Tuesday, August 16, 2016
Night fell upon us as we rode.
We watched carefully for animals - and only passed a few deer, including a big buck waling down the street in downtown invermere. Unfortunately, no pic. We had put the camera away on account of darkness.
Leaving Calgary
Jen made it in and we geared up for our ride just as the weather set in. We waited it out for an hour and got a dry ride. We headed out for Invermere about 4:30 pm.
Here we go again
At the airport waiting for my supposedly on time flight to Calgary. Then Orlando got a thunderstorm. The skies turned grey and it rained for an hour. Then back to our usual blue skies and I was off, only an hour behind. Made it to Calgary otherwise without incident - although the immigration officer was very confused about my story as to why i was only going to be in Canada for two days.
Friday, July 15, 2016
Wow, and GRM
It was another perfect day. Mostly 60s, and we stayed dry again despite foreboding skies, and rain and rainbows all around us.
Our trip now totals 6918 km since Orlando, that is 4298.65 miles. About 100 more than our original route - which is mostly dut to rerouting through Texas and New Mexico.
Our trip has been amazing, adventurous, and if it is even possible to get better (but it seems it always is), this trip has allowed my relationship with my love to grow and bloom. This has been our own personal adventure, and we got out of it what we put in, and then some.
Even though this is supposed to be our last day, my amazing wife has agreed to undertake the Great Recovery Mission (the GRM) with me, and to fly back to Calgary later this summer and bring Sally back to the states.
Jen, I love you.
The rest of you, stay tuned for the Great Recovery Mission.
-adam
Ride to Banff
Probably the most beautiful segment of our journey. And we just kept following this Blue-Green river.
All the toys
Sally was parked in the garage overnight and Grayson watched from the Malibu trailer while I readied her for our ride to Banff and Calgary
Thursday, July 14, 2016
Stats
Invermere was 380k from Waterton. That's 236 miles. Not too long a day. Despite the skies looking gloomy, roads were mostly dry, and so were we.
439 gear shifts on the beautiful and windy roads, and only 299 rear brakes.
Temps were perfect with a low around 59 and a high around 73.
World's largest truck
Yea, no kidding. That's what the sign said on the highway, so we stopped, selfied, and moved on.
Tee pee
We made a quick stop at Crowsnest pass on the way to invermere. Sally made past 10,000 miles, which I thought was far more moments than dis my lovely wife.
Tuesday, July 12, 2016
Recap
Sally is going to be 10,000 miles old tomorrow morning (13 Miles to go).
For today, we did 214 km - about 133 miles, short day.
624 gear shifts, mostly between first and second in traffic on the going to the sun road. 749 rear brakes. Same analysis.
Temps ranged from about 52 to 72 with an average at 61.
Tomorrow we head for Invermere.
-adam
Summit, Logan pass
We (Sally) climbed from the valley to about 7000 feet and stopped for a quick photo from the top.
Hiked to avalanche gorge
Jen and I hiked in to avalanche gorge from the going to the sun road. Beautiful road, beautiful hike, beautiful gorge, and of course beautiful bride.
Daily report
The ride out was chilly in the morning. Low of 44 and average on the day of 58. We were comfortable most of the day, but not particularly warm.
Despite our planned 280 mile day, we ended out going 385. Sheesh. One wrong turn.
Sally accommodated 892 gear shifts, and 726 rear brakes.
We head out early in the am to ride the going to the sun road.
Elk burgers
When we finally make it to whitefish, we have a drink and some Elk burgers before retiring for the night.
Ghost town
All right, this is where things started to get interesting.
We finished the Lolo pass, and rode into Missoula MT. We found a great food joint, and met up with some other BMW riders with a mechanical issue. They suggested MT200 instead of our planned route up the east side of flathead lake. OK,s o we went for it.
About 40 mins down MT200 we passed a sign for a ghost town. We turned back to see.
We got off MT200 and onto a side to a side road. It said ghost town 11. Hmmm. After a bit of debate we went for it.
