Almost There

The next day, my last full day of riding before reaching my destination, would take me through the most incredible scenery I had encountered on the trip to that point. The far western part of Montana began to give itself over to higher terrain, and by the time I passed the "Welcome to Idaho" sign, I was already driving through some of the most beautiful mountain passes I had ever taken my bike.

Double heck yeah!!!

The northern sliver of Idaho doesn't take long to cross, and a true sense of accomplishment swept over me as I crossed the border into Washington state. For as many times as I have visited this part of the country, I have never experienced it in this way, and I felt that I had a much better appreciation, and understanding, for the thousands of miles that separated my home in New Jersey from this place.

My day was by no means over, though, as I knew that I needed to make it as close to the Canadian border as I could before nightfall, meaning I still had several hours of riding ahead of me. Heading north after reaching Spokane, the frenetic pace of the endless rows of fast food restaurants, big chain drug stores,  strip malls and motels gave way to a much more rural environment, and the mountains in the distance, combined with the setting sun, created what looked like a collage of faded, torn layers of paper; the entire landscape lite up with a golden haze that made it both surreal and breathtaking at the same time. The temperature was dropping, though, and I needed to find a place to rest for the night.

I decided on a motel in the town of Chewela, close to an hours drive from the border. The motel, clearly locally owned and operated, was, on the outside, a mish-mosh of machinery, vehicles, gardens and hand made lawn sculptures. The owner, when he finally appeared in the front office, seemed like just another local character, but a photograph on the wall next to the front desk, depicting him as a young man in a military flight suit posed in front of a jet fighter, implied a past that had taken him well beyond his present place in life.

Anyone need a lawn moose?

I don't even know what that is...

I settled myself in, hardly able to believe how far I had come in such a short amount of time. I had ridden over a hundred miles above my usual 450 mile a day quota, ending up exactly where I needed to be in order to achieve my goal. By tomorrow morning, I would be across the border into British Columbia, arriving in Castlegar to begin my week-long workshop on building a house using straw bale construction.