Day 18 of ALAA-Tues, May 31st, 2011. Republic, WA to Kalispell, MT

Today I started in WA, rode quickly through Idaho (the Idaho Panhandle is only about 40 miles wide!) and am spending tonight in Kalispell, Montana. It's all been just run of the mill magnificent scenery, beautiful rivers and lakes, and a lot of small towns full of friendly people. For some reason, people tend to approach me and talk about travel. I tell them about ALAA and they just shake their heads like I'm from a looney bin or something (of course, it may be true?) or they want to know more-when you're traveling this long and this far alone, it's nice to talk with someone. Now I TRY to control my verbal diarrhea but . . . most of you know that I'm not very good at that! Depending on the weather (snow?), tomorrow I should be visiting my fifth national park on ALAA: Big Bend, Redwoods, Olympic, North Cascades, and Glacier. They are all beautiful but spectacular in their own unique ways. This may seem somewhat disjointed to you but I'm cheering on the Dallas Mavericks to beat the Heat in game 1 of the NBA Finals. Go Mavs!

Sorry but a couple from Florida asked if I wanted them to take a picture of me in front of Lake McDonald in GNP.

Here are some pics of Glacier NP with snow on all the mountains. I was sitting on a picnic table on the Road to the Sun and this deer walked by just as calm as could be. It walked within about 10 feet of me and didn't seem spooked at all!


I didn't get to follow the Road to the Sun all the way to the East Entrance of GNP because the road is closed due to snow! A ranger told me I could ride the entire road if I wanted to come back in about a week. You should have seen his face when I told him that in a week I would probably be in Maine! It's funny the response you get from people!