It is a country where there is not enough water to drown a man, wood enough to hang one, nor earth enough to bury him…

The words of the Cromwellian general Edmund Ludlow, describing the area known as the Burren, are well known in Ireland. What is less well known is that he went on to say of the people there:

… and yet their cattle are very fat; for the grass growing in turfs of earth, of two or three foot square, that lie between the rocks, which are of limestone, is very sweet and nourishing.

Visiting The Burren (or here) has been one of the highlights of my trip so far. I was in Galway on Friday evening (thinking it was Thursday) when I ran across a small alcove where there were a couple of gentlemen booking tours. I’m not really a tour type of person, preferring to venture out on my own but I had no way to visit this area other than by taking a tour. I talked to one of the men for a few minutes and decided to sign up. The cost of 18 euros seemed pretty reasonable and they had a pickup service at my B&B on the outskirts of town. Of course, when I got back to the B&B I realized it was really Friday and that the bus would probably be packed on a Saturday tour. As it turned out, the bus was comfortably full and I got the front row window seat which was great.

So, on Saturday morning a bus picked me up and took me into town where I transferred to the actual tour bus. I’m not quite sure how the drivers of these busses manage to navigate the roads but our driver, Seamus, did an excellent job. Our tour guide, Gerry, gave a great commentary all day and included lots of Irish history and interesting tidbits about the countryside and sights we passed. All in all, it was a very worthwhile trip and I’m planning on taking another tour with that company after I leave Germany and get back to Galway. I’ll probably to the Aran Islands tour if the weather is cooperative.

The Burren, is a landscape made up of limestone criss-crossed with massive cracks to form slabs that cover roughly 300 square kilometers of north-west County Clare.

This haunting landscape stretches for miles from the Atlantic shore into Clare, covering mountains and valleys and is home to caves, ring forts, ecclesiastic sites, megalithic tombs and human relics that date back 6,000 years. The most famous of these is the Poulnabrone Dolmen, an ancient portal tomb also known as ‘The Bed of Diarmuid and Grainne’, once believed to have been a place of shelter for these star-crossed lovers from the mists of Irish mythology.

At first glance, and in most photographs, the Burren appears no more than a bleak, barren moonscape. However, this place is full of surprises. When I caught my first glimpse of the Burren I was quite surprised to see cattle grazing on the limestone terrain. I wondered what they could possibly find to nibble on in such a place. It was only after I took a closer look on foot, that I became aware of all sorts of tiny, colorful wildflowers, herbs and even the occasional wild strawberry, growing in the cracks between the stone slabs.In fact, there are 15 varieties of orchid that flourish here.  Part of what makes the Burren a natural wonder, besides its geological formation, is that both Alpine and Mediterranean wildflowers, normally not found in the same country, exist sided by side in the small amount of soil available between the stone… apparently a delectable salad for cattle.

I’m sure you’d never see a sight like this in the U.S. as there would probably be some sort of protective railings or such preventing you from getting so close to the edge. But that definitely would take away from the experience of being able to get right up to the edge if you wanted.

I got as close to the edge as I dared and crawled on my stomach, held the camera over the edge and took this shot.

There is a lot of rock climbing done in the interior of The Burrens and evidently there was an accident somewhere inland and the rescue squads were here.

Another post to come about the actual bus trip and other interesting sights of the day.

Sunday, October 10 – Galway & Limerick

On Sunday, I caught a bus into Galway with the intention of walking around and exploring more of the sights. But, I didn’t realize it was Sunday and got to the main part of town a bout 10am and everything was still closed. I did manage to find a double decker tour bus that was still operating in October and spent an hour on it seeing the outskirts of town.

Here are some shots from the highest point in town.

I got off the bus in an area know as Salthill on the south side of town when I saw some swans floating in the bay.

		Swans VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

With everything seemingly closed I tried to figure out what to do with my time. Since I had the “Golden Trekker” train pass I went to the train station to see where the next train was headed. There was a train leaving for Limerick in 5 minutes so I hopped on board to see what Limerick was like.

