- 175850 km on the bike

The weather is strange this morning; massive haze reduces the visibility, and a sharp southerly wind is blowing. I leave Watford City on highway 85, but soon turn due west onto highway 200.
If anybody is on the lookout for religious fanatics, it is not necessary to travel all the way to the Middle East - remote areas of rural United States do just as well. This 20-feet-high sign greets visitors entering Alexander, North Dakota:

Soon I reach the state line and enter Montana. Being the fourth largest state of the union, but with less than one million inhabitants, Montana is practically empty. If someone mentions Montana, you probably think of lush green pastures in front of snowcapped mountains. In reality more than half of Montana is prairie country reminding me more of the Dakota Badlands than of snow.
The gusty southerly wind nearly blows me off the road. A truck pulling a trailer nearly does the same when one of the trailers tyres disintegrates and rubber debris is flying all around me. The trucker just continues - he obviously hasn't noticed that he is now one tyre lighter then before.
When I approach the hamlet of Circle the wind starts to ease. Great! I refill the tank and have a nice lunch at the cafe that is attached to the local Sinclair petrol station, where they serve homemade split pea soup and chili for just a few bucks.
When I ride on, the previously calm wind picks up again and starts blowing with gale force from the north. It is like me just having passed the eye of a hurricane.
I have passed several historic markers in Montana so far, and have noticed that Montana signpost makers have significantly more humour than their counterparts elsewhere:

Ahead the weather is getting worse by the minute. I decide to stop for today in Lewistown, as it looks unlikely that I can get any further without getting wet.
I stay the night at the B & B motel, simply for the reason that the building is not made of the usual cardboard walls, but of real stone and mortar.

- 176400 km on the bike

The next morning it is raining. I expected this from the weather forecast, and it is supposed to rain on until tomorrow morning. Time for me to put in another break day. I stroll into Lewistown and get myself a haircut and a Chinese lunch. Then I have a word with the owner of a local gunshop as to how difficult it is to buy firearms. Not that I intend to buy one, I just want to know how difficult it is. The result is as I expected it; any Montana resident can buy an assault rifle and ammo just as easy as a packet of corn flakes. You just have to be 18 years old (note that to buy a can of beer, here you have to be 21 years old).
If that imaginary teenager wants to buy a handgun, then it is slightly more complicated; the store owner has to check on the potential client with a dedicated branch of the FBI, to see whether the kid has a criminal record or a history of mental problems. Considering the fact that an assault rifle for our fictional kid is much more readily available than a can of booze, I'd suppose all persons and politicians responsible for this insane situation should be immediately marked as mentally deranged and all their personal firearms be confiscated.

Next morning it is still a bit drizzly at Lewistown, but I can see brighter weather moving in from the west, so I set out at 9.30 am. Initially I follow highway 191 south to Harlowton, but then resume my westerly course on highway 12 towards White Sulphur Springs. Slowly the prairie countryside turns into the mountains and forests we all associate with Montana. The rain has also brought some cooler air. The daytime maximum has dropped from around 95 to just 75 degrees.

From White Sulphur Springs I then head on to Townsend at the southern end of Canyon Ferry Lake, where I have my usual lunch at an excellent Chinese restaurant just two miles east of the town itself.
This area was the scene of a massive gold rush in the 1860's. Pickings were so rich that miners often found over a thousand dollars worth of gold in a single pan - and that was a fortune back then. It was also here that the only event was ever recorded, whereby a sluice for washing gold was blocked - by just so much gold that the water stopped flowing through the sluice. Anecdotes from that time include miners who "saw unguarded nail kegs in our camp, filled to the brim with gold dust". Within four years all was over and the camps and villages turned into ghost towns.

I bike on through Helena towards my target for today, Missoula. I stay at the same Super 8 motel where I lodged a few weeks ago on my way north to Alaska.

