Friends, Friends, Everywhere

The road from Missoula started off promisingly, with one of my most pleasant days of riding on this trip yet. Highway 200 provided a gentle route paralleling the Clark Fork river (and thus avoiding any passes), traversing a comparatively easy path through rugged mountains, against a backdrop of sprawling vistas of gentle valleys girded by snow-capped ranges. A blue sky filled with fluffy, tame clouds and breaking sun and a light wind at my back completed the picture of an ideal day of riding. I met a fellow cyclist, Wes, who’s been circumnavigating the states for the last ten months, from New York to Florida to California to Washington, and is currently on his way back home to New York. (A bit more ambitious than me, I think, but who knows what the future holds?...) A gushing roadside artesian well provided me with the sweetest water just when it was most needed, and an isolated spot in a copse of trees on the bank of the river beckoned me to bed down at the end of the day. In all the ways that the road can give to a traveler, this day showed no end to its magnanimity. From the waterside, I watched the stars and bats and vespertine birds awaken from their slumber as I slipped into mine. I was happy I had checked the weather forecast before I left town, though, because any other night I would’ve simply unrolled my sleeping bag under the open sky; instead, I enjoyed the comfort that a warm tent provides when a torrential storm decides to blow through in the middle of the night.

The following day couldn’t’ve stood in sharper contrast. I snuggled up in bed longer than usual, hoping that the morning rain would soon pass. A couple of hours later, with not respite in sight, I resigned myself to the idea of a soggy day, and headed off into the all-too-familiar grey. A fierce headwind tore at me relentlessly, the bitterly cold rain continued to fall, and my slight downhill of the day before had somehow turned into an entire day of inexplicable uphill battle, despite me continuing to follow in the path of the river. Nearing the end of the day, I had barely logged a paltry 40 miles, and I was just beginning to think about looking for a place to set up camp and call it quits for the day, when a person in a car flagged me down from the side of the road. A woman, Sarah, had driven by me a few minutes before, and had turned around after a couple of miles to come offer me a dry place to sleep for the night. She directed me to her house about eight miles further down the highway (and somehow, the road suddenly turned downhill again), where I stayed with her and her two-year-old son. In a truly generous display of Montana hospitality, I was fed a dinner of elk steaks with sautéed mushrooms, a nourishingly warm and brothy mushroom soup, salad, and woken in the morning with farm-fresh eggs and blueberry pancakes with homemade raspberry jam. Sarah was a transplant from Portland with a well-honed astuteness (she surmised, by my piercings and the fact that I had started in Portland, that I was a vegetarian, but by my horns, that I wasn’t vegan). As it turned out, that night was her and her husband’s fourth anniversary, but he was off in Helena on some work-related training, and we joked about her having dinner with another man on her anniversary. I was sent off in the morning fed, warm and dry, laden with apples, and in high spirits once again.

I made it to Sandpoint that afternoon, where I met up with an old friend, Justin, whom I briefly lived with in Seattle. I stayed with him for a day, spending much of my time recovering from a hangover from my first night there. (Note: absinthe is always bad news.) His friend, Florence, was visiting from Quebec for the summer, here to see the States for the first time and practice her English, and I got to practice all my mad French skills (voulez-vous du beurre?) in turn. I hadn’t seen Justin in almost two years, and he’ll likely be moving out to Portland, Maine this coming fall after going on (musical) tour this summer, so I’m glad I got the time to visit and catch up with him, before he makes his flight from this lovely corner of the continent.

From Sandpoint I made a mad dash to Tum Tum, WA, a place I once called home, and is easily one of the most special and sacred places I’ve ever been. My friend, Katherine, has 100 acres of rural mountain land, bordered by expansive DNR property and similarly conservation-minded neighbors; she and another friend Rob and I all lived out here about five years ago, gardening, brewing, saunaing, and communing our way through a quiet revolution of spirit. By astounding coincidence, both Katherine and Rob were both out at the land when I got here on Sunday, despite Katherine currently living in Seattle, Rob near San Diego, and me in Eugene; this has been the first time the three of us have been together in several years, and all that’s missing is a pair of goats, a cat and a deceased dog to complete the family once again.

Sunset at Vision Mountain.

It’s been every bit as soul-nourishing as always to be out the mountain, and all the better to experience a serendipitous and unexpected reunification of community. Springtime is far and away the best time of the year to be here, with still verdant hillsides filled with blooming burdock, lupine, shooting stars and bitterroot. I've taken a few days here for myself so far, basking in sun and old friendships, hiking, chopping wood, and enjoying the silence that permeates the air. Lack of cellular telephone service and good ol' fashioned dial-up internet couldn't serve me much better right now.