JUNE 7th - DAY 7 - Gates of The Mountain

Still in Helena.

Great day today. It rained a little but not bad. This morning I rode 10 miles north to the Gate of The Mountain. It's a narrow pass that the Missouri River runs through with sheer limestone cliffs on both sides. Of notable interest, in addition to the beauty of this pass, was Lewis and Clark's expedition traveling through this spot. They were just like me, traveling on a small desiel tourist boat, with 10 other passengers. This was a great deal - a two hour guided tour with a fabulous guide for $14.

To give some perspective - just to the right of center, at the top of the rock, if you look close you can see an arched opening. The bridge over this arch is 50 feet long.

One of the best parts about this trip is the people I'm meeting along the way. It's great to see old friends but it's equally fun to meet new people and learn a little about their lives. On this boat trip I sat next to Alanna and Rick. They were making a major move from Virginia to a new home in Oregon. Rick has accepted a new job as VP of Research for Oregon State in Corvallis. Alanna is originally from Oregon and for her - she's going home. It's not just a cross country trip from Virginia to Oregon. It's a trek, following as close as possible, the route of Lewis and Clark. They have so far crossed the Missouri River 23 time. I have new friends in Corvallis to visit.

Later in the afternoon I did more exploring around Helena - great small city with a rich history. The town's population is only around 30,000 but they have a cathedral and Carroll College, but built with the funds of wealthy Irish Catholics.













Surprise - the sister of my first girl friend when I was in the 7th grade - lives in Helena and works at Carroll College. The last time I saw Cathi - I think she was 5 or 6 years old, playing with my sister. Cathi has lived in Helena for many years now. She likes the people and this is where her kids are but she does miss her sister and the California coast. It was a great visit.

By the way - Cathi's not afraid of clowns - she was one...

Tomorrow - I'm on the road again. If every thing goes as planned, I will be camping out in Glacier National Park - on the east side. I may not be able to update this if I can't find internet access. Shouldn't all parks have internet access??? What kind of camping is this?

June 6th Helena - DAY 6

Today was a day of relaxation and getting to see parts of Helena. It was also my friend Anne's birthday - Happy Birthday Anne!!!

I will probably be here until at least Tuesday enjoying friends and conversation.

It started raining again tonight.

June 5th - Helena

I checked the weather report for Yellowstone - 20 degrees, rain and snow. the extended forecast was rain and more rain. So - being the flexible guy that I am - I decided to head to visit my friends Anne and Jerry in Helena. Unlike the day before, the weather on the ride to Helena was great for the entire ride.

Like a lot of the areas I've been riding through, there are not a lot of people in Montana. I was getting a little tired and a little sleepy, not good on a motorcycle so I pulled off I15 and stopped at very small town - Dell Montana, population 35 and went into what I believe is the only store in town.

Jeannie, her husband and a friend Paul are the owners of the store and have been in Montana for 18 years. Jeannie moved out from Iowa and Paul from New Hampshire. Jeannie has two daughters that grew up and graduated from high school - graduation class 8. Jeannie said that her daughters always complained about not having anything to do but yet always found something. Her daughters moved away, went to college and thought they would move to a bigger city but once country was in their blood - they moved back near mom.

Why live here? Clean air, great place to bring up two daughters, great people and a business that is thriving. Their store is the market, fast food, post office, and a rental office for some log cabins they have for tourist / hunters. Montana is a big hunting state and Jeannie said that a lot of their business is processing and packaging the meat for the hunters.

Jeannie and her husband own a 500 acre ranch about 10 miles from Dell. She said they will never leave. What Jeannie is doing to make the world a better place is giving a great start for her daughters, with good values and a safe environment.

Jeannie pointed to the mountains in this photo and said their ranch was at the base.

My second stop was in Butte. I went to a small espresso place for coffee and a sandwich. The waitress, Addie, (only one working) was great, friendly and eager to please. I wanted turkey, they were out, I settled on ham. The ham was so thin you could see through it. Addie was so nice that I just couldn't say anything. As I was leaving, she said, "thanks for coming, this is my first day working here."



As I got closer to Helena I started to notice more and more Pine trees that were turning brown and looked like they were either dead or dieing. There were thousands.

