Banff, Alberta to Kalispell, MT USA! 306

I woke up to Sarah saying “Dia…Dia…guess what…” as I stir and say “what” she hands me her phone and says “The Milwaukee 115th Film Festival is playing Psychomania…the same terrible movie I picked and played for Spenard Bike Week!” She continued to laugh about how it was important enough to wake me up for and that and how Harley continues to copy us. We are trendsetters.

It was 7:30 and we wanted to get a head start so we would have some time in Kalispell. We also didn’t know how long the boarder crossing would take so best to get an early start. I texted Barry and he said the temp would be 55* at 9:30am so I guess that meant we were leaving at 9:30am. First stop…the GAS station across the street. (also, on a completely unrelated note, my PR/Marketing Director aka Sarah, asked that I keep my blog PG13 so no more F&^% bombs) (insert eye roll and shoulder shrug…I like my colorful language but I understand some folks might find it offensive and not want to read my blog as a result so going forward I will censor myself)

Patti gave me a lovey ring and Sarah decided the moment should be captured in the most dramatic way possible.

Leaving from Banff we had to back track west a little bit to get onto Hwy 93. The highway was beautiful. I don’t know who the guy leading today was, but magically Jim decided to haul ass and ride fast on this awesome curvy highway. We were passing cars, trucks and motorhomes. The road was full of twisties and mountains and canyons. It was amazing. The only bad part of this beautiful road, was the slow-motion collision I had with a dragon fly. Yep, Sarah’s worst nightmare almost came true for me. I saw it coming, tried to duck but it hit me right above my right eye. As I frantically swiped at the guts I could feel them dripping down my face and they were all over my sunglasses…dripping down and coating everything. I finally had to start laughing at the whole situation. I could see my reflection in my gauges in front of me I could see that I still had guts by my eyebrow. I wiped at it for a bit, but it clearly was not coming off. When we stopped for gas, I got a good photo of the carnage of guts on my face.

On Hwy 93, we rode through a small town we passed a construction site and walking through the dirt area was this amazing mountain goat. It was so bizarre how talk and lanky it was and it was the same color as the dirt around it. It was just walking through the construction site, like he owned the place and they were impeding on his walkway. About a mile up the road, a large sheep with a full curl horn was crossing the road. I watched as it crossed in front of Jim and to the left there were probably 30 of them laying all over the grass on the side of the road! I had just been talking about our trip through this area 10 years ago and how we had seen so many animals and this trip we hadn’t seen many through these parks. Kootenay Park was the park we were riding through today and it was beautiful. I can’t recall riding this same route in the past but I am glad we went through this route today.

We didn’t see anymore wildlife after that and the road was a lot straighter as we got out of the mountains. We stopped for gas after about 120 miles and then decided we wouldn’t stop again until after we got back in the US of A!

The boarder wasn’t too long of a wait, but it was getting hot so we all started stripping layers as we waited for the 7 cars in front of us. When we pulled up to the stop light, the light turned green and the border guard held up a single finger, no not his middle finger, he was signaling only one bike at a time. Usually we can all roll up together and hand him all our passports, but I guess not this time. Jim went first, while my bike lurched and clanked in the heat. Man, I wish I had a Milwaukee 8 motor on this trip! I can see the passing capability difference from Jim’s bike to mine when we are passing vehicles and mine feels slow and sluggish compared to the power of the Milwaukee 8.

I got a little spoiled riding the M8 from Boston to Phoenix in 2016. Good news is, I am leaving my old dinosaur of a CVO (2015) in Arizona after this trip!

We got into Kalispell and got all our stuff unloaded. Sarah and I decided to do laundry so we sorted everything, loaded it into her tour pack and took the long way (like 10 minutes lost in allies and back parking lots) to find the laundromat across the street from the hotel. When we arrived we saw a place called the “Gold Bar” next door but weren’t quite sure what it was. We loaded up the wash machine and found that the Gold Bar, was indeed a bar…well a casino for the bored doing their laundry. We sat at the bar, Sarah drinking her iced latte and me my glass of wine and wrote the blog while she caught up on home life and work.

Glenn and Cherrie Marunde were in here playing some slots while they waited for their laundry and Jim wandered in to do his laundry. We are currently trying to pick a place to eat some dinner. As usual, if anything exciting happens tonight I will add it to the blog tomorrow morning.