This is the first time I’ve ever been in Montana! Only three continental states to go before I have them all!¹

I rose with the sun (or possibly with the old guy hacking next door to me), showered and ate the last of my Might O’s Doughnuts. These are the last good vegan doughnuts I’ll get until I get back to Seattle (unless Smartz comes up with something awesome).

As I was packing up, a nice couple from Spokane struck up a conversation with me about riding. They have a couple of Harleys and ride mostly on the weekends, though not this weekend. Again, it was strange for me to say “I’m heading back to Pennsylvania.”

Some people never get to cross the country. If they’re lucky, some scrimp and save and plan for months and then cross the country. And then there’s me who is crossing the country and not really even thinking of it as that. I’m just getting back to Pennsylvania. That’s sort of obnoxious of me.

It’s not that I’m not enjoying it, or that I’m planning on not enjoying it. I love riding. I could ride all day. I’m just spent on appreciating things like scenery. I explained this to the nice couple who then talked about the sage brush they saw on their way from Spokane to Wilber. I saw that very same sage brush about an hour later. Riveting.

I packed it all up and rode off towards Montana. I haven’t really looked at a map to see how not straight this road actually is. Sure, there are long straight stretches, but it also winds its way through eastern Washington, Idaho and western Montana. Who knew?

US 2 took me through Spokane, which really reminded me of Hagerstown, Maryland. Weird, huh? But it did. It was still up and running, but kind of used and abused. I didn’t stop to take pictures.

But soon, and actually before I thought it would be, was Idaho. Going east, the mile marker numbers go up. I have no idea when they’ll end. Going west, on the other hand, you’re counting down to zero. Idaho crept up on me!²

And that’s how it was. How long would I be in Idaho? No idea, really. Couldn’t be too long, I was going through the tiny chunk of Idaho, the panhandle.

But it was longer than I thought. Maybe 80 miles. Reason? Well US 2 turned north, straight north, while following US 95. That took more time than I figured, but it was a nice ride.

I don’t think I’ve seen a part of Idaho that I didn’t really like. I’m not sure many other states can say that. And I’ve been through quite a bit of Idaho!

Idaho seemed to last forever, though, like I said, it was only 80 miles or so.

But not too long after I had given up hope of Idaho actually having an eastern border, I crossed into Montana.

And things probably got a lot prettier. I’ve heard Montana was really fun to look at. And I’m betting they were right. It’s not that I didn’t look. I mean, I sort of have to, right? I saw mountains off in the distance. Or maybe that was in Idaho. It’s all pretty mountainous.

Thankfully, it wasn’t very touristy.

Not a huge fan of tourists.

Montana was, well, so far… Montana is full of trees. Big green ones! Not California big. Not even Oregon big. But still, big. Conifers! I bet there was a larch!

One way to tell if you’re on a Montana road is that they mark their highway fatalities with white crosses. Each cross represents one fatality. They’re placed in the “exact” spot where they died (or where they were hit before being taken to the hospital where they died). It’s kind of creepy.

Usually, there were one or two crosses, signifying one or two fatalities. Those were all over. You could hardly go ten miles without seeing some.

This might have something to do with US 2 being a 70mph two-lane winding its way through hills and along cliffs. Maybe?

But I saw one that really made me pause. Actually, it made me turn around to make sure I saw what I thought I saw.

And I was right. 17 fatalities in one spot, probably in one accident.

As macabre as it might seem, I’d really like to know what happened here. I think it was near Kalispell. I could be really wrong about that, and I doubt anyone would really know (anyone who reads this, I mean). But 17 fatalities in one spot can’t be a good thing.

I shook off the grizzly reminder of how dangerous the road can be and traveled on.

Not too much longer and I was nearing West Glacier, where the KOA is. Ah, my home for the night! I entered and it was pretty busy. I didn’t figure I’d get a spot.

