Motorcycle
Trip to Montana
Doug & Kyle Printz
June 25 – July 9, 2000
View from White Bird Hill, Idaho
Also see: http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?m=4896700403&n=303729970
Kyle and I left Latrobe on the Morning of June 26. We headed west on Highway 50 for the Coast. We arrived at Bodega Bay around 2:00 P.M. and secured a campsite in the Bodega Dunes campground. After we made camp and went to town to secure some groceries, we headed for the beach. There we spent several hours playing around in the surf. It was cool and foggy, so we didn’t get too wet. That evening we cooked hot dogs, marshmallows, and enjoyed a campfire. The next morning it was still cold and foggy and everything was sopping wet. We took down our tents and hung everything up in trees to dry. While things were drying we went to town and enjoyed warm breakfast. Things finally dried out shortly after noon and we packed up and headed up the road.
The next day we
continued north, on a leisurely pace, up the coast. We stopped along the Avenue of the Giants south of Eureka and
enjoyed the giant redwoods. Since we
had such a late start, we stopped in Eureka and spent the night in a motel.
We continued up Highway
1 the following day. We stopped here
and there to enjoy the country and wound up spending some time at the Trees of
Mystery south of Crescent City. The fog
continued to bathe the coastal areas and by the time we hit Crescent City, we
were so tired of being cold that we headed inland towards Grants Pass, Oregon. As we left the influence of the coast the
temperatures rose rapidly – from about 50 degrees to 100 degrees in a 10-mile
stretch. When we hit Grants Pass, we
headed north on Interstate 5. The speed
limit on this freeway is 65 mph. I was
doing about 75 mph and was being passed by nearly everyone. Up to this point we had never been passed by
anyone. Kyle even asked me why everyone
was passing us – was something wrong.
At one point I was going 80 mph and was passed by a truck – I was glad
when we reached Roseburg where we decided to call it a day. We got a nice motel with a swimming pool and
jumped in the water.
A little north of
Roseburg we got off the freeway and headed east on Highway 138. That was more like it – a nicely paved
2-lane road that followed a river up a beautiful valley. We turned north on Highway 97 and headed for
Bend, Oregon. We then took Highway 20
to Burns where we spent the night.
Again, we looked for a motel with a swimming pool and enjoyed a couple
of hours of swimming before bedtime.
That evening Kyle we talked about trying to make it to Hamilton the next
day. By this time we’d been on the road
for four days and Kyle was getting anxious to get to Montana. I checked the map and we were still over 500
miles away – on a motorcycle, 300 miles isn’t a bad day. I told Kyle that if we got an early start
and didn’t stop very often we might make it before dark but it would really be
a hard day. He said he could do it if I
could – so that’s what we planned to do.
We got up early and hit
the road about 7:30 a.m. We went from
Burns to Ontario on Highway 20 – from Ontario to Grangeville, Idaho on Highway
95 where the above photo was taken from the summit of White Bird summit – we
then took Highway 12 east to Lolo and Highway 93 south to Hamilton. It was indeed a long day but we pulled into
Hamilton a little before 9:00 p.m. I
have to praise Kyle for his conduct – he never complained once and remained in
good spirits throughout the day – actually he was great for the entire trip,
which was over 1600 miles.
We spent four days in
Hamilton – Sandi & Pete were gracious enough to let us share their home –
we appreciate their hospitality. We
visited with Sandi & Pete, Mom & Dad, Jay & Janie, and Ken, Sharon,
& Shelby. On the 4th of
July, Kyle elected to spend most of his money on fireworks and we put on a show
at Jay’s house. Later in the evening,
we sat out in Jay’s back yard and enjoyed the show at the Ravalli County
Fairgrounds.