Here’s the train station in Limerick.

And, my first view of Limerick.

When I had arrived at the train station in Galway and decided to go Limerick I had asked when the train returned to Galway. The gentleman taking my ticket told me 5:30 (I thought). When I arrived in Limerick I went to the ticket counter and asked what time the train returned to Galway and was told 5:10. Either way I had 2 or 3 hours to explore Limerick which is what I did.

Limerick Pubs VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I think he’s doing the “River Shannon Pub Crawl”..

Limerick straddles the River Shannon. It reminded me a lot of the Muddy Mo.

		Limerick Scenes VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

After wandering around for a bit I headed back to the station to catch my train at 5:10. I still had about 30 minutes so I stopped in here to grab a bite to eat since it was right across the street from the station.

First, though, one needs to quench his thirst. You can never get in a hurry when ordering a true stout in Ireland. First the glass is partially filled and allowed to age properly.

After ageing for a proper period, it is then filled to the rim.

Then it’s time for the meal. I’ll post a picture of the meal I had while working on this blog on Tuesday but this is what a 10 euro pub lunch looks like in Limerick.

I started running out of time to catch my 5:10 train on account of that properly poured stout. So, I left about a third of my meal and got over to the train station at about 5:05. I looked up at the departure board and I swear I read where it said my train would be leaving at 5:35. So, with time to spare I hurried back to the pub and what was left of my meal was still there. Since I had time I ordered another stout.

I got back to the station about 5:30, looked up at the board and there was no train shown departing for Galway. There were a couple of ticket takers standing at the entrance and I asked them and they said the train left at 5:10 and confirmed it was the last train to Galway until Monday. One of them said there was a bus for Galway leaving pretty soon. I rushed outside to where all the buses were and began scanning them for the Galway bus. It was down at the end of the row and the driver was shutting the door. I ran down there and managed to catch the bus just before it left. Whew! That was a close call. My luck’s going to run out one of these days, but never on Sunday.

Even the buses here are nice.

Side note: (5am, Wednesday, October 13) I sure hope someone is reading this. I’m not complaining, mind you, and I’m sure I’ll be glad to have done this, I spent 4 hours yesterday updating this and I’m sitting in the Dublin airport right now trying to get the rest of it caught up. Of course, I’ve got over 5 hours before my flight leaves and nothing better to do but it would be nice to know someone is reading this. Leave a comment, give it a 5 star rating or something to let me know you’re out there.)

October 12 – Kilkenny

More days without  wifi. I haven’t had a wifi connection since I’ve gotten to Kilkenny. I long for the days in Latin America where there’s at least one internet café on every corner it seems. I’m at the airport right now and they have wifi but it’s 5 euros per hour.

Other than lack of wifi, Kilkenny is the nicest place I’ve yet visited in Ireland. A small town of about 10,000 but it feels much larger than than.

Without wifi I am unable to post links to some of the sights I’ve been to. I like to do that so you can click on the link rather than me rambling on the blog and forcing you to read all about them if all you really want to do is click on the pictures.

Pictures? I’ll go ahead and post some generic pictures of some of the places I’ve been then when I get a wifi connection I’ll post some more pictures of the more significant/historical places I’ve been

I got up early on Monday and my wonderful hostess, Maureen, had a cab waiting for me at 5:30 so I could catch a 6:05 train to Kilkenny, via Kildare. If I hadn’t caught that train the next half dozen or so would have forced me to go to Dublin and then backtrack to Kilkenny.

I had about an hour and a half layover in Kildare so I left my backpack at the station and walked into Kildare to try and find some breakfast.

Speaking of backpacks … Was that ever a mistake bringing my backpack instead of a suitcase on wheels like almost every other intelligent tourist I’ve run across brought. I’ve got an attic full of different size suitcases with those really, really handy wheels and the really, really handy handles that pop up and what did I  bring? A &)#(*&$ backpack. It’s been a total pain in the butt and when I left it at the Kildare station I made sure I had all my valuables with me and I was really hoping someone would steal it. All I would have had to do is buy some clothes and find a cheap suitcase on wheels and I would have been set. But, when I got back to the station about an hour later, there was my backpack. Damn the luck!