Honestly, I thought about just riding till dark. It was only 4pm. Yeah, 350ish miles before 4pm. And that’s with losing an hour due to crossing into the Mountain Time Zone! Go me!

But I didn’t have to keep going. While they didn’t have any spots open, they had “overflow.” What’s that? It’s a small strip of grass along the road. Hey, it’s only $20! AND I get a pretty ok WiFi connection there.

In retrospect, I probably should have kept moving. There’s this drive to not be traveling when you’re on your way home. It’s happened on all of my trips. I have an entire continent to cross! I even considered doing an IronButt Challenge (1000 miles in 24 hours or 1500 miles in 36 hours). I think I could totally do it! But I’d have to print out forms and such and don’t have that ability. And then laziness kicks in. Maybe tomorrow I’ll do 500 miles. Work my way up to 1000.

Oh tomorrow. Where will you take me?

Here are my pics from today.

Miles today: 344
Miles total: 8,328

1. North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin are yet to come [↩]
2. Sneaky Idaho! [↩]

I’ve heard the ride through Spokane, Idaho and into Montana is really nice. Let’s hope it is. It got cold last night and the ride this morning will be a chilly one. My stop tonight is West Glacier. I didn’t really want to hit this place on a weekend. I have a feeling it’s going to be wall to wall RVs and tourists.

The weather looks ok. Maybe a thunderstorm in the afternoon. And not too cold at night. I’ve got a 350 mile ride on US Route 2 today.

Here we go!

Noooooo, not the cute little movie! It’s my first day on the road in nearly a month!¹ Firstly, I’m sorry for not blogging my way through Seattle. There were tons of fun things going on, but I think I needed a break from writing. Oddly enough, in Seattle, I wrote my first poem in months.

Speaking of needing a break, I kept pushing back departure date because I was taking a break from travel. Turns out that while the break is over, I’m less than ready for it to be.

Basically, I’m through with traveling - for now anyway. I’m ready to move and get a place and set it all up and just start living a bit of the normal life (normal for me).

Riding today didn’t mean nearly as much as any other time I’ve been on the scooter since I left Pennsylvania. Except maybe the ride from Portland to Seattle. Yeah, today was better than that.

But both days illustrated to me that around 60 days is my limit.

So what does this mean? I’m not sure. Will the rest of my trip be miserable? Will I just ride like hell to get back to PA? I hope not. But unfortunately I do need to get back to PA. I have a few stops planned, like Brad in Kenosha and Rati & Dwija at New Vrndavana. I’m excited about both. I wish I would have planned… but the plans are out the window. I was supposed to be home over a month ago. I wasn’t even supposed to go to the Pacific North West. I wasn’t supposed to do a bunch of stuff. And now I’m paying the price.

Tonight, I got an email from Nila (Lilasuka’s daughter), I know her from New Vrndavana. She and her family now live near Spokane. But she’s actually two hours north of it. That would mean a whole day set aside for that. And at this point, I don’t have a whole day. That kind of sucks. A lot. But I’ll be in Seattle/Portland, so I’ll be able to visit.

Anyway, I’m just rambling. Let’s talk about the ride (remember that thing?).

I was hoping to ride out of Seattle around 8 or 9am. That didn’t happen, but it’s mostly ok. Why? Because Ryan, Jaime, Taviri, Arkaedi (that’s the correct spelling, I think) and Jeff headed to Mighty O Doughnuts. I got myself a half dozen for the trip!

On the way to Mighty O’s, my oil light came on. I pulled over and it went off. It came on while I was coming to a hard stop. If it’s going light up because it’s low on oil, that’s when it’ll first do it. Weird. Big People Scooters changed my oil, how could I be low? My engine was knocking a little bit, so I figured that the light was right.

I rode to Mighty O’s and had a mess of doughnuts, enjoyed the last few moments with some amazing friends and then went to check on the scooter.

