Day 39: Seeley Lake, MT – Bigfork, MT

A cold morning. The route for today was simple – get back on highway 83 headed north and find a place to stay near its terminus.

The forecast called for only a 15 percent chance of rain, but a few miles in we knew that was far too optimistic. Dark clouds filled the sky to the north and west and before long it started raining then hailing. Luckily the rain only lasted half an hour and we made it to the town of Condon for lunch.

I was pretty tired today – maybe just from lack of motivation. The road was certainly going through some nice areas. Pine trees lined either side of the road and every so often we passed a lake on the left revealing pine-covered mountains to the west. And more rarely a meadow would appear on the right giving views of much more impressive snow-capped mountains where the recent precipitation had left a clear line of snow in the trees.

But the views weren’t everything. The road today had a shoulder of 0-12 inches most of the time, and the speed limit was an astonishing 70 miles an hour on a twisty mountain road with many blind corners and hills. The stupidity of this combination was clearly revealed through the sheer number of white crosses that appeared by the side of the road, marking fatalities along the roadway. You’d think the community or Montana DOT would catch on to this correlation, but apparently not yet. So needless to say I spent most of the day just wishing I was off of this road.

We came upon a turtle in the middle of the road trying to make its way across and pulled over into the grass on the side to try and rescue it. Cars continued to whizz by from either direction as we held our breaths. A number of cars managed to avoid it but a truck clipped the side of its shell, sending it flying and twirling through the air, smacking back down on the pavement. It’s hard to tell if the turtle was injured much, but it definitely did urinate all over the roadway from the shock. Donald grabbed it and delivered it to the other side of the roadway and we wished it well.

After a long day we finally were able to turn onto a side road which took us to the town of Bigfork. This town is doing rather well – seems to attract a fair number of tourists and all of the parking spots downtown were filled up. Onwards to Glacier National Park tomorrow!

Notes from Donald: “This lake country of Montana is beautiful but riding on the road through it makes it hard to appreciate. I’m glad that road is behind us now.”

Today’s mileage: 76 miles

Total: 2014 miles