And, speaking of luck, my weather luck continues. Here is a shot from the Kildare train platform. Take a look at that sky. Do you notice anything missing? Like clouds or a gray sky?

I got into Kilkenny late morning and headed to the TI (tourist information office) to see if they could set me up with a B&B. It was probably about a mile walk to the TI (DAMN you, backpack) which was really unusual. Most of the train stations are more centrally located.

The closest TI they could recommend in my price range (cheap to budget) was another mile walk (damn you, again, backpack) and several others were a little further than that.

I left the TI headed for my fist option when, after having walked about 30 yards I noticed a sign that read something like “Really cheap en suite room available). Cheap?  Hmm, sounds like just what I’m looking for so I stopped into Darcy & Ralph’s and enquired about the availability. Sure enough, they had a room for 30 euros a night for 2 nights. No check in, no name required, just hand over 60 euros and here’s the key.

Actually, what the sign in the window says is “Guest Rooms, En Suite, Vacancy” but my mind registered “Cheap” because my back was crying out for a break from the damn backpack.

My bedroom turned out to be where the 2 windows are located just above the Darcy & Ralph signage. I opened the door and here’s what I found.

Not bad, I think I can live with this. Plus it has more room by multiples of anything I’ve had so far. The only drawback was the windows were really old and really heavy and I couldn’t figure out how to keep them open so I could get some fresh air in the room. It wasn’t stuffy but I just like the fresh 60 degree air in Ireland.

What to do, what to do? Wait just a minute! I’ve got an umbrella and since I haven’t gotten a chance to use it yet it would make a perfect prop to keep one of the windows open.

After dropping off my stuff I headed to the pub next door and got a really good tuna fish sandwich and a pint of Smithwicks.

I then headed out so tour Kilkenny.

The local garden center.

One of the smaller churches and graveyard.

A local resident.

A “real” hardware store just like the kind I remember when I was a kid.

They also have old fashioned butcher shops all over the country. And, the meat is the only thing I’ve seen here that appears to be cheaper than what we pay. Certainly cheaper than our local butcher shop, McGonagall’s (sp?). And, it’s all free range beef, no feedlots in Ireland.

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I wonder how much business this bank does in the Irish Republic.

Smithwick’s is brewed right here in Kilkenny but I did not have enough time to take the tour. I did manage to sample the product in the local pubs, though.

Now, here’s something interesting. Notice the prices on this drink menu. Guiness and Smithwick’s are 3.85 and Bud is 4.20 per pint. I can’t imagine paying more for Bud than Guiness or Smithwicks but I guess there’s no accounting for taste, even in Ireland. Guiness, Smithwick’s, Beamish, and Kilkenny are all available all over Ireland and in every pub they also offer Bud, Miller, and even Coors Light (ugh!) all for a premium price.

The Courthouse – this building is used for sittings of the district and circuit courts. The ground floor, formerly known as Grace’s Old Castle, was used as the county gaol.

Rothe House and Garden – This old merchant’s house was constructed between 1594 and 1610 by John Rothe FitzPiers. There are 3 houses in all, separated by courtyards and at the rear is a restored medieval garden.

This is an alleyway off the main street that contains a lot of residences. It is called “New Building Lane” and was remodeled in 2008.

St. Canice’s Church, not to be confused with St. Canice’s Cathedral.

		St. Canice’s Church VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Another real butcher shop.

I liked the colors on this house.

 

Thursday, October 14th – I finally have an internet connection and am publishing this update. I’m at Karen and Udo’s using their wifi. Once I leave here I will probably have to wait until I get home to finish up.

Here are a couple of  pictures I took on my walk into Galway from my B&B. There were a lot of small gardens, both vegetable and flower, planted between the road and the bay.