I pulled the dipstick and it was dry. Odd. Big People Scooters just filled it up. But since there were no oil spots on the ground where the scooter was parked and I only rode it 20 or so miles since picking it up from the shop, I didn’t know what to think.

Goodbyes were said and hugs were exchanged. I’m really excited to be with these folks. I hope it all works out. I’ll be majorly unhappy if it doesn’t work out.

The nearest gas station was my next stop. I fueled up and bought some oil. It took half a quart. The engine only holds a tiny bit more than a quart. It was almost half empty. Wow. Huge screw up, BPS.

But the show must go on. So with a now quiet engine full of oil, I take to I-5 and then Washington State Route 522, which is much like an interstate here. And it was here that my throttle stopped working. It was stuck. I couldn’t turn it.

I coasted over to the shoulder and just sat there in disbelief. I tried the throttle again. It was obvious that it was binding on something. Big People Scooters pulled the engine to fix the exhaust stud. When doing that, they disconnected the throttle cable (I’m assuming it’s a cable, I’m not really sure how new Vespas with electronic fuel injection work in that regard) and then reconnected it when they reinstalled the engine, $350 later.

They screwed something up somewhere. Again. I finally worked the throttle free. It’s now pretty tight and I felt (and still feel) pretty uneasy with it, but it works. Something is still not right, but it works.

Honestly, the oil was a big mistake that should be basically impossible to make if you check the dipstick after adding oil. The throttle cable, I don’t know about, but I’m not a Vespa mechanic. However, both should not happen. Mistakes can be made, we’re all human, I get that. But how about a little double checking?

This stuff adds to my growing uneasiness with the rest of the trip.

I was running late. Traffic was bad and there was a ton of construction. I was beginning to think that I wasn’t going to make it to Spokane tonight. I heard that US 2, my route of choice, was really pretty through much of Washington. That was pretty true. It was green and the cool mountain air felt great.

And then traffic came to a dead stop. Ahead of me, I could see that there was something on the road. That something was a tree. It must have just fallen because there was only a handful of cars between myself and the obstruction.

Since the other lane wasn’t really being used, I took it up to the tree to see if I could maybe help move it. But it was pretty huge.

Most folks were on cell phones canceling appointments and telling loved ones that they’d be late. I took a few pictures and talked to some folks about my trip. It’s weird now. When people ask me where I’m heading, I found myself saying “back to Pennsylvania.” I guess this is really it.

At least it was beautiful. Washington is green and the morning clouds were burning off. It was another beautifully sunny Pacific North West day!

But with yet another delay, I was definitely not going to make Spokane tonight. Especially with my attitude.

Before too long, the guy with the chainsaw showed up and cut the tree apart, letting us through. Glory!

I crossed Steven’s Pass, which Ryan and Jeff both talked up quite a bit. And everything they said was true. It’s pretty beautiful. But after crossing about a billion passes, some near 10,000 feet, and being a bit grumpy, this 4,000 foot pass didn’t impress me. Sadly, it didn’t do much. I didn’t even take a picture.

I hope the rest of the trip isn’t like this. Maybe I should have garaged the scooter and taken a plane home. Maybe.

But, I thought, at least it’s a nice cool day and I’m surrounded by greenery.

Well, I was. Until the temperatures climbed to near 100 and the trees disappeared, being replaced by wheat and dirt. The mountains disappeared too. Welcome to Washington’s desert.

Here is where the ride got grueling. I wasn’t even 150 miles into it. Now I wasn’t riding to ride, I was riding to get to somewhere.

I wasn’t really sure where that somewhere was. It certainly wasn’t going to be Spokane. It would have to be a town somewhere between wherever I was and Spokane. Preferably something close. Though, as the ride wore on and I wore out, “something close to Spokane” became “something soon.” And not too long after, “something soon” became “please, God, something NOW!”

The temperature rose and the desert sucked. I usually love deserts. This was too much. I rode through a couple of towns. I wish I felt better. