Words for the day—“Guard rails? I don't need no stinkin' guard rails.”

I think I jammed about 5 days of events into one day. Not intentionally in a way that I was hurrying to see a list of sites, well I was...moving rather quickly, but in a way that took advantage of all the terrain and area had to offer. So many things that happened today shouldn't have happened all in one day. Events begin to diminish in importance or uniqueness or they lose their ability to fight their way to the top in ones mind at the end of the day and be able to write about them with the words necessary to give justice to them.
I woke up before dawn, because I was awake and did want to catch the morning rays as they caught the mountains surrounding the campground at Two Medicine. I'm sure part of it was that after all these hours in the saddle the sore that hurts the most is the right hip from sleeping on the ground. I'm sure its a bruise but I'm a bit reluctant to pull down my pants, then my long underwear, then my bike shorts with the kick-ass gel pad, then the underwear to get a look at my hip to confirm what I already know—that my hip hurts from sleeping on my side without the Sealy Posturepedic that a normal human being needs and deserves for a good nights rest. Hell, I'd be happy with the counting sheep at the moment.
So yes, I got up with the predawn darkness to watch the sun turn the mountains above me to warm reds, oranges and browns and ... well, I never really had a good color theory class. But the morning and evening rays are always the best to capture the best colors. And no I didn't learn that from the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition neither, it only confirmed what I already knew. In doing so I spied my first wild animal of the day, a little raccoon. I know I surprised him as he was walking along towards me while I was standing still waiting for the sun to rise further. So I tried to get him into some shots of the mountains, but I didn't get a model release so we'll see how they turn out.
Today oddly enough was the quickest I packed up and headed out. Which I guess looking back I should have taken as a sign for how the days were to come.
From Two Medicine I rode to the St. Mary's Visitor Center along 49...and holy moly was that a ride that I'll never forget. Had I hesitated and thought about the lack of guardrails, and the who knows how many feet down, I might not have enjoyed myself as much. The switchbacks, curves—both tight and sweeping, made it into one of my top ten roads. Then for obstacles add in some tourists in four-wheeled cages, trees crowding the roadway and hiding too many free-range cattle, some horses and the crummy pavement and it makes for some interesting riding. But that isn't all Joel. On top of that we'll give you amazing scenery the likes you've never seen before. Including, but not limited too, mountainscapes, high plains, and burned out forests and you've got yourself a world class ride for the record books.
This was before I even got to the Going-to-the-sun Road. Which in itself was pretty cool. It wasn't cracked up to what I expected but then it was closed in the middle so I was able to only go up about 12 miles on the eastern side. To make up for it I ran it over the posted limit and stopped enough to grab some pics to prove I was there and then it was on to Twin Glaciers or Two Glaciers, something like that. The woman at the St. Mary's Visitor Center had clued me in to a bunch of bear sightings and then while drinking coffee after the run an older gentleman also confirmed the bear sightings so that is indeed in that direction I went. One can’t go to Glacier and not see some wild creatures.
That run is where most of the burned out forests where. In July they had a doozy of a wildfire because there are hundreds of acres of burned out trees.
So...initially the word for the day was going to be Grizzly. Because at Two Medicine you had to pack in and out all water and garbage, granted I threw my wash water in the outhouse honey hole which was a no no. Hello!? Motorcycle. Which meant I was a bit...well, grizzly would be a word. But also, running up to Twin Glaciers, I, along with a slew of other folks, watched a mother Grizzly bear and

It made the sharp drops off of 49 earlier in the day look like steps off of a stepstool. These were thousands of feet down and the guardrail, the closed section of the road was to facilitate repairs to the stone guardrail, the guardrails are only, if only a foot and a half high. All fine and dandy if you are driving a late model Ford Fiesta like I saw in Cut Bank, but on a motorcycle I am twice as high as most everyone else, I would have gone over like ... well like a stupid punk ass rider riding too fast for conditions let alone on a road that had no shoulders because it was either jagged rocks up or jagged rocks down to choose from. Which of course meant that all the city slickers had to hug the center line which meant that I was left to ... well, like I said don't look down. This was another one of those situations that if I thought about what I was doing I: a. would have slowed down; b. slowed down some more; and C. stayed at the campground making dinner instead of racing up this road that had DANGER written all over it in so many places. I think it popped into my head at the top before coming back down that if I had a death wish this was the place to blow out those candles. Because going down in a flame of glory, okay stupidity, could be had more simply just by a subtle flick of the wrist. Think of all the attention that would have gotten. And it would have made that will I wrote out show who I liked best and have everyone fight over who really wanted Henry the most.
I cannot imagine what the passengers on the other bikes felt riding up and down. Going up was easy enough because it was easy not to have to look down, but coming back down it was damn near impossible not to see that drop and also see that it wasn’t a tumbling rolling drop from the road as much as a shear drop, so coming back down wasn't as easy, nor as fun. To make matters worse, the gods of those mountains pulled my minidisc player out of my tank bag onto the pavement at about 50 mph. I won't even tell you what led up to that because you'd think that: a. I got what I deserved, b. It would have been the least of my problems; and c. the damn thing didn't work like it should have anyway. But lo and behold I turned around picked it up without any fanfare and fast enough that some doofus didn't run me over looking for Bambi.
Which lead me to the coke machine and the inevitable trouble with that. After the first coin didn't drop all the way down, I had to add a second just to prove it and to prove my hypothesis I had to add that third one. But that’s okay, I'm finishing up here at about 11:15, much later than I should have but supper was late and in the dark that and the whiskey found its way into the coke and you know what happens next, I can't leave any food or drink unfinished because that would be waste. Why I had to get two bottles is beyond me and how I typed this well only goes to show that at the end of the day I was able to show some restraint. Why now I'm not really sure, but hey, give me some credit.
It’s supposed to be the coldest night yet for me and I hope the coldest period. Which is to say it will be in the 30's, so yes folks, that is all cold and no warmth. No Mama bear, no Henry, no hand dryer and no space heater. Even though last night only got down in the mid 40's while the temps for the day were probably the warmest since I left the Minnesota state line and, I believe, I again got sunburn, but it was easily in the 70's. Today was the first day I didn't turn the vest on. But I’ll be blankity-blank-blank if I didn’t' say I wish I had a cord that was about 30 feet long to my motorbike that’s over there while my tent is over here.
So on that note, that and the Daddy Longlegs that just walked across my keyboard, think about that while you read this, I'm off to bed. Hopefully, the camp wildlife will be gracious and let me sleep because I've already seen deer in the campground and I can hear raccoons about trying to figure out where I hid all my booze, and the peanut butter too, I'm sure.
Until next time America, Don't look down.

Route: Highway 49 north to Highway 89, north to Going-to-the-Sun Road followed to closed section, return Going-to-the-Sun Road to Highway 89 north to Many Glacier, return via 89 & 49 to West Highway 2, to Going-to-the-Sun Road, east to Visitor Center/closed section, return to Apgar.