Galway Street Musicians VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Today, Saturday, turned out to be the highlight of my trip so far. I’m really not into group tours but I wanted to see The Burren and Cliffs of Moher and without a car I really had no choice but . I fretted all last night hoping it wouldn’t be booked solid and that I would have a decent seat (by the window).

It’s now Sunday and I had a quite interesting day. Lots more pictures to come from the Cliffs of Moher and The Burren but it’s late and I’m catching a 6am train to Kildare on my way to Kilkenny tomorrow so I need to get packed and get to bed. I have a layover in Kildare so I’ll try and get more posted. If not, I’ll get caught up in Kilkenny.

Time is really flying and it doesn’t seem possible tomorrow will be a week into my trip.

I’m staying at the Acorn House B&B a little outside of Galway. I hopped a bus to the B&B, checked in, and then walked back to town. It’s about a 2 mile walk along the bay and, of course, the weather here is again very nice.

Today I’ve got a tour booked to see the Cliffs of Moher and The Burren, two of the places high on my list of things to see in Ireland. I won’t get back until late tonight so the pictures will probably be coming tomorrow sometime.

I started out the day with the intention of seeing the Book of Kells which is one of the “must see” attractions in Dublin. I got there about a half hour after it opened and noticed several hundred people milling about outside the ticket office. I thought this was the queue to get in but was able to get in another line for tickets which wasn’t that long. However, after getting about half way to the ticket booth the entire crowd that was outside was apparently a tour group and they entered en masse. I quickly decided that I didn’t want to fight them trying to see the exhibition so wandered around the campus for a bit then caught the bus to another attraction that I really wanted to see – the Kilmainham Gaol. It was one of the most interesting tours I have been on. The history of the gaol (pronounced “jail” which is what it was) encompasses much of Irish history and many of the heroes of Ireland were either jailed or executed there.

After the tour I walked down the street and went through the grounds of what was once the old Royal Hospital. I then walked down to Heuston Station to pick up my “Golden Trekker” passes. One of the advantages of being my age while traveling in Ireland is I can get free 4-day passes to ride the rail system and I can get up to 3 of them.

This brings me to something I’m doing that wasn’t in the schedule when I left. My friends in Germany, Karen & Udo, and Maggie were all disappointed I had not booked my trip in Germany so they could see me. I had checked it out and the airfare was twice what it was to get to Ireland and I couldn’t get the “Golden Trekker” deal either. So, Karen was going to try and fly over to Dublin on Ryan Air for a weekend and checked into flights. It turns out the flight from Germany to Ireland is about 4 times what a flight from Ireland to Germany is, round trip. So Karen begged and pleaded for me to come to Germany for a week for a visit and I succumbed to her pleas. So midpoint in my trip I’m heading to Germany – next Wednesday – and will stay over there for a week. Over the weekend Karen and Udo and the  kids and I are going to go to Leipzig to see Maggie. That was a big change and kind of messed up the reservations I had for the Golden Trekker. But I’ve still got one 4-day pass available and will figure out when I’m going to use it and phone while I’m at Karen’s.After getting my rail passes I headed back into town, dropped off my things in my room and walked down to Temple Bar which is one of Dublin’s main entertainment areas. Temple Bar has preserved its medieval street pattern, with many narrow cobbled streets. It is promoted as "Dublin’s cultural quarter" and has a lively nightlife that is popular with tourists.

One of the most famous bars in Temple Bar is the Oliver St. John Gogarty named after the real Oliver St. John Gogarty  who was the inspiration for Buck Mulligan in James Joyce’s Ulysses. They have live entertainment starting at 2:30 in the afternoon and it was going strong when I arrived. I ordered a pint of Guiness, of course, and settled in to listen to some real Irish entertainment.

As I was starting on my 2nd pint I noticed a couple of guys sitting at the table next to me and one of them had on an “Oktoberfest 2010” shirt. I asked him if he had been and he said he had. After shouting across tables for a few minutes they invited me to join them. It turns out they were from Australia and were on a 6-week trip around Europe and Munich had been one of their stops. They told me that everyone in Australia gets 4 weeks paid vacation and after 10 years of working it goes up to 6 weeks. And, they earn more while on vacation than while on the job. So the two of them were off to see parts of the world they hadn’t seen before.

