8. Day 2

The first stop on the first day was at the Missoula Harley dealership. He bought engine oil and I got chain oil and we ogled over new Harleys with 6 speed transmissions, and Ducati’s which I wanted with a vengeance. We never made it far without stopping for something. A view, a cigarette, a water break, a pee break, or tourist attraction. That day seemed to be an all time high. On our way to Glacier national park we skirted ________lake on the west side, then came to a town where my dad knew this spot that had Huckleberry Ice cream. Ever had Huckleberry ice cream? Ever had Huckleberry ice cream and a cigarette? Hot damn…it’ll send your senses reeling, what a combo! Ok ice cream first, cigarette second. Hey, when in Rome, right. Our next stop was Glacier national park. The first half of the ride you ride along the shores of Lake McDonald on its south side. There were lots of great places to stop and throw rocks in the lake or by the river that drained the lake but you had to fight the selfish side of you that wanted to keep throttling through all the turns along the lake. Life is good when this is the biggest internal debate going on in your head (“throttle, turn, lean, sight see, big mountain, throttle, turn, ELK! more throttle, more turns!!!). At the end of the lake on the eastern edge you are delivered to the foot of Going to the Sun road. Think about it, it’s literal. There is only one reason they would call it this. As you sit at the bottom and look up it looks as if someone had just taken an eraser and erased a line along the side of a granite wall zig zagging all the way up, up, up. I really thought what I was looking at could not have been the road and that it was fissure in the rock or at the very most some primitive unused road of a bygone era. How quickly I was surprised as we ascended up and past hairpin turns noted on the map as “the loop”, and waterfalls called the “weeping wall”. You stop at the top for a rest at Logan Pass visitors’ center. That ride I viewed my first mountain goat.

The visitors center also forced us to be keenly aware that Europeans, as a general rule, wear shorts much, much shorter than we surfer fashioned Americans. Though these shorties may allow one a much more ergonomically correct stride and less hair loss due to friction they also display everything that God gave you all too often for most innocent bystanders taste. In the beginning you try to avoid it, thinking “ouch”, “ew” and later as you gain in comfort it steadily becomes a source of comedy, and a sort of sighting like a bald eagle, or fish jumping from water. I’ll let you think about that one.

We headed back down the mountain and out of the park (I had to stop for the first manifestation of my addiction to national park sticker first) toward the town of Whitefish, Montana. Now you know we were scouring for the old holiday inn express and after a couple cruises down the main drag I spotted it and headed in. NO rooms! NO rooms in town…the entire town! The girl at the counter smiles politely. My dad and I stare down at our handy map; look at each other like “the next town is more than 50 miles away”. We just stood there for a minute, preverbal gears turning, I turned and headed back in to ask one last question. “Now honey, you know my dad and I here aren’t too picky… is there anything you know of that has a vacancy anywhere within a few miles of this town?” Well it turn out she did know of a place but it was at the very top of a mountain up a long and twisty road and it was an old ski lodge they kept open during the summer, that’s what she told me. Jesus, can you say THE SHINING? That’s all I could think of when she said that, but beings that it was our last option I booked it using her desk phone and we booked it up the crooked road ever, all the way to the top of Big Mountain ski resort jis outsida Whitefish, Montana. It would be the first in many nights, and many meals for that matter that we rewarded ourselves with steak. It was the beginning of my understanding that my father has an uncanny ability to crave steak on an almost daily basis. I’ve never eaten so much steak, I miss it just thinking about it now!