About a mile.down the road it said pavement ends, so Sally (the bike) goes into off-road mode, abs off, enduro mode on.
One lane, two way, on and on we climbed for 10 more miles, until we found a parking lot. Really? Really.
We hiked about 5 minutes to get the photo above and decided we had had enough. So we trudged back to Sally and climbed aboard. Now our time to destination in whitefish was almost 7:30. Sheesh.
Of course, things only started to get interesting. Sally suggested a different route back to the main road, and who were we to argue?
Following Sally's directions took us down roads that make mountain goats cringe. Finally, miles later Sally directed us to cross mud on private property. With some trepidation we started down that path (literally) until Sally and Jen and I all fell in the mud.
OK, everyone was fine. But we needed a new plan. So we followed dirt paths out the other way, we found our way thanks to some basic navigation, compass settings and Sally. No road signs or trail markings, except an occasional sign that says I90 - and the dirt road was clearly not I90, not even in Montana.
So we have crossed a mountain range, but alas the wrong way. We do pop back out and are able to pick up I-90, but we are 45 miles southeast of Missoula, and our destination is northwest.
Sally dutifly reports that our ETA is now after 9 pm. And we head off, but fortunately not into the sunset as that won't happen until 9:30.
Time to leave Syringa
Monday morning the weather broke. It was still overcast, which was actually great to ride east on the lolo pass road in the morning.
Amazing ride out of Syringa. Curves for 99 miles, literally.
Rain rain
Sunday was very wet. We had planned to spend Saturday and Sunday night in Syringa, so that worked out well. We hunkered down and only went out for food and gas. Great time with my loving wife - no broadcast TV, no phones, no wifi, just us. It was really special.
Sunday, July 10, 2016
Stats
We did 371 miles today. Crossed into Pacific time. Who knew we'd find that in Idaho?
Our trip total is now 3332. That's. Long way from home.
Temps were mild, averaging 64 today.
559 shifts probably due to the Idaho Twisties, the rear brake was a modest 378.
Sunday will be a day of rest, with only a short ride, I'd any.
-adam
Saturday, July 9, 2016
Riggins
Stopped for coffee in Riggins.
There won't be pictures for a while after this because it started to rain again. But we didn't put on the lemon-lime suits, so we got wet, and it rained more and we got wetter.
Then, woops, we crossed into Pacific time. Who knew. We were an hour later than we thought - meaning that the GPS said what time we would arrive but it was an hour longer ride than we planned. Bummer.
Not dissuaded, Jen insisted we take old route 95 - which was a special road - in the rain.
We finally made it to Syringa after some clearing of the skies. Amazing day. We are wet, and will hopefully dry out by tomorrow.
Found a cafe for dinner, and got wifi. Otherwise we may be out of touch for a few days.
Crouch
We had lunch in this tiny little out of the way town called Crouch, ID. Interesting place, but lunch was enough, and on we went.
Weather Witch
We went into the weather, but after a bit of heavy rain, we found our selves in overcast skies, but an otherwise delightful day. So we stopped by a gorge and removed the lemon-lime colored suits (thanks DTI) and got back to our amazing Idaho ride.
But wait, is that rain?
Before we left Stanley we saw some ominous clouds in the direction we were headed. And we heard it was Two Days of Weather coming in. Sheesh. 
So we suited up and headed into the torrent.
So we suited up and headed into the torrent.
Stanley
Our airbnb hostess made us breakfast, and we for an early start as there is a long day of riding to get to Syringa. Our first stop was in Stanley. We got coffee and looked at the spectacular view in front of a fire. 
Nightly stats
We went 230 miles, bringing us to almost 3,000. We will hit that in the AM.
Gear shifts and rear brake were both in the 400s.
Temp, high, ranging 74 to 93 with an average of 84.
Tomorrow we head up Idaho's west side. We decided to skip Salmon, and will head up to Kooskia today.
Sunset late
When we got to Hailey,we were staying about 1.5 miles from downtown , we decided to walk to and from dinner. On the way back, we saw this great sunset on the bike path.
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