I didn’t even start this conversation but after a few minutes of conversation one of the blokes said, “That George Bush has to have been the worst fuckin’ president your country every had. Everyone in Australia hated him.” I thought that was kind of ironic that that was the only thing he could think of to say about America but I did not find it out of the ordinary. During all of my travels in Latin America and Europe while Bush was president I heard the same sentiments expressed over and over.

I cut it off after my 2nd pint and left and came back to grab a bite to eat and catch up on my blog.

Here are some pictures of the day in Dublin.

		Trinity College VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

This was an interesting sculpture in front of the library. It wasn’t titled but even before I met the Australian blokes I had already thought an interesting title would be something like “The Effect of the Bush Presidency on the World.”

		Kilmainham Gaol VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The interior of the Royal Hospital.

The Dublin Zoo is located in beautiful Phoenix Park. It was a beautiful area and I just didn’t have time to explore it. Maybe next time.

And, finally a couple of pints to end the day.

		Oliver St John Gogarty VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I had gotten pretty good instructions from the Anchor Guest House  on how to get from the airport and got to sample the public transportation in Ireland. So far it appears as efficient as every other country’s public transportation except our own, especially Kansas City’s.

I arrived at Anchor a little before 10am and my room would not be ready until about 1pm so I dropped off my bags and spend the next 3 hours walking around town and enjoying the perfect day. Not a cloud in the sky and about 55 degrees, perfect as far as I’m concerned. Not exactly what one thinks of when thinking of the weather in Ireland but I’ll take it. It seems like my perfect luck since my trip out west continues as far as weather is concerned.

One thing I did discover when walking around town yesterday is that meals are very expensive without exception. The average breakfast is $10, lunch $15 and dinner $20-25. That’s with coffee (one cup, no refills) for breakfast and nothing with either of the other meals. A pint of beer is $6 or more depending on where you are. So far, I’ve had only one pint and that was at the end of the tour of the Guinness facilities and it was included in the 11 euro admission price.

This evening I went to the grocery store down the street and picked up some bread, butter, cheese, orange juice, mile and chocolate pastries for about $10 for my evening meal.

Here’s some pictures I’ve taken so far.

The Anchor Guest House is on the right at the blue door.

A side street heading towards O’Connell Street which is the main street in the north of Dublin. Notice the spire at the end of the intersection of O’Donnell street.

Looking up O’Connell street. The Spire of Dublin is located about midway of the length of the street.

This is Big Jim Larkin who is best know for his role in the 1913 Dublin Lockout. The Irish side of my heritage is Larkin. I had 2 uncles, Bill and Jim Larkin. Many year ago Jim, my mother’s brother, traced our Larkin ancestry all the way back to the 13th or 14th century to a king of Ireland. Unfortunately, before any of my family saw the work he had done he an his siblings had a falling out and we have never seen the genealogy back to the king.  

The spire as seen from its base.

The river Liffey seen from the O’Donnell street bridge.

These guys were terrific. I only got to hear the end of their performance but they were the best street musicians I’ve seen in quite a while.

And, to answer that burning question I know you all have been asking, yes, they do have BBQ joints in Dublin!

That was all the action from Tuesday. On Wednesday I hopped on one of the local tour buses and enjoyed the beautiful day from the top of the double decker.

The first place I got off was at the Guinness facility.

At the end of the self-guided tour (which was pretty interesting and well staged) I ended up at the topmost floor where I was treated to a free pint and a view of the entire city. I had a hard time keeping the reflection of the glass out of the photos but here are a few views of Dublin.

There is a white building just about in the center of this picture which is the tallest (16 stories) building in Dublin.

Views from the top of the Guinness distillery VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

As we were leaving there was a graphic picture of what happens to you if you visit the distillery too often. This poor fella was unable to finish his last pint.

My last stop was the Trinity College – Grafton Street – St Stephen’s Green area.

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A view of Grafton Street.

