Monday, May 19, 2008

Ride to Idaho

It has been a month since our ride up to Seeley Lake, as the weather has taken that long to dry out and warm up! Geri was up for a long ride as I mapped out a route up through some country I had not traveled through before.
We got up earlier than usual for a sleep in day (can you say 7AM…at least for me). I got out of bed earlier than her to get the Harley ready. I decided to change the oil and filter out from the winter oil to the summer oil. I had Harley 20-50 in it from last fall when I put her away, so I changed out to my summer oil, an Amsoil 20-50 synthetic and a new filter. Bike runs a little smoother and cooler with this blend of oil. I also changed out the solo seat to the two up Corbin saddle as well.
We got out of town around 9 and headed up towards Thompson Falls way. We got as far as Paradise and spotted another Harley parked in front of this little café called Kathy's Whistle stop. Talk about your little hole in the wall café. We entered the place and decided to sit at the counter. Place was decorated in all you could think of in trains. Oh, yes, there is a train station across the street from the place. We met the other fellow Harley riders, and they were on their way home after being on the road since Friday. They are from Deer Park, just above Spokane. Their breakfast arrived and I told the waitress, “I’ll have what he’s having”, which is what they called the “Train wreck”. A little of everything in the kitchen with a little gravy on top. Yum, and there was too much for me to eat. Man, I was stuffed when we got out of there. Another couple came in and parked their 1932 Ford Model A pickup across the street. See the photo. What a way to travel!!!! We saw a lot of other bikes on the road all day. Some large groups to other individual riders, and some couples as well. We stopped in
Thompson Falls, famous for it’s dam and power plant. We did a little hiking there but could have done more around the two dams and old power facilities. Geri spent a lot of time in Thompson Falls as a youth and had relatives that lived there. Her Uncle was a barber there for several years.
We took a few photos up through this point, then I never took any more the whole trip!
We wound through the hiway that travels along the Clark Fork river, that was pretty well blown out with runoff. We looped up around Lake Pend Oreille and into Sandpoint, Idaho. After a gas stop there, we traveled south to Couer d’Alene where we decided to take a meal at the Red Lobster. We get a lot of Red Lobster advertising in Missoula, but we do not have one of these restaurants here!!! Dang… We ate very well and then got back on the Hog and headed east on I-90 for Missoula. The return leg was a 168 mile stretch back home. We arrived in Missoula with little daylight left, around 9PM.



















No comments: