Idaho and Montana

Note:   Interacive map has been updated.  Click here

6/20  Connell to Ritzville

Gasoline is significantly cheaper.  Price dropped by over 30% as soon as I crossed the California-Oregon border.

Ride to Ritzville was hard.  Headwinds.  Wore me out.  Also, Google Maps sent me on gravel roads.  I later learned that it is legal to take the freeway (US395 and I-90) until you reach the Spokane suburbs.

6/21 Spokane :
Stayed at the lovely Montvale hotel.  Originally opened in 1899.  See photos and history here:         https://www.montvalespokane.com/   .  Had a pretty nice dinner at Steam Plant about 3 blocks away.

Scallops and Couscus with a hugh side of corn bread

6/22 :  On the way to Sandpoint, ID, met my friend Ron for lunch in downtown Rathdrum.  I used to work with him in the mid 1990's.  Hadn't seen him in about 20 years.  After lunch we went to his house.  Ron restores cars and has a huge workshop in back of the house and I got to ride in his 1907 Model A.

Ron's 1907 Model A - A thing of beauty!

6/23 - 6/26  Trout Creek (ID), Plains and Missoula MT.
Just north of Sandpoint, rte 200 runs along lakes and rivers to Ravalli, where it meets up with US 93 over the hill to Missoula.  Stayed with my 2nd cousin, Bert and his extended family.  Bert's mother (my mother's 1st cousin) is in her mid-90's and is still going strong.

6/27 En route to Allentown
I grew up in Allentown, PA.  Unbeknownst to mostly everyone, there's an Allentown Montana on the map.  First, you go through Ravalli, which was a challenge because it decided to rain all morning, even though it was predicted to be clear after 9AM.  There is no public transit in this area, and no cars available at the Missoula airport so I ended up taking Uber for the 30 miles or so to Ravalli, which was a "must do" stop.  Windmill is a wonderful bakery specializing in the owner's mother's recipe for donuts, made in small batches in what resemble a home kitchen.  It just doesn't get any better than this.

Best Donuts ever at Windmill Bakery

On that side of the mountain things were a little better, so I rode rode to Nine Pipes Inn in Allentown, which is located in the Flathead Reservation, home to Kootenai and Salish tribes.

6/27 - 28  Big Fork and Kalispell
A 50 mile ride around Flathead lake (where most of Montana's cherries are grown) landed me in Big Fork.  Nice little touristy town on the northeast shore of the lake.   On 6/28, short ride to Kalispell, where I'm in a Super 8 that has a good computer that I've been monopolizing while waiting for 7/2 when I have my reservation at West Glacier.  I made the reservation for 7/2 to account for rain delays.. which there were none of ... so I'm here a few days early.  It's a lot cheaper to stay here, about 40 miles west of Glacier.
Tomorrow, I stay in W. Glacier to attempt the big ride over "Going to the Sky road" which opened last week.  Last time I tried to go over Logan pass through glacier in 2016, they didn't manage to get it plowed out until 4 days after I came through, so I had to take
US 2.
Rain is forecast for tomorrow afternoon and for the next 2 days... as luck would have it.  We'll see what happens.