Day 9
Day 9 was was meant to be an easy day. I wanted to run Lolo Pass, visit the college campus, and visit some of the old haunts again.
First, I needed some time to take care of my equipment. I needed to run some laundry, and do some sewing on my airhawk cushion cover, one of the tabs used to secure it to the seat was ripping off. I realized I had put my tools away wet when I packed after working on my forks in the rain. My ratchet was all rusted up. There was a HD guy detailing his bike, he had about three different types of rags laid out and a half dozen cleaning sprays laid out. I asked if he had some WD-40 I could borrow. He didn't. He wasn't friendly so I left him to his cleaning. When he left he pulled across the parking lot, pointing his pipes at the building, roared his engine a while, backed out and left. Odd stuff.
I ran over to the Missoula Triumph dealer to check it out and met a young guy riding with his dad up to Alaska. They had stopped for scheduled maintenance. They were putting on a lot of highway miles, but apparently enjoying the trip. Then to a hardware store for some WD-40 and a hex head screw to finally reattach my bar end mirror I broke off when I dumped the bike.
Finally after messing around too long I headed for the Lolo Pass. It's a bit of a slog to get through Missoula, there is no shortage of department stores on that end of town. I grabbed myself some wool socks at Cabela's. My feet were perpetually wet and my cotton socks weren't making me happy, and I was worried my stinking feet would start attracting bears.
I was looking forward to riding the road over Lolo Pass. Perhaps too much, I might have built it up too much in my mind. It is smooth road, following this creek. Lot of folks fly fishing down there. The curves are sweepers. There are a ton of them. But they aren't challenging. I had a burger and topped off on gas at the Lochsa Lodge then rode to the point-of-no-return, about half a tank of gas down. I decided to turn around and get back to Missoula at a reasonable hour. I think I had seen about all there was to see.
Back at Lochsa Lodge I ran into an HD guy I had met back down the road a bit. So we chatted some more. He was a retired man with a ton of time to put on miles. My wife rides a Bonnie, but doesn't really like long riding days. His wife is the slowest gal on a Ducati he says, a new rider who is super careful. We schemed on proper use of trailers to get our wives to join us on our trips. It will happen. Kids just have to get a bit older, then we'll trailer our bikes down to Tennessee or something. We'll ride together every-other-day, and the other days I'll leave her behind with her book. It's a win-win. One day ...
On the way back I stopped at the DeVoto Memorial Grove, a very old-growth cedar stand. Sad there are so few big trees like this anymore, but it was a bit humbling to walk among them.
Back in Missoula, I stopped by my AirBnB place I was staying at. I had booked it before I knew about the Belle Aire motel. I regretted it. Not that they host did anything wrong, but it was the same price as the excellent motel, and I'm too old and settled for couch surfing. Wish I had just spent two nights at the motel.
The scheme for tonight was to visit the college campus to check out how much it had changed. Then a more constrained visit to the bars from the previous night. Shorter stays, back in bed by midnight. I was getting run down.
So, first to the Press Box which is right across the river from campus, over this steel bridge. It was close to campus but not really a college bar. But we hung out there a lot. Had me a stiff Tanqueray with a splash of tonic and then walked over to campus.
Bridge to the Press Box
Although I don't remember all the locks on the fence.
The M on the Hill is still there.
This is the dorm I lived in it looks exactly the same. I remember when I checked in the front desk and a sign it said "No guns in the room, check all guns here". Coming from Massachusetts, that seemed a little bit odd.
This is where I was when the Shuttle Challenger blew up. It is changed not at all.
I think this was full of water when I was here. And there was a one-eyed squirrel that would eat out of your hands that hung out here. Not sure where the squirrel is now. I would have called for him, but I forget his name.
From there I trekked over to Charlies and had a sandwich and one beer. The over to the Top Hat where I ordered a double Jameson's. He gave me two of them. I didn't complain and found a quiet corner to listen to the music. It was excellent. A guy and his wife and another girl sat with me. Other girl was way too into husband, not sure what was up. Wife wasn't complaining. Still, it was comfortable enough to chat.
Intermission came. It was close to 11:00. I had told myself I would be in bed early. This was the moment of truth, I really didn't want to leave. All these young folks, made me wish I was young again, meeting my now wife again, young love and all that. But it's a better life now, and at any rate I was an old dude among the youth, so I drug myself away and walked back to my place. Stopped for a piece of pizza on the way, wasn't even hungry, just it's also hard to pass up a piece of pizza eaten outside on warm summer night.
