Day 15 Leaving Whitefish 6/23/09

Pics: Riding out of west Glacier on Highway 2
Glacier
Bill

It rained most of this morning so we pushed back our departure time to 11:00. It was chilly and I improvised shoe covers with some Safeway grocery sacks and Velcro in an attempt to keep my shoes and feet dry. When we headed out the rain had cleared somewhat and for the first hour and a half we had no problems. Rick, Bill, Diane and I just made it to West Glacier when the cloud burst came. We hung out in a convience store sipping coffee and waited for Kevin and Susan. After half an hour or so the shower moved on and so did we about 15 minutes before Kevin and Susan got there. It wasn’t long, maybe a mile when the sprinkles started it showered on us in varying degrees for the next hour. The temperature was around 50 but I was chilled to the bone. Thank god I didn’t send home my lycra leggings. We didn’t stop riding for over an hour for fear of getting colder. When the rain stopped it became more tolerable but the 17 or so mile gap from West Glacier to the next settlement seemed to never end. When we dismounted it was in front of a family run café/bar/cabin place. We had more coffee and discussed our lodging arraignments as we thawed out. It was 11 uphill miles to Essex our original destination but we were spent and decided to stay in the cabins. They’re small and don’t have water in them but dry and heated (although the heated part is up for discussion too). What possessed me to think that going to the bathhouse and taking a shower would warm me up I’ll never know. Heat wasn’t available in the bathhouse and by the time I gave up on drying off I and got dressed I was colder than before. Now came dinner at the café part of the establishment. To start with it appeared the one adult male who had earlier served us coffee and checked us in was going to be taking our orders and cooking the food too. All this while hobbling around on a crutch. Soon grandpa returned from errands and after mentioning he had 27 grandkids and 8 or so great grandkids (I guess you don’t have much entertainment up here when your snowed in) he conducted the cooking of our food by some of the grandkids problem aged 14 thru 16. The food was okay but then we set around like a bunch of bumpkins waiting for our bills to be delivered for about an hour before noticing the only other people eating at the place who were served after us got up and went to the cash register to settle up without receiving a bill at their table. So I hopped up paid my tab and ran back here to get my feet out of my wet cycling shoes and try to warm them up. Before blogging I treated my shoes to Susan’s patented quick dry technique by densely stuffing them with newspaper. I put my feet in my one pair of wool socks then placed them in gallon ziplock bags while I type this but they still resemble ice cubes. Of course by the time you read this we will have cross the Indian reservation and gotten to Cut Bank.