewhere sippin tea making their worker’s lives miserable. Every now and then stepping out of the tent with an aweful idea of which way they should go.  Eh, who knows.
Thanks to our newest treasure map we found this great motel in Kamiah, Idaho. When we walked in the room both of us said Wowww, this place is nice and the price is right!
While writing today’s story, one of the hotel owners just happened to walk by and asked us, “How’s the room?”  I said awesome, but when Swampkat answered ‘fantastic’ the guy got a confused look on his face and said, “Fantastic? Fantastic is extra, we under charged you!”  It was hilarious. We wouldn’t have even found this place without that map, we would have surely stayed at the first hotel with ground floor rooms. As an additional bonus,  there is a Sinclair gas station up the street and it has the Dino statue out front.
You guys take care. We’re on our way Sinclair’s!

That’s right, today we were just 10 miles from the Canadian border. We both have our passports, but neither of us felt like dealing with border nonsense.
Today was a good one. We left the dam this morning and almost immediately found ourselves surrounded by trees and enormous lakes. Up until about an hour and a half ago we had only seen a few cars in our lane. By cars, I mean 2. You couldn’t ask for better riding. It was a cold, but manageable. It rained a few times, but who cares we’re on a motorcycle trip.
Early in the day we refueled in a small town called Inchelium. The people were so friendly. It’s common that people wave at us, heck even cops will just wave at us, but in this town the number of random smiles and waves was off the chart. By the time we were back on the road I had a smile on my face from their good will. Eastern Washington was full of great people. Maybe it has to do with how beautiful their area is. I couldn’t count how many times the word beautiful came to my mind today. It was the perfect end to our time in Washington.
We’re now in Idaho and looking forward to tomorrow. One thing we’ve noticed since we’ve been in state.. Idaho has no friggin clue how to set up stoplights in it’s cities. Now, we’ve only driven through two of their ‘cities’ one was about 10,000 people and the other 40,000, but both had traffic like cities 10x their size. It was gross. We asked each other questions like: Why is there a stop light on the highway? Why are they all timed so that you can’t make more than one? Oregon seemed to have actually thought out so many aspects of their transportation system, the opposite seems to be true for Idaho.
We had a good long day today. We’re looking forward to some Arby’s and brewskis to put a cherry on top of this mofo.