Jay invited us to come
up to Flathead Lake with him and his grandson, Mathew. They were planning to take his 5th
wheel trailer and boat up there to spend a couple of days camping and
fishing. We accepted his offer and had
a great time. We didn’t get to do much
fishing, though. We spent several hours
on the water the day we arrived, but we didn’t get there until afternoon and it
was soon getting late. It rained during
the night and the next morning the skies looked awful threatening. We decided to wait until things looked
better but by early afternoon it still looked bad, although it hadn’t actually
rained where we were. As soon as we put
the boat in the water, which is not a trivial task, and headed out on the
water, it began to rain. And it
continued to rain for more than two hours, the entire time we were on the
water. To top it off, there wasn’t a
sign of a fish on the fish finder – we had completely struck out.
Early the next
afternoon, July 7th, Jay and Mathew headed back to Hamilton, and
Kyle and I headed home – by way of Libby and Coeur d’Alene. The first day we made it to Coeur d’Alene after
a day of spectacular roads and scenery.
It was a Friday evening when we pulled into Coeur d’Alene and we were
greeted with a host of “No Vacancy” signs.
When we finally located a motel with a vacancy, they only had one suite
left at a cost of $137. I wasn’t ready
to look any further so we took it. When
we opened the door to our room, we were both floored – they had given us the
honeymoon suite – there was a red, heart-shaped hot tub, a heart shaped bed,
tons of flowers and all kinds of frilly, romantic nonsense. We both laughed out loud – but hey - that
didn’t stop us from enjoying all the amenities.
When we got up the next
morning, the vacation seemed over – Kyle and I were both ready to be home. We decided we were going to make it home by
Sunday evening, which meant we’d have to travel over 500 miles per day – we
didn’t care, we were both tired of being on the road.
South of Couer d’Alene,
on Highway 95, Kyle said the country looked familiar – he was sure his Aunt
Kelly lived in the area. Soon we passed
an Indian Casino he recognized and entered a small town where his Aunt went
shopping. A little further and he
pointed out the road to their house. We
thought about dropping in, and decided against it. Too bad - it seems that Kyle’s maternal grandparents, Linda and
Mike Bridgeman were visiting Kelly and John as we sped past.
Later that afternoon, in western Idaho and eastern Oregon, we played tag with two huge thunderstorms. It seemed we were always headed straight at one or the other of them. We’d get close enough to feel the temperature drop, the winds pick up, see some lightning, and get pelted with a few rain drops and then, about the time we were ready to put on our raingear, the highway would take a turn and we’d be heading the other direction. After a half hour or so, we’d notice we were heading straight for the other storm and the process would repeat. We made it all the way to Burns, Oregon without getting wet. Actually, the storms looked severe enough that I was on the verge of turning around a couple of times. That evening, the TV news mentioned the storms and described the damage caused by the winds and hail. We felt very fortunate.
The last day of our
trip, south of Burns, Oregon, we ran into three fellow motorcyclists from
Redding who were returning home from a motorcycle rally in Billings, Montana. One
of them noticed the seat on my motorcycle (A Mayer DayLong Saddle) and
commented that he'd never seen a seat like that. Before I could explain,
one of his buddies started talking about Bill Mayer and his motorcycle
seats. He apparently knew Uncle Bill and thought very highly of him - he
was also aware of recent events. When I mentioned that Bill was my uncle,
he really opened up and we had quite a time telling stories - I'm sure some of
them were even true.
North of Reno, Nevada we saw a lot of smoke and
noticed several airplanes circling ahead of us. It turned out that the fire was within a half mile of the
highway, and we got a close-up view of borate bombers bombing a fire – it was
actually pretty exciting.
The remainder of the trip was uneventful – we
cruised through Reno, took Highway 80 to Truckee, then Highway 89 along the
west shore of Lake Tahoe. We finally
arrived in Placerville about 8:00 p.m., a couple of tired fellows. We got something to eat and crashed.
It was a pleasure to have Kyle as a passenger. I told him that he was almost as good a
passenger as Linda – which is no small praise.
He was patient, well behaved, and stayed in good spirits the entire trip. I can testify that a 3200+ mile motorcycle
trip is damn hard work and I’m proud that Kyle handled himself so well. The next time an opportunity for such a trip
arises, I’ll be glad to take him again.