Day 6 and even more rain !

This day didn't start off nice and end with rain like all the others.

This started off with rain and ended with rain.

I left Roundup, Montana with a dark overcast sky and a cool wind. The humidity was very high with no sun, so it was almost cold riding on the bike. After not very many miles, it started to rain so I pulled into a rest stop and got out the big guns. My waterproof riding pants and my Kilimanjaro IV waterproof jacket. After the rain died down a little I headed on down the road. It rained off and on all the rest of the day but I was toasty warm the whole time.  

I thought I was going to actually make it over the border today but the weather slowed me down a lot. Other than the rest stop, the only time I stopped was at a Subway for lunch in a little town named Lewistown. A nice little town. Fairly large for being out in the middle of nowhere, Montana. It seems there are a lot of towns out in the middle of nowhere in Montana. I talked to a Canadian Honda VFR rider at the Subway for a few minutes. He was pretty tall and when he sat on the VFR, his knees were almost dragging the ground just sitting there. VFRs must be really short bikes. He was telling me he left from Calgary and it was raining hard up there but it was all moving East and South so should be gone by the time I get there. I hope so.

I told him he should try to find the video on the internet about VFRs. This is the video using a Hitler movie but somebody had put new English subtitles all about BMW and VFR. I can't begin to describe it but it is one of the funniest things I have seen on the internet in a LONG time. I couldn't quit laughing when I saw it.

I've never been up in this part of Montana before. The topography of the land is really interesting. You'll go for miles with flat land all used for farming or raising cattle and then you'll come to a depression in the land and there'll be a few rolling hills, maybe a river, and some sand hills and then back to flat land again. At one of these spots, the sun was shining down on one small patch of hills and it was really something. Of course they had no pull offs or any place to stop so I couldn't take a picture. That would have been one award winning picture if I could have gotten it though. A dark sky with sun shining on the hills.

I forgot to mention in yesterdays' report that while I was stopped in the rain at the Cozy Corner Bar in the middle of absolutely nowhere, standing under the eave of the shut down convenience store, an older couple pulled up to the pumps wanting gas. I told them it was only 85.5 octane but the women said "it's better than no gas". Evidently, they were running really low.

She asked me where I was going and I told her Alaska and she said they were going there too. Then she asked where I was coming from and when I told her Missouri, she said "NO, I was born in Missouri". She asked what town I was from and when I said Mountain Grove, she said "NO! I was born in Licking". Well, I could hear the little dolls singing that song again, "It's a small, small world". She wanted to know if I had ever heard of so and so, but of course I don't know anybody in Licking. Evidently her family had owned the funeral parlor in Licking back when she was a kid.

Now the sun starts to shine here in Shelby, Montana. It's 9pm local time and the sun is shining in my window here at the Glacier Motel and RV park in another middle of nowhere town in Montana. It's not a very nice place but it is cheap. When I arrived here there was a drunk guy out washing his new Harley. He proceeds to tell me how he went to Washington state to buy it and slowly made his way back to here. Although if he drank like this during his travels, I'm surprised he made it back here.

It was a nice Harley. He had gotten the detachable windshield and sissy bar just like mine. I made the mistake of telling him that I had a Fat Boy but decided to ride the BMW instead. Well, you could see him starting to get cranked up about that. Why on earth would a person ride a BMW instead of a perfectly fine Harley. For a minute there, I thought I was hearing the Clove. When I told him I lived on dirt roads at home and I was going up the Haul Road in Alaska he calmed down. I'm sure he still thinks a Harley would be the perfect bike to take up the Haul Road but he didn't want to say it.

Then he starts in about how hard it is to find a good woman that really likes to ride motorcycles. I wanted to tell him that I thought it would be hard for him to find ANY kind of woman but I decided "discretion is the better part of valor" and said nothing.  

Remember when I said I just HAD to have one of the one wheel trailers for next years trip to the Yukon? Well, I've changed my mind. I researched them on the net last night and found they cost in the area of $2,800. So forget that. I'll have Sonny make one out of scrap parts instead. The stupid thing is not much bigger than a large Coleman drink cooler and it costs close to 3 grand. Not in my worst dreams would I have imagined it would be that expensive. Maybe I can find a used one somewhere.

The drunk Harley guy just left on his Harley. I don't expect he'll make it back from whereever he's going. He's probably going looking for a bar.

Well, I'm actually going to hit the border tomorrow. I've been checking the net and I think I've found a spot where lots of Americans have torn down the fence and are sneaking through to Canada. Hopefully, I'll get there before the Canadians discover that a lot of "less than desirables" are entering their country illegally. If they catch me, I'll just say a lot of "eh"s and they'll think I'm a lost Canadian and let me go! :)