Then, when I headed out for my last walk of the day, this is what greeted me.

So, you see, it does actually rain in Dublin. This lasted for all of 5 minutes and hardly anyone bothered with opening an umbrella.

But, what I do remember is it was a pretty boring day compared to my time spent riding in the northwest.  The landscape flattened out considerably and this is most of what I viewed the whole day.

This is probably the prettiest scenery I saw all day. These were taken just after I entered North Dakota.

That’s about it for today. I pulled into Jamestown about 6pm, found a motel, got a bad meal, and crashed. All in all I felt pretty good after riding over 650 miles.

Tomorrow I head to Minnesota for the third annual Latin American Riders’ Rally (formally known as the Latin American Riders’ Rallye III).

Allan and I said our goodbyes after breakfast with plans to meet up next year to ride to Alaska. I stopped on my way out of St. Mary’s to take some pictures of Glacier NP from the outside.

(I like the “photo album” concept in the previous post where I can add a bunch of photos and you can click on them to see all of them if you want. I tested it and it seems like you might have to join “Microsoft Live” to view the photos. I don’t like that idea so until I find out otherwise I’m going to post the pictures individually like above.)

A little while down the road I passed the entrance to the Blackfeet Nation. There are 4 entrances and all of them welcome you with two warriors on horseback.

It’s pretty and desolate at the same time.

A little after noon I arrived in Great Falls and started my search for a motel with an internet connection. I came across the O’Haire Motor Inn & Casino (I think every business in this part of the country had & Casino attached to their name). It was a nice, friendly place and when checking in I inquired about their wifi. The lady said they had wifi but it wasn’t real reliable (boy, could I have told her stories about unreliable motel wifi). Then she mentioned that a few years back they had “hard wired” every room. That was music to my ears. (For the uninitiated, you plug one end of a cable into your computer and the other end into the wall jack and, presto, you have instant, fast, reliable internet service.) I told her I didn’t have a cable and she said she’d be glad to loan me one.

I went to my room, plugged into the internet and was able to upload all of my pictures in a couple of hours. It was great.

While my pictures were uploading I walked around town and discovered the Missouri River flows right through it. Although, this far upstream it certainly isn’t the “Muddy” Mo we all know here in Kansas City.

They had converted their old railway depot into office space and had done a beautiful job with it. The inside was even nicer than the outside.

Not much else going on in Great Falls so I headed back to my room to finish uploading my pictures and work on updating my blog. Tomorrow is going to be a 650 mile day so I went to bed early.

And, the good weather is holding out. A few clouds are now appearing but no rain, humidity or triple digit temperatures.

But the day started out great. Haven and Lloyd were outside getting ready for a full day of ATVing and Allan and I were packing up for our trip.

Wallace has a few claims to fame.

First, it was nearly destroyed by the Great Fire of 1910. There is a memorial as you enter town on the gravel road we were on.

Next, the movie “Dante’s Peak” was filmed here. Unfortunately, I’ve never seen the movie but might rent it to see what the town looks like in the movie.

And last, but certainly not least, it is the home of the “Oasis Bordello Museum” which is housed in the former bordello’s building. Incidentally, the bordello just closed in 1988.

Which brings us to the restaurant where we all ate breakfast: The Red Light Garage. Now you can see how the owner came up with the name and it looks like it is housed in a former garage. It’s a quirky little place – the kind I like to run across when traveling and they served up a very good breakfast.

L. to R., Lloyd, Haven and Allan

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Allan said our motel was also in a movie, although he thought it was “Volcano” but was probably “Dante’s Peak”. I’ll let you know after I watch the movie.  Anyway it was the Stardust Motel and ended up being a great, inexpensive place to stay.

On to Glacier National Park. When we arrived at the west entrance about 10:30am the sign as we entered said that 6 of the 8 campgrounds had spaces left. According to the sign, the 2nd campground we should come to has open spaces so we moseyed on up the road. It took us about 30 minutes to get to the campground and we rode in to the “A” section. Hmm, no spaces available. So, on to the “B” section. Same problem! This is not good.