I called Anne when I arrived, parked the bike at Carroll College where Anne is a professor, and joined her for some errands she had. I asked her about the trees and she said it was Pine Bark Beetle and that it's a major concern. If there is a lightning strike, it could mean a major fire. The Pine Bark Beetle destroys a layer just under the bark and then moves on. The wood in the trees is still good and they are trying to log as much and as fast as they can.

Anne has started a new program at Carroll using animals, mostly horses and dogs, to train students in how to leverage animals in treating people with certain psychological mental health issues. The program has been so successful that Anne has been asked to go to Greece to speak about the human animal bond to a group of Europeans. The good news for Anne is Carroll wants her to expand her program.

I plan to be here for a couple of days to visit with Anne and Jerry and also to visit Cathi, the sister of my first girl friend, Sue Ann (We were 12 and it only lasted a week). I need to find out how Cathi ended up in Helena from our home town of Fort Bragg California.

June 4th - Day 4 - wet and windy

What a day. I left Weiser Idaho at 7:30am and headed towards Boise. My goal for the day was to get to Craters of The Moon and spend the day exploring. From the time I left Weiser - it rained. I had rain gear on and I was warm enough but it was a miserable ride.

I stopped several times for fuel. The fuel here has 10% ethanol and not only is the mix not good for my bike but it reduces my mileage about 15% to 20%. I pulled into a gas station in the town of Carey, about 20 miles from Craters of The Moon. Because I have so much on the back of the bike, it makes in impossible to swing my leg over when I get off. Instead, I literally have to use my hand and lift my right leg over the center of the seat. Today, at the Carey gas station, I lost my balance and fell over on my ass as I was lifting my leg. It was a cool move. I looked good laying on my back in the rain in Carey. Good thing no one at the station knew that I was headed for Toronto and beyond. They would have stated a pool, "how far do you think the old guy will make it."

As I got closer to the Creators National Park - the weather finally started to break. The pictures in this post were all taken at that point. I was still about 5 miles from the park intrance. Any of you interested in geology - this place is a must see. The pictures don't do it justice at all. There's 50 miles of lava - and no volcano. This stuff just oozed from the ground - the last time about 2,000 years ago. The wind was crazy but the sun poked out long enough for me to take my rain gear off. I found a great camp site in the park that was somewhat sheltered and headed to the first pull-out on a 7 mile loop. I was so excited. Well - let me tell you - today the gods did not shine on Gary. It clouded over and started to rain so hard that I had a hard time finding my way back to the bike. I was soaked through in just minutes. I could not stay in this weather. The wind almost knocked the bike over, it was dark, I got lost on the turn outs on the loop and was just a little - well maybe a little more than a little, pissed. I finally found the park entrance and took off heading to Idaho Falls, where I am now, in a Marriott hotel. When I checked in I asked the desk clerk how long it had been raining and blowing. She gave me this disgusted look and said, "how about January."

At dinner - I told the waitress where I had been and that the wind had almost blown me off the road. She said that her dad had a Harley Sportster and he and the bike were blown off the road into a ditch at Creaters and he ended up in ICU for a week.

I guess I was lucky.

I'm about 1 hour from Yellowstone and I plan to camp. All I need is dry ground - just long enough to set up the tent. I've got to do this. I've got 12 days of freeze dried packaged food and I've got to use it because I need the space (although the weight is not a problem). I just need to remember to take the silica pack out before I cook it. Of course if I don't use it - it should be good for at least a couple of hundred years. I wonder if bears can smell freeze dried? I think I should eat some fruit.

On to Yellowstone.

June 3rd Day 3 - On The Road To Idaho

Two more Japanese Americans joined us for breakfast at Fe's B&B - Hiroshi Shimizu and his wife. Hiroshi actually lived at the camp as a young boy. His father was an American citizen and up to the point of internment had worked extremely hard to assimilate into the American lifestyle and was actually born in the US. After he was interned - he was so devastated that his own country would take such a unthinkable path, that he ended up renouncing his citizen ship.

Think it can't happen again.....?

Before leaving Tulelake I went through the museum and then road about 7 miles to the site where the camp was originally. Not much there. The only thing left standing is the jail. Everything was either sold or torn down. Tulelake was the largest of the camps and is where more "difficult" Japanese internees were sent - such as those Japanese (American citizens) that protested having to forfeit everything they owned and then be put in what was for all practical purposes - a concentration camp. Think about it.



After leaving Tulelake - this seemed like a very long day. Miles and miles and miles of straight highway with an occasional hill and a few turns here and there to keep me under 100.

