June 10 Friday, Whitefish to Essex, MT

https://ridewithgps.com/trips/92918327   (June 10 route)

We did not get around to posting anything written about our journey yesterday because it was just very late by the time the day got done. (We had too much fun with our Warm Showers hosts). We finally had a day with no rain. In Eureka we were only about 6 miles from the Canadian border.  Leaving town, we had a wonderful road at first with little traffic and several deer sightings.  Had mid morning snack in Fortine with good tasting muffins.   We saw Becky who we'd had supper with her and her husband two days before and spent some time chatting about some of the maladies of being in our 60s. Here we rejoined the main road, US 93. We had great views of the mountains with snow on them and occasionally of the river that we followed a lot of the way. The road for the most part was pretty reasonable as far as traffic but the last 6 miles or so before we got into Whitefish was very busy with poor shoulders and so was a very unpleasant and uncomfortable road but there were no other choices.  We stayed with warm shower hosts again and just had a fun visit talking about their bike travels and lives. He's retired from his profession and has become a part-time Uber driver.  Had good tasting hamburgers from the grill as well as some local beer.  We then played a game of Quiddler, Kay did very well. Originally we were going to stay in our tent pitched in their yard but then the forecast  changed to predicting rain during the night.  So we took down our tent and slept on their living room floor and we're really glad we did because it rained a fair amount.

       Today we slept in just a little bit, must be the beer and the game tired us out. The roads were wet but no rain. We were very thankful for the quiet route out of town (saw both a hen and a tom turkey in the road at different spots). We then had a wonderful backroads route, then a bike path along a busy highway into West Glacier. Saw a freshly killed doe along the road and Jim had to stop and look. Didn't find any ticks on her but she had some mammary development that made us concerned that she had been nursing a fawn.  We also crossed the Flathead River just below where the North Fork and Middle Fork joined together.  After looking at a map, we discovered that the border of Glacier National Park follows both forks so we were seeing a tiny bit of the park across the water. We had debated whether to take Going to the Sun road across the park or take Marias Pass but the decision was made for us as Logan Pass is still closed.  From West Glacier to Essex we took US 2 and that was somewhat busy but had a fair to middling shoulder.  We are staying for two nights at the Isaak Walton Inn, partially because there is rainy weather predicted for tonight and tomorrow, and partially to celebrate our 44th wedding anniversary a little early.  It's a beautiful historic inn that was built in 1939 to house railway workers clearing snow for the trains in winter and sightseers in the summer. People still come here in the summer time to see Glacier but the winter time they also come to cross country ski.  We had seen this place on our train trip to Seattle and this evening saw the same train go by. Today we only got a few sprinkles on us for a very short time.