As we were leaving the campground we spotted Ranger Rick and stopped to talk to him. He said as of 10 minutes ago all the campgrounds were FULL. Now our only option seems to be to ride out the east entrance and look for a room or campground. And, I’m having a feeling this might be my 2nd sorta/kinda bad day.

I’ll have to admit that the scenery in Glacier was very nice. However, I’d seem scenery just as nice on my trip and didn’t have to contend with the obstacles presented by trying to ride through a national park at the height of the tourist season.

As we’re riding through the park contending with the traffic, construction, and mostly the idiotic tourists I’m thinking, “These are exactly the same damn tourists I saw in Yellowstone a few days earlier”. They had to be because there can’t be that many dumb people in this country, can there? Or, maybe human cloning now really works and the park service just clones the same dumb tourists and plants them in every national park. There has to be a logical explanation but I’m unable to come up with one.

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Every once in a while there would be absolutely no traffic coming from the opposite direction, then, all of a sudden, there would be copious amounts of traffic heading in our direction. Not a good sign.

And, this is why.

I’ll leave my rant for some other time, but it wasn’t until after 6pm that we finally got out of this madhouse.

What I was able to see, however, was beautiful.

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And, while in the midst of one of the traffic stops a gentleman asked me if I wanted him to snap a picture of me with my camera. I like it.

So, sometime after 6pm we exit Glacier at St. Mary’s and find the one and only motel (actually they referred to themselves as a “lodge” meaning “expensive”). We pulled into the parking lot and I was pretty sure what the answer was going to be when I asked for a room.

Sure enough, no rooms available. I asked the clerk if she knew where we might get a room and she said they had checked and it would be (pointing) 150 miles in one direction and 200 miles in another direction, neither of which was the direction I was heading. The room 200 miles away was in Allan’s direction over the border in Canada but he didn’t feel like riding any more and neither did I.

So on to plan B – find a campground. I’ve never camped in a KOA but know riders who have and we saw a sign for a KOA. We headed down the road and found they had some tent sites available – albeit at $35 a night. We were to the point of not being choosy so we took it and rode to our site to put up our tents.

As soon as we got to the site and got off our bikes I found the KOA was misnamed. Their signage should have read “MBCotW” – as in “Mosquito Breeding Capital of the World”! I honestly have never seen so many mosquitoes located in one spot in my life. We were literally attached by the little blood suckers (there is another phrase that rhymes with “blood suckers” I almost used, but this is a family friendly site so I used some discretion). But, I’ll have to admit while there I didn’t refer to them as “blood suckers” but quite frequently used the other phrase and often combined the two phrases when I was particularly overwhelmed by the little mothe blood suckers.

We put up our tents as quickly as humanly possible, mounted our trusty steeds and went back to St. Mary’s to try and get something to eat.  The only real restaurant in St. Mary’s is The Park Cafe.

Allan had eaten there before and said it was good. However “good” translates also to “1 hour wait” and we decided to find something else.

The only other option in St. Mary’s other than the “lodge restaurant” which translates to “much more expensive than The Park Cafe” was a deli that offered outdoor seating, hamburgers and cold beer. At least the outdoor seating and cold beer part of the equation worked out. The $8.00 hamburger left much to be desired. It was pre-cooked, frozen, and then thrown on a gas grill and sort of heated up. The edges were warm while the center remained frozen. But, it was food and we forced ourselves to eat most of it.

Now all that remained was to ride back to our campsite and hurl our bodies into our tents before the mosquitoes devoured us for their dinner.

I did manage to get a couple of shots of the sunset before calling it a night.

Joseph was another slice of heaven on earth that I have been constantly discovering on this trip. We woke up to another absolutely gorgeous morning. We have about 350 miles to ride today to get to Wallace and about 70 of that will be off-road.

This is the view that greeted me outside our room.

A view of “downtown” Joseph.

We headed out and a little while later were riding along a ridge of Joseph Canyon which was every bit as beautiful as the Grand Canyon albeit a bit different geologically.

