I got back well before midnight, but vodka is not always your friend. Finally hit the (very cold) road through Glacier at about 7. Started at 41 degrees and did not get warmer than 57 all day. All 570 miles of day. It took seconds to put on the warmest shirts and glove and jacket liner while sealing up the jacket and helmet vents.

Not every “hit-the-road” works to perfection.

Well I know that it can’t last
Someday this ride will stall
Rubber on the road & the blood inside
‘Cause even mighty mountains
Someday might crumble & fall
Keep the rubber on the road & the blood inside

Desolation Angels

The last line is the KEY. That and heated grips. You’ll see.

Multiple pilot car-managed Glacier work areas and the cold stopped any early momentum, and I was cold and hungry. Got to the strange and wonderful Griddle in Shelby, Montana. Man, when they serve you a side of meat for breakfast, it is beside your breakfast for ages. Glacier big.

There were 405 miles to go, I had a slooow start and had to bust it. We probably earned nearly 100 miles, averaging 90 mph over Dances of Wolves terrain, before it started to rain. Rain, sleet and wind for at LEAST the last 300 miles. Of more Dances with Wolves terrain. Gas stations with no canopies. BIG trucks on the two lane road just burying opposing traffic, or even distanced followers, with clouds of stinging mist. Wet and cold, just like Samuel likes his, well never mind about that. More later on the real-life character whose real name shall not be disclosed but who I shall call Samuel.

And all was still well with the world. You know why?

Heated grips.

You may say its baseball or high heels or a fine Mt. Veeder Cabernet. You might think it’s Jeff Crosby’s guitar or Lynn Goodman’s wit or George Clooney. But no, my friends, the world’s GREATEST capability is heated hand grips on an adventure motorcycle. You might say, like Crash Davis, the small of a woman’s back, or a constitutional amendment against the Designated Hitter. But I digress again. If you have a bloodstream and are cold on a bike, you just pump up the heat to TWO dots and let your hands do the rest. Your mind may forget the lyrics to Desolation Angels that you were singing in your helmet. You may forget your key or put your rainpaints on BEFORE taking your wallet out to buy a water, but it WILL NOT MATTER. Because YOU, my friend, have heated grips.

With a good wind screen and an adventure bike, rain is no problem. It takes hours and miles to get really wet, and I had both. In abundance. Set to 11. But 11 can’t beat 2 dots of heated grips. No m’aam sir.

What I noticed from Bigfork to Willison:

• Tired can last. At one late gas stop, I misplaced my earplugs, found them, geared up, misplaced my key, forgot that I needed the bathroom and began the cycle all over again. Makes me cold just thinking about it. Oh, and the rain pants thing.
• There are trains along Route 2 of scale and beauty. Russ Hatch, be aware! Passenger trains, long lonely freights, tankers-only and siding management, all with that graceful, huge-momentum movement, and always going a bit slower than I was, side by side. I was particularly taken by how you could see how the cars are really beads on a necklace, using the short length of their cars to bend not just horizontally on turns, but vertically over hill and dale.
• There are casinos in every small town in Montana – and Indian reservations, too. I expect a correlation, but not all were obvious. It seems like there is affirmative casino action in even the smallest motes of a town, far from reservations. Who is there to play in a casino with an “open” sign that looks like a ghost town? Who says, “yep, loved The Shining, I’m IN!”
• One time I noticed I couldn’t see. Hit me right away. Led to an immediate turnoff to a, wait for it, closed casino, where I stood in the vestibule to clean glasses and visor. A proprietor unlocked the door and gave me some paper towels before affirming my right to play, even when closed. I thanked him, toweled off, and rode away.
• Had I known it would rain throughout the day, I might have tried to avoid all this somehow, and that would have been worse. I was prepared and it all worked out.

So after about 237 hours, the North Dakota sign came into view, and I pulled into the turnout. It was still 50 yards away in the pouring rain.

I trudged over, took the picture, and some other guy had left his car with Michigan plates and was walking toward the sign. He wanted to chat. As I walked by, I learned that this was his 42^nd state,

he transported animals for a living,

he wanted to know my story,

and wanted to chat

. about his mother, I think

With 8 miles of range left in the tank, I pulled into a Williston gas station and could not remember the name of my hotel. (MAINSTAY, you idiot!) I filled up McCovey, figured it out under the CANOPY (HEY MOTES, [Day 1 reference], get it TOGETHER, will ya?) of a real gas station and took my sodden self to my new temporary home.  

I took over the guest laundry, showered, and took a cab through the pouring rain to the lovely Williston Brewing Company. Good food and sports. I’ll go again tonight, as I finally became cogent enough to cancel the Fargo leg of my trip. 100% chance of rain did not bode well. No reason to ride across the state to attend a ballgame that will DEFINITELY be rained out. Even if it isn’t.

So about Samuel. His name isn’t really Samuel, but before I realized what he actually thought about stuff and things, he introduced himself to me downstairs at breakfast. I was playing a little Jeff Crosby as I wrote this blog, very quietly, and he heard it and started to tell me about how, at 52, he is still the front man for his band in Minot, ND. He seemed nice, asked about my trip, wanted to talk about his music. So I sent him some links to Jeff’s music, to Reckless and to this blog.

And then he broadened the conversation into Californians, socialists, immigrants, the homeless and those “damn BLM events in Minneapolis.” I questioned his thinking but said I never let politics get between me and a friend. I calmly discussed an alternative point of view, like, I agree that the homeless problem is indeed a problem. But did Chad (oops) really think that the answer was that every one of them simply had to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get on with it? I mean, what do you do with the people who simply cannot muster the ability or capability? “Well I did it,” was the answer. He was a man dedicated to a “representative republic” because too many men were too stupid to participate in a democracy. This ground was covered, in, oh, Rome, monarchies, etc. I asked how you draw the line. All I know is that it seemed to include him and he was skeptical about just about everyone I know being smart enough to be represented.

When we got to George Soros intentionally destroying world economies through currency manipulation and hundreds of people he knows with “AK’s” building cabals of 5 people each preparing for the time they are simply going to go fight the people that are trying to “steal our freedoms,” well then I said, “Who are you going to fight?” I mean who and where do you think the people are trying to steal your freedoms and what are they doing?

“Probably the left” was the answer. And “you have no idea how many thousands of gun owners are getting together over these issues RIGHT NOW.” I asked him to be specific. Did he think I was going to have a gun and try to force good government on him? What IS good government anyway? We were back to George Soros and communists and socialists.

On the one hand, I think Samuel is trying to be a good citizen as he sees it. He has a good career and is a compelling salesman and conversationalist. Except for that whole qualifying your customer thing.

On the other hand, I told him we were most definitely NOT going to be friends.

We wished each other as well as we could, and both left shaken that there are people on the other side thinking THAT.

Whew.

As I sit here at 2pm on my newly minted “off-day,” I await my residency at the Williston Brewery this evening. I still seek a massage from an overbooked oil town. Doubt grows, sorrow floats, but my energy and excitement about North Dakota has not abated. ON it!

Devils Lake tomorrow, Rudy Bloomquist on the tour and a steak dinner, rain or shine. But it looks like shine!

Even if it rains.

And I’ll ketch me the midnight ghost
We’ll roll down that Western Coast
Fields of green
Valleys of wine
St. Theresa, don’t you worry
We’ll make it on time

Desolation Angels Chorus