Going over some of the hills - it was a bit cold and so I plugged in my electric jacket (what would the pioneers think).
I did make it to Idaho and took a short 16 mile side trip jaunt to visit my nephew that moved here from Ukiah.

Tomorrow - off to the Creators of the Moon.

June 2nd Lava Beds and Tulelake

It rained most of the day. I left Weaverville around 10:00am and headed east. My intent originally was to go to Lassen National Park and then to Tulelake, but even though this is a fairly long journey it was looking like time would be running short. My alternative ended up being Lava Beds National Monument and then on to Tulelake.

The sky was dark all day but the ride was incredible. Long flat stretches and then over mountains and around Mt. Lassen and Shasta. People not from California think of a state with 35 million as nothing but people but on this ride I went a long time between seeing another car. Things changed coming over the mountain into Berny running into at least 50 logging trucks within an hour.

I don't know what it is about riding a motorcycle as opposed to driving in a car - but you have a lot of time to think. There are no distractions - such as a cell phones, CD or radio. On a bike - you are in the moment and as the long straight stretches of rows of Ponderosa Pines go slipping by faster and faster, it's easy to disconnect from a 55 mile speed limit as you hit 110. Reality and the possibility of becoming a part of deer brings things back into perspective.

I made a left turn off of hiwy 139 and headed 14 miles on a very rough road to Lava Beds. I stopped at the visitor center to pay my entrance fee and ended up buying a Senior National Parks pass good until I die for $10 (they thought it was a good). After doing a little caving and hitting my head a few times and slipping off the path and cutting my hand on a sharp piece of lava I emerged back into the light (and rain).

I made it to the town of Tulelake and found a B&B for the night. Originally I was going to camp but the rain changed my mind. It was a good decision. Fe's Bed & Breakfast. What stands out about Fe's is Fe - a Filipino emigrant that's been living in Tulelake for 10 years. Fe ended up here after meeting and marrying an American while he was in the Philippines. In this economy in this part of the state - there is no time or the luxury of trying to make the world a better place. The first priority is just trying to survive. Life in a small town in a remote area is a challenge - what would make Fe's life work better would be having the time just to make some aditional friends.

The purpose for me of coming to Tulelake is the visit to the internment center - which really isn't there. There are a few buildings left but most of the center was torn down. This was the largest of the internment camps and the only thing left is the jail and - at the local museum a guard tower and one of the cabins.

Later in the evening at Fe's, two Japanese decedents of internees checked in - Grace from Sacramento and Yuki from Oakland. Every year decedents of internees and a few of the internees still living - head to Tulelake for a pilgrimage. For Yuki and Grace - this has become a passion. It is their mission to help keep this sad part of American history alive and to help their relatives deal with the many devastating issues this has caused in their lives. Stories unfold and the evening gets late but this is what this trip is about. I've made 3 new friends today and have extended invitations for them to visit Sebastopol.

Tomorrow it's the Museum and then off to Idaho.

June 1, 2010 Weaverville

I arrived in Weaverville around 4:00pm today on the first leg of my journey. What a beautiful ride. There is still snow on the mountains and if you have never been to the Trinity area it's easy to forget that you are still in California. It is very remote. The population of Weaverville is around 3200. Trinity is considered to be one of the most remote areas in California.

I'm spending the night with Jeff and Jeannie - two friends that moved here about a year ago from Sebastopol. Jeff and Jeannie met while they were both in the peace corp and are very devoted to each other. Jeff agreed to pull up stakes from Sebastopol and move to Weaverville in support of Jeannie's new position as the local Trinity Congregational Church minister.

Great dinner, great conversation. This was a major career change for Jeannie. I did ask them the questions but I knew the answer going in. Both of them have been devoted to making the world a better place. Jeannie loves the church and the people and feels there's a lot she can do to support the community and the congregation. Jeff is very active in Rotary and is working to invest time in trying to develop an Eco-tourism industry. The unemployment rate here is 22%.

On the clowns - Jeannie's said that as a child she was not afraid of them but that being at the circus they seemed so far away. Now - they do seem a little scary.

(They scare the hell out of me when they play with knives)

Tomorrow I'm off to Lassen Natl Park and then the Tulle lake. It is supposed to rain.

I know that some of you have had problems with the tracking. I'm doing something wrong in my links to the shared space. I'll get it worked out.