Here’s a pic I took of the canyon, followed by the pic in the Wikipedia entry on Joseph Canyon. Great minds think alike?

Taken from practically the same spot.

Joseph Canyon is part of the Nez Perce Historical Park which is located in parts of Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Wyoming.

After we left the canyon I found the most amazing motorcycle road I’ve ever been on in my life. There is a road out east known as “The Tail of the Dragon” which has 318 curves in 11 miles. It can’t compare to the road that starts on OR Hwy 3 and continues on WA Hwy 129. It starts at the top of a mountain, drops down into a valley where the river crosses and then goes back up the other side of the mountain. And, one thing it definitely has over the “Dragon” is the absolute lack of traffic. On the way down Allan and I rode the entire distance without having any traffic impede our progress. It was everything from 50mph sweepers all the way down to 20mpg peg scrapers and everything in between. When I got to the bottom where there is a little store I got off my bike, removed my helmet and yelled, “YEEEE-HAW”. I honestly did. That was absolutely the most perfect motorcycle road I have ever been on.

Here’s a small part of it:

Obviously, I wasn’t able to stop to (or rather was having too much fun to) take pictures but here’s the mid-point at the bottom.

And, something else caught my attention.

Do you see what’s peeking over the top of the hill? A cloud! That was literally the first cloud I’d seen in over 5 days so I had to record the memorable occasion.

Now we headed back up the mountain and into the Lewiston, ID/Clarkston, WA, area. There is an old road leading out of Lewiston that is rarely used any longer since the interstate was built leading out of town. It turned out to be another barely travelled great motorcycle road.

Here’s my pic from the top followed by the one from Wikipedia. Great minds again.

This will give you a better idea of what we had just ridden.

Or, what my GPS show.

Now we headed towards Wallace and found more great roads and scenery.

We soon went from this road

To this

More great scenery.

Now, finally, we are getting close to Wallace and a nice room, a nice shower and a nice bed. I can’t wait!

The only way to get to Wallace is via the interstate or a gravel road like we had been on the last couple of hours. We had reservations at the Wallace Inn, in fact Allan had made the reservations on the phone to make sure that we got a first floor room so we didn’t have to haul our luggage up the stairs.

As we’re pulling in the front lobby area an old curmudgeon and his wife pulled their pickup with Missouri tags and a McCain-Palin sticker proudly affixed to their bumper. You could just tell they wanted to nudge in ahead of us but who were we to worry because we had reservations, didn’t we?

Unfortunately, this couple was the kind who take 30 minutes to check in to their room. And, they DIDN’T have reservations so they had to ask all the inane questions about the room they could think of while we stood there.

Ahha! I know what to do. There sits the one and only luggage cart in the place. I’ll take it out, unload my luggage onto it and there will be that much less wasted time waiting for John and Sarah to finally get done with the clerk!

So, when I stroll back into the lobby with luggage and cart in hand I notice Allan has a strange look on his face. Uh ho, this can’t be good. Turns out it wasn’t good. Not only did they not have our reservations but they had given the last ground floor room to John and Sarah. Shit, this can’t be. There is only one other motel in town and Allan had called it first and had been told it was totally booked up. After a long conversation which I dare not repeat for fear small children may one day read this blog, Allan convinced the desk clerk to call the other motel to see if they had a room. Voila, there was a ground floor room available and we could park right in front of it.

The reason all the rooms were booked as that the High Mountain ATV Association was having their annual jamboree and the town and motel were crawling with ATVs. We had to squeeze in between some ATVs to park in front of our room and a couple of guys, Haven (“one letter away from heaven”) and Lloyd, who had the room next to ours were sitting out in front of their rooms having a drink. Before I could even get my helmet off they asked if we wanted a beer. Music to my ears.

Now I’m known as somewhat of a beer snob (maybe you can eliminate the “somewhat” from that phrase), but I’ve never in my life had a Coors Light that tasted so wonderful. All’s well that ends well. Except for the fact that all but one of the restaurants in town were now closed. But, one choice is much better than none.