Day Five. DRY, hot and busy!

Miles traveled today: 671.
Temps: Started in the low 50's and ended up in the low 90's!
Location: Started in Kalispell, Montana. Ended in Bellingham, Washington!
Left at 6:30am Mountain Time Zone, Arrived in B-ham at 9:05pm Pacific Time.
15.5 hours on the road today. We even gained an extra hour by crossing from Mountain time to Pacific time.

DRY ALL DAY today!

Here are some pictures from Day Five. I'm super excited - tomorrow is Vancouver! Then it's on to Alaska!

First, some leftover pictures from Day Four -


This is a friend of Myles' son. His name (the friend) is Jesse. Myles' son is named Cory. Jesse and Cory are good guys. They shot a few games of pool with us last night at the Outlaw Inn's attached lounge. It was a fun nite.


Speaking of Cory and Myles, here they are in all their glory. Cory is a good kid. Smart, respectful, and polite. I think (no, I KNOW) his dad is quite proud of him. Cory and Jesse came over to Kalispell to meet me, and so that they could hang out Cory's dad too.



My last view of the Outlaw Inn before we motored away at about 6:30am.





We ended up going through Missoula, Montana due to some roadwork being done on one of the back highways I had planned to take. It added some miles, and some time, but it was a great ride. I even got to see where these crazy Montanans built a bridge over a highway so the bears could get across. Turns out they don't use it much. Bears aren't good listeners. Eaters? Yes. Listeners? Not so much! Anyway, we pulled into this little truck stop for breakfast. (I won't mention the name of the place because our service was horrid. But it rhymes with Buralt's and starts with an M.) Let's just say, that it was not a good day for Kimmy. I'm told that normally the service is great. Maybe Kimmy just was having an off day. Food was good!
Anyway, the sign out front had the time and temp. When we got there, it said 69 degrees. Considering that when we left Kalispell it was 51 degrees, (only 110 miles north of Missoula, and only two hours away), we knew the sign was wrong. As we ate breakfast, we laughed and watched the temp drop every few minutes. We were worried that if we dawdled too long, it would start to snow!




Yay! We made it to Idaho (who da ho?) I had to pull off the road coming down a mountainside to get this photo. Traffic was kind of heavy, but it all worked out and no one got killed, maimed or even more than slightly cut!

I didn't get a picture of the welcome to Washington sign. Traffic was heavy and the shoulder of the road was full of orange barrels (those seem to bloom heavily every summer).


Along the way, Myles had an equipment malfuntion on his helmet. While it was nothing as entertaining as a Justin Timberlake/Janet Jackson malfunction, he needed to either fix it or get a new helmet. We happened across Experience Powersports in Moses Lake, Washington.
Robert took care of Myles, and Myles ended up with a new helmet (better safe than sorry) and Robert even took care of sending the old helmet to Myles at his home in Eureka, Montana so that he didn't have to lug it around! Great guys there at Experience.


There's Cheeto and Myles' Bike in front (and Myles by the door)

This is the Columbia River Gorge near Vantage, Washington. Absolutely stunning! We had to go past the "watch out for rattlesnakes" sign (honest) to get these pictures, but it's so big, it makes you feel a bit insignificant!

More of the Columbia River Gorge. That bridge is now I-90 and shortly after taking this picture, we were crossing that bridge. Vantage is to the right.



Dunno if you can read this, but it's about the Columbia River Gorge.

More of the gorge, but that speck in the water is a rather large speedboat! That should give you an idea how large this is.

We got through Snohomish Pass fine and withing very little time we were at
Seattle. It was the tail end of rush hour, and traffic was maddening, but we got through it fine. Almost got rear ended in a tunnel leading to I-5 but we lived, right? Once we came out of the tunnel and were on I-5, a few thousand of us on the road were buzzed by this Seaplane. scared the heck out of us!

Ever take a picture while riding a motorcycle (one-handed) while moving in a large metropolitan city while trying to work the clutch and not hit anyone at the same time? Me? Yep, you can check that off the list for me!

Great shot of Seattle! (Please ignore the bugs on the windshield, it was near the end of a long day!)

Tomorrow, it's going to be Customs and Border Protection before hitting Vancouver, eh? It's aboot time!