July 9-10 Rising Sun Park M-67.97,T-7:02,Avg-9.66,El-3416 Whitefish M-62.1,T-5:43:34,AVG-10.84,El-2103 Eureka

                                                                      

July 7-8 Waterton M-56.86,T-6:10:01,AVG-9.21,El-3593 Rising Sun Campground

Chief Mt. I've been looking at Chief Mt. for about 4 days now. It's following me. It always seems to be the pinnacle  of my routes. North,south,east or west. Today I got to see the North side as I was heading towards Glacier from Waterton.

Early risers taking advantage of the morning glow on St.Mary Lake.

A hike I took on the top of Logan's pass. Going To The Sun Road.

A early morning start as I headed over the pass to Whitefish.

July 6 Cardston-Waterton M-36.96,T-4:11:58,AVG-8.8,El-821

Cardston's claim to fame is actress Fay Wray of the original classic, King Kong. She was born just outside of Cardston.

A friendly little bear as I was entering Waterton Provincial Park. He or she ( I didn't get close enough to check) was pretty mellow as tourists got out of there cars to check him out. I wasn't to concerned knowing there only carnivores 10% of the time.

A view of the Lake looking south in to the U.S. from Waterton Park.

July5 Cutbank-Cardston Alberta M-75.12,T-8:44:39,AVG-8.59,El-2213

It was quite a change yesterday going from the plains of Montana to the prairies of Alberta running up against the Rockies. All types of weather as you can see by the photo. Rain,hail,sunny,cool, and to finish the day off rainy and cool 10 miles out of Cardston. I felt good about being a west bounder riding through the prairies alone as usual and seeing 3 east bounders going by in the back of a pickup to escape the rain. Even back in Chester a farmer I met couldn't figure out why I was riding west. I just said "Crazy" and his friend explained seeing I didn't have a explanation.

This was the strangest experience so far. As I was riding  I spotted this Hawk on the pole. Theres a few of them. So I snapped a quick pic. Nothing spectacular. As I road off I could see it was following me and pestering me like crows bother eagles. I let it go till it dived bomb and hit my helmet. Thats it! I got off the bike and started walking as it wasn't safe to ride as I was preoccupied with my rear view mirror watching for it's next tactic. It kept at it.Ducking it's predictable dives as I seen it approach. Finally I needed something for retaliation and used my SeaLine map case on a shock cord to swing at it as it buzzed by. Which worked alright. The hawk out maneuvering the Alberta map in the last seconds to avoid a crash. Then another hawk showed up. Now whats going to happen? Nothing as three old starlings came to the rescue and started harrasing it. Finally it gave up and rested on a pole again down a cross road. Strange experience. I'm just use to dogs.

Dinner time on the prairies.

July4 Chester-Cutbank

I left Chester at the crack of dawn this morning while everyone else was still saw n logs after the fireworks and festivities last night. A clean get away.This was my best riding morning on 2. No traffic and I had the whole Hiway to myself for a couple of hours. The winds woke up around 8:30 or 9:00 and I was hoping they would take the fourth off. But no. They passed by me almost all the way to Cutbank till the rains started. I could tell the rain was from Seattle by the 50 degree temp. The winds let up once the rain started and if I had a choice rain or wind I would pick the rain.

One of the many cars parked at  the Chester Road House Barn & Grill. Original owner.

I sense the trip is starting to wind down as I leave the plains and prairies of North Dakota and Montana and start climbing into the Rockies tomorrow.Also July 4 is the two month mark of my May 4 start with 3429 miles behind me.  

June30-July3 Glasgow-Malta M-71.86,T-7:29:25,AVG-9.59,El-1359. Malta-Havre M-93.25,T-7:20:59,AVG-12.68,El-1181. Havre-Chester M-63.14,T-7:45:11,AVG-8:14,El-1769

Life on the road. The last few days I've just been putting my time in to get through the plains with the trains keeping me company. Small towns every 20 to 30 miles courtesy of the railroad. Allot of these towns popped up every 10 miles or so because thats how often the railroad engines needed water and it all happened around 1910 which makes this year the Centennail for Chester with a big celebration going on in town this Fourth of July weekend.

A concert, dance I took in last night after bucking 30 to 40 mph headwinds winds. The strongest I've had so far. They tapered off as the day grew on and descended to 10 to 15 for a much needed break.

A fun run this morning was part of the Chester festivities. Which I happened to walk into on the way to the pancake breakfast at the Lutheran church. Heck, I  might as well enter it.  Luckily it was only 3  miles and  was able to pull it off.

The Parade followed the Run.

June 29 Poplar-Glasgow M-81.18,T-6:32:17,AVG-12.41,El-1359

HOT! I hadn't noticed the increase in temperature as the day progressed but my water bottles were rather warm was the first clue. I think it's hot out.
It looks like I could get some delays again as NW weather heads this way  and crashes into this hot front here in Montana.
 I just looked outside to and it's rather black.  Head for the hills.

I was never much of a horse fan till I took this trip. The horses look so striking and natural to the backdrop of the plains and prairies. Healthy to!

June 28 Watford-Poplar M-116.58,T-10:49,AVG-10.77,El-3234

The Missouri River as I was entering Culbertson from 16.
 It was a long day after leaving Watford this morning. It went rather well at first taking 200 to Fairview. Then 200 turns into 210 west which I thought would be a nice country road and usually 95% of the time it is.But 210 happened to be a shortcut for trucks heading south being 16 was under construction and they didn't want to put up with delays during there work day.I figured this out later once I got off 210 and headed noth on 16.
 I guessed something was up as I turned on 210 with the trucks following me west.But I figured if  all the traffic is going the  same direction it shouldn't be to much trouble with plenty of room to pass. Wrong. It made for a challenging 13 miles and I also picked up a few new tricks along the way when driving in  truck traffic.
 One trick was just get off the road  when all 3 of us passed at the same time.  Keeps the truckers happy and me alive.
The other is if you have  trucks coming at you from both ways and there both still  a ways out  with a no shoulder road and there the same size there probably going to intersect pretty close to where you  are at. So now if this happens I'll hit my breaks  and slow down and let the vehicle behind me catch up and get larger and usually it will pass me before the oncoming truck does. No problem or you can still just get off the road. It's probably not the proper method of handling this situation. Usually you can let traffic adjust to you. But I didn't want to hang around for the results.
Anyway it turned into a great day and ride on 16 north being no one was on 16 and the construction delay was minimal.

June27 Killdeer-Watford M-57.78,T-6:58:35,AVG8.28,El-2242

Theodore Roosevelt National Park was quite stunning as I entered it from the south  on 85. One bit of bad luck though. My SLR battery  died of all places but I had my pointnshoot to get a few pics.

I should be in Montana and on 2 heading west sometime tomorrow with a favorable weathercast the next 5 days.

June26- Killdeer.

 

Leaving Killdeer this morning around 6.

Heading towards the dark had me second guessing my choice of riding today. So I stopped on top of the hill and snapped some photos and killed sometime waiting to see what the weather was going to do. As the sun rays were succombing to the shadows of the clouds I thought it might be a good idea not to ride today.

Returning to Killdeer this morning around 7.

As you can see the weather deteriorated as I  booked it back 5 miles to Killdeer for another night. The last picture  was taken from the back porch of the Motel I'm staying at, again,and arriving just in time ahead of this front. CabinFever!