- 176900 km on the bike

This morning I head southwards out of Missoula until I reach the point where highway 12 forks off westwards at Lolo. Immediately lush forests appear all around me and the remaining traffic disappears completely. I already know what lies ahead and I can't believe my luck; I am at the beginning of one of the finest motorbike rides on the planet on a perfect day (a weekday, no weekend warriors around) with perfect weather (deep blue sky, no cloud in sight, 19 degrees Celsius) on the perfect bike for this road.

The curves out here are long and one can ride through them at high speeds. The sparse cars out here can easily be overtaken on the straight parts. Soon I reach the Idaho state line and the road turns out even more fascinating. There is a great scenic view around virtually every bend in the road.
This area is called the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness within the Clearwater National Forest. Far too soon am I through the beautiful forest countryside and reach Kooskia in the Nez Perce Indian reservation, where I stop for lunch.
But now I am in for a complete change of scenery when I turn south on highway 95. At White Bird I am 1300 meters above sea, then comes this view:

7 miles onwards I am at 500 meters altitude and it starts to get a bit warm. 30 miles on I stop at Riggins, a small village with a large number of motels - all pretty empty, because out here they make their income during the weekends, when the city slickers from nearby Walla Walla, Lewiston or Boise come out into the wilderness. The Big Iron Motel has all I need for 39 dollars per night - motorbikers get an extra discount. What a splendid ride this was today.

- 177250 km on the bike

I have an extended chat this morning with Scott, the motel owner, who is also a motorbiker. So I set out after 10 am. This does not matter, as I soon hit the Oregon state line, where I have to set my watch one hour back anyway.

At Cambridge I leave highway 95 and turn north-westwards on state highway 71 into the wilderness of the Payette National Forest. The boundary between Idaho and Oregon is formed by the Snake River. I reach the river at the Brownlee reservoir and follow the river on the west bank north through Hells Canyon until I reach highway 86, which forks off westwards along the Oxbow River deeper into Oregon.
The Wallowa-Whitman National Forest which I reach next is true biker country with lots of curves, the road winding up to over 1500 meters.

Then on the horizon the Blue Mountains are emerging ahead of me. I am closing in on my destination for today, the town of John Day where I stayed a few weeks back on my journey south from Alaska. I remember the Little Pine Inn Motel as being rather noisy in the morning because of all the trucks. But as it is Saturday today I use it again, renting a room far back and away from the road. As always, you can download my route and the GPS tracklogs for the last four days here.

- 177650 km on the bike

I am heading west on highway 26 into the Ochoco National Forest this morning in absolutely brilliant weather conditions.

After passing through the Warm Springs Indian reservation I reach the Mt. Hood National Forest. The sights are spectacular. Here you have one of Mount Hood itself, towering above the road I am riding on:

After another 400 km I finish the day at Hood River at a comfy motel. There is a laundry nearby where I do my washing. Even this far north, all the other users of the laundry are Latinos and Spanish is the lingua franca up here.

- 178050 km on the bike

This morning I ride along the south shore of the mighty Columbia River to the nearest bridge, called "Bridge of the Gods". Then I am heading north into the lush forests of the Wind River valley.

The ride is great, but after 40 miles at Swift Reservoir a sign has been erected, warning travellers that the road ahead is closed during weekdays for repairs. I look at my alternatives; the diversion westwards via Interstate 5 will mean a detour of about 100 miles. Well, I can live with that. The only drawback is that I am not really getting a chance to take a picture of Mount St. Helens.
The ride is quite scenic, leading along many rivers and lakes. Only the stretch on the Interstate is a bit boring, but finally turning eastwards onto highway 12 means that I am back in true biker country again.

I ride on until Packwood, the last outpost of civilization for a long stretch of road. This area was hit hard by floods in November 2006 and many roads are still under repair. I am told in town that highway 123 ahead is blocked - which means that I can see only small parts of the Mount Rainier National Park tomorrow.

