Idaho and Montana

We have arrived and spent our first night in Canada. I did a really good job going through the border, and did not call it Canadia once. The last few days of getting here have had their ups and downs. Mostly ups, though. Here are some highlights.

This is Capt. Lewis Meriwether's dog. We are at the Sacajawea Interpretive Center in Salmon, Idaho.

Southern Idaho: biscuits and gravy for breakfast at a gas station with itty bitty cafe, under the watchful eye of 10 elk, 3 deer, 1 pronghorn, and 1 silver fox--all of which were mounted and sporting a sign to tell us the name of the man who took each one. Eeewww. A little further on, I was sure a very small single prop airplane was going to fly into Josh as it crossed over the highway to land about 20 feet from the road. In hindsight, it was pretty cool to watch. Off the side of the same highway, there was a wildlife viewing platform you could walk up onto--overlooking a herd of cattle. Really, Idaho, that's the best you could do? Then the really fun part. As we are riding along and chatting (we have Sena SMH10 intercom/Bluetooth systems to talk to each other and listen to music on) my ABS light comes on and my speedometer needle takes a nose dive. It freaked me out a bit. Bike still worked properly, and brakes were not affected, so we drove until we found a place to pull off and check things over. Did I mention it was raining? An hour and a half later, we managed to get the problem fixed (and by we, I pretty much mean Josh), and headed into Montana.

Montana: We crossed over the state line by going over a mountain pass into the Bitteroot Valley in western Montana. It was so amazingly beautiful. I truly think western Montana is the most beautiful place in the country. We rode through the valley (beautiful), looked at the horse farms (beautiful), stopped in a small town for groceries (beautiful), and then found a campground at Lake Como for the evening. This was our third day of riding, and I was a little tired. Following dinner, I got in the tent to read and eventually fall asleep, and Josh went across the road to the horse campground (we were the only campers in ours and had to ride through the dirt around a barrier across the road to get in. We had called ahead and they said they weren't open for the season, but that we were welcome to camp if we wanted to) to see if anyone was there. He ran into John and Donna who were out on their Goldwing, pulling a trailer, for a long weekend. They came over in the morning and we chatted with them before we all got on the road. We have been super fortunate to meet some really great people, and we are only a couple of days in.