Day Eight to Calgary

We slept in until 8:00. The we got packed and on the road by 9:30. Just when we were getting on the bikes, it start to mist. I am pretty sure I am going to spend a lot of time in my raincoat before this trip is over. I'm ok with that. I am really learning what it takes to do touring on a bike. You can read as many books as you want, but until you spend a few days at the bars you really don't know if you'll enjoy touring. It isn't easy, but it is a lot of fun. A car does provide a lot of comfort but it's at a cost, your sense of the environment are 100% on a bike. The smell of the forest, the sting of the rain, the sound of the road and wind. Motorcycling is a very rich experience. True, it is very dangerous, and that is also part if the experience. Thrill seekers have to engage in risk, its a package deal. They say "its is better to of loved and lost "... Yeah, my wife thinks is crazy, too.

So any way back to the trip. I just pulled away from the hotel and I noticed that two of my warning lights were blinking, so I putted off. I was starting to wonder how this was going to play out. I look closely and it was the check engine light. I have tons of experience with this issue. Every car I have owned had this light on for over a 100,000 miles. I once even put tape over it.:-) It is usually an oxygen sensor that can make the engine run extra rich and gives you bad mileage. The standard approach of ignoring, it seemed, well, in this situation, crazy. So I turned the bike off and restarted it. Thank God the warning lights went off. I figure it could have been the altitude or a little water in the gas. Everything is wet up here. I couldn't see Evan anywhere so I drove up to the first gas station and fueled up. Evan pulled up and thought we should eat at the diner. So he parked his bike and went in. While I was standing there gassing the bike and guy came over and asked if I was really going to Alaska. I said yes and he told me he had a BMW and had just went up last year. It was a great ride and the roads were great. He recommended a RT 97 that runs up from Prince George. He said it had a few more twists in it. After breakfast we headed up the road about 15 miles and entered Glacier National Park. I went through Logon's pass. I wished we could have explored more, but I am going to be back with the kids for sure!

As we worked our way to Logon's pass I noticed the road was in rough shape in a few spots. I also noticed that the trees along the road were plowed down. I discovered that avalanches last year had really trashed several locations in the park. As we drove deeper into the park, the road started going up. Dozens of waterfalls lined the roadway. One area of the road is call the Weeping Wall and has a huge waterfall.


Beautiful mountain spires disappeared into the clouds and so did we. The road ran us right into 10 ft visibility clouds/fog. The clouds were pretty cool but then the road construction areas start popping up. The avalanches and waterfalls had done a number on the higher road ,forcing traffic down to one lane. The one lane was also pretty spongy. We push on the up to the top and stopped at the visitors center.


I shot some photos, of course. Evan discovered that they weren't selling coffee and wondered why the hell not. This definitely was a low point of the vacation for him. I stumbled off to a glacier, leaving Evan ranting at a park ranger about the accommodations. I wandered around in the fog and found an young girl park ranger with a soggy poster board. She explained that when the park was first opened, it had 500 glaciers. Now it only has 25. In 10 years, they will all be gone. Just about that time it started raining. I thanked her for the presentation and wandered around looking for Evan. I made my way out to the bikes and found what looked like a deer hunter sitting on Evans bike. I stared for a second and realized that Evan had donned his Harley rain suit. I started laughing, so he called me retarded. I pointed out the fact that he looked like fat crossing guard and we both laughed. Harley has started using that fluorescent orange on their clothing line to draw attention to the riders. It sure does, but it sure takes away the bad boy component of the image. Sorry no pictures. Just like the one armed man at the 4th, I just couldn't go there.