Chasing the Sun, Taming the Sky

Day 2 of my motorcycling adventure. I woke up this morning in Lander WY, it had rained all night and I was mildly moist, mostly on my feet from touching the sides of the tent. I crawled out of my little shelter at around 7 and methodically began my day, packing everything up just so. I have found that I become very habit driven and methodical when taking a motorcycle trip, I am always double checking things, wallet is in my pocket, credit card is in my wallet, wallet pocket is zipped up, with all the gear I am carrying it would certainly be easy to misplace something, so that's why I take my time and double check.

So after getting ready I set off to McDonald's for a quick and hot breakfast, borrowed their WiFi to upload some pictures and off I went down the road. The day had turned beautiful from the overcast sprinkle that I had woken up to. I was optimistic that the weather would really cooperate today. I was wrong. As I got into a little town outside Teton National Forest, it began to snow, that's right, snow. I pulled into a gas station, which just so happened to house the world's largest jackalope (displayed in front of an American flag, nice touch), weighing in at a claimed 437 lbs, and I put the chemical hand warmers in my gloves. That means this trip was about to get real.

As I rode up towards my first Continental Divide pass of the day, Togwotee Pass, I was riding through a mixture of gorgeous sunlit mountain scenery and dreary cloudcover with anything between light flurries and downright blizzard conditions. CONTINENTAL DIVIDE COUNTER: 4. For whatever reason, although my map shows clearly that this first pass was a Continental Divide pass, I either missed the sign or it wasn't signed, so I have no picture of that. As I came down off the pass, there was construction being done to the road to the tune of there was no pavement and there were construction company pickup trucks leading lines of cars throught the roughly 5 or so miles of 1.5 lane dirt road where a nice two lane highway should be. To add to the stress of descending a mountain pass on dirt, on a motorcycle it was of course at this point, snowing and the dirt had all turned to mud. I was in the zone for those 5 miles, I couldn't tell you anything about the scenery outside of the best lines on the ground to not get stuck, or dump my motorcycle. After that was done, I descended into a gorgeous valley that led me into Grand Teton National Park. From there the game of cat and mouse with the sun began.

Motorcycling Reflection: Inside the Helmet. With snow on the mind, and literally on my head, I thought of this scenario, somewhere in a cloud, two snowflakes are formed. They float down to the earth together, and land next to one another on the peak of a mountain. There they sit, next to each other just being snowflakes. Then one day a gust of wind comes up, it blows one of the snowflakes a couple inches away. No big deal, the snowflakes still do their snowflake thing together, albeit slightly further apart. Then spring comes, the snow flakes down below them start to melt away, but not the two snowflakes at the top. But finally on a hot summer day the two snowflakes on top of the mountain melt and begin to flow downhill, but because the wind blew them slightly apart, they flow down opposite sides of the mountain. They flow into little snow melt streams, then mountain creeks, then into rushing rivers, then finally, lazily, they flow into separate oceans. There the two once snowflakes live out their once snowflake lives, completely separated, worlds apart, but perhaps never quite forgetting what it was to be a snowflake on a mountaintop with a snowflake friend to spend the days with. Then after being in the ocean for ages, the snowflakes are both evaporated from the surface, brought up into the clouds and with wind and time, brought back together, where they float down together onto a mountaintop again. I thought that scenario is a good representation of how friendships are made and how even though throughout life, we cant always be near the people we love, we never forget them, and trust that one day, because the friendship is strong, that we will see them again.

When I entered Yellowstone, I made a brief stop to take some pictures of the Japanese tourists and admire how they literally will take a picture of ANYTHING, and went on my way. I was pretty determined to make some good time despite the weather and the dirt/mud road debacle. But alas being that I was in one of the most famous national parks in the country, it was pretty heavy with traffic and VERY heavy with more snow. I crossed in the park not one, not two but three iterations of the continental divide:

 CONTINENTAL DIVIDE COUNTER: 7

So I blasted through Yellowstone, pretty well, all things considered, but still felt behind schedule as I entered Montana. The sign announcing Montana was very small, in fact I passed it and had to turn back around. But I suppose if you are a state as big as Montana, you don't feel like you need to prove anything with your welcome signs. I wonder how big the sign is for Rhode Island..... compensating for anything perhaps?

As far as I'm concerned Montana is amazing. The roads here are in great shape, and all have a speed limit that is about 20mph too fast, the country is beautiful, and this is where the blasted snow finally stopped. In fact it got all the way up to about 60F degrees! ( At one point in Yellowstone, coming over a pass, I saw 36F, average was probably 44F) I flew through Montana, everytime I looked at the map I was surprised with how far I was, how quickly the miles were going by. Every highway I was on was a 70mph speed limit. And they were FUN! Twists and turns, and short little straights, it made me feel like I was going fast enough to get pulled over, those kinds of roads in Colorado have a 45, maybe 55 mph limit, but not Montana. This is big sky country, this is where the buffalo roam. (or so the road signs would lead you to believe.) So that was my afternoon. West Yellowstone, Ennis, Three Forks, Townsend, Helena, Missoula. The miles and the towns flew by. I hardly stopped at all. So here I am in Missoula, I coughed up for a hotel room to let my tent dry out, and my core temperature come back up to normal. Another great day in the bag.

Mileage Day 2: 530

Cumulative Mileage: 919

Song I sang most in my helmet: "The rain rain rain came down down down" from Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery day, with snow substituted for rain in the lyrics.

Continental Divide Counter: 8

PS. I saw a marmot, nuff said.