- 178450 km on the bike

I have put a diversion into the GPS. Instead of blocked highway 123 I will use the forest service route along the southern flank of Mount Rainier. This route actually turns out to be a splendid tour with lots of curves and spectacular views. The mountain itself, often covered by clouds, also shows itself in the best mood and I take a number of great pictures, here is one example:

Heading westwards instead of northwards unfortunately means that soon I reach the sprawling suburbia of Tacoma and Seattle. I try to avoid the worst by travelling a few miles on Interstate 5, but even this road is jampacked - and it isn't even rush hour. I stop at Arlington, well knowing that tomorrow much nicer countryside lies ahead.

- 178750 km on the bike

While having my coffee this morning in the breakfast room, I am having a conversation with two chaps; one is a businessman from California, the other a truck driver from Kentucky. The businessman is for strict firearms control, end of the war in Iraq and wants Hillary Clinton for president with Barack Obama as vice president. The trucker admits to own over 30 guns, wants no one to tell him how many guns he can own, wants lower taxes, cheaper petrol and wishes that Ronald Reagan could once again be president.
Asked about my opinion, I tell those two that from my point of view the whole problem started on the 19th October 1781 with Cornwallis throwing in the towel at Yorktown. What a blissful country this could be, if our guys would still run it.

My short bike ride today follows highway 9 northwards towards the Canadian border. It is a very enjoyable ride, often with a view of Mount Baker to my right. Soon I am at the border, which is virtually deserted if compared with the crowded border point on Interstate 5, just a few miles away.
Tomorrow I have to drop off the bike at Vancouver airport for the return shipping to Europe. Though Vancouver is a nice town, I do not want to stay there. Instead I stop at the much more provincial Maple Ridge, about an hours drive from Vancouver. I thoroughly clean the bike in preparation for the airport freight handlers, and then take a relaxed sundowner with my pipe at the local Travelodge motel.

- 178900 km on the bike

This morning I have a late start. At noon I ride those 35 miles into Vancouver, ensuring that my petrol tank is nearly empty when I arrive at the airport (but hopefully not as empty as on the way out to Toronto, where the bike ran dry after two miles drive). Everything at the airport goes to plan.
Dear reader, when you next time get frisked by an over-keen security officer at an airport, you should know that when I bring my motorbike today, the guys at the airport just drag out one of these aluminium freight boxes, ask me to disconnect the battery and then push the bike into the box and strap it down - that's it, no security checks at all on the bike.
By 4 pm the bike is sorted out and I call a local car hire company, where I have arranged a vehicle hire over the Web a few days ago. They pick me up and half an hour later I am under way American style:

It is amazing how these guys in Detroit manage to get such a poor performance out of a seven liter V8 Turbodiesel engine and in spite of the lack of power still manage to make that weak engine guzzle such enormous amounts of fuel. I put in 30 liters of diesel - and that quantity has hardly any effect on the fuel gauge.
The evening rush hour is murder, but by 6.30 pm I am finally back at the motel.

Driving around in an obscene seven meter long truck that is over 2 meters high and wide has its disadvantages when looking for a suitably sized parking lot, but once one has done the shopping, it is absolutely easy to find it back in the parking lot - it simply towers over regular cars. In spite of its weak engine performance (the manufacturer claims it pushes 350 horses, that would be the equivalent of having 28 horsepowers in my motorbike) the exhaust sound is nearly as impressive as the staggering consumption of diesel.
I do some sightseeing and watch a movie at the nearby movie complex and generally wind down in preparation for the grueling long-haul flight back to Europe.

The entire overview of my journeys in North America is shown on this map:

The black line beginning at Toronto (shown as that red flag) is my satellite tracklog and the scale is one centimeter equals 200 miles (330 km). The blue pinpoint shows my point of departure from North America. If you can read Topo USA files, then here is my .tpx file seen above, to download for detailed viewing of my routing.

- 178950 km on the bike

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