Tuesday, July 12, 2011

The Montana Trip - Day 4

Posting this a day late, wi-fi access to the Internet is a bit of a hike from the house we're staying at.

We left Missoula, MT after a hearty breakfast at the local Cracker Barrel restaurant.  Taking US 93, we headed out and away from Missoula and soon were enjoying a sight of what I believe to be the Mission Mountain Wilderness.

 One's view of the mountain ranges north of Missoula, MT


After St Ignatius, I found some county dirt roads that were both fun to ride on and brought me closer to the nearby mountain ranges.




Flathead Lake is quite a large lake with lots of houses bordering it on both sides.  Still, it was a pleasant ride up for the most part.  Going through Kalispell was a bit of a bore what with the heat and the traffic.

 Flathead Lake, from the North side

I forget which town this was, but the view is quite nice

Had an unexpected battery issue, where all of a sudden I had less than 10 volts and of course the starter would not crank the engine!  After some thought, I realized I had the deep cycle battery in the sidecar's trunk acting as ballast!  So, I got out the jumper cables and bang, got the engine going and recharging.  I even bought a $27 1 amp trickle charger for use later but it turned out to be a loose bolt on the battery I think.

I was also experiencing some perplexing chain slack/tightening issues but that turned out to be user error!  I really should not be allowed near tools sometimes.  Let's just say I was missing a couple of key steps in the "check the chain tightness" process and leave it at that.  Ron and Bobskoot squared me away on this process thankfully.

Bobkoot, Bluekat (Kari) and her husband Ron showed up just a bit before 5PM, I flagged them down and after some coordination, led them to the cabin where we would be staying.

The cabins, which had appeared a bit rustic in the brochue, were indeed "basic" in terms of accomodations.  My family and I ended up in the bunkhouse, as you can see, it has ready access to the facilities.

No wandering around in the dark to find the outhouse here.....

This is the "Mickey House", not named after the rodent but after the man who built the house back in 1910 or so.

 Mickey's House
It has "indoor plumbing"

 Kari (Bluekat) and husband Ron

Being further up in the Northern Hemisphere, sunset didn't come along until around 9PM I think

Will all the confusion and greetings and getting to know everyone all around, not much in the way of pictures was taken as you can see.  I promise though, more to come.

4 comments:

RichardM said...

That looks like a great place to unwind. Lots of trees and nice, rustic cabins. And a wonderful sunset. So is this near the border near the park entrance?

Richard

redlegsrides said...

Richardm, its definitely away from the hubbub of nearby Hungry Horse.

It's just a few miles from West Glacier which leads to the park's western entrance

Gary France said...

More tremendous pictures here. This is turning out to be quite a trip for you. I am amazed at the way you seem to get your bikes so well positioned in your pictures. The bunkhouse appears basic and may or may not have been comfortable, but I am sure that is one of the things you will remember about the trip in years to come. Very cool that you met up with Bob, Kari and Ron.

redlegsrides said...

Gary, yes....meeting the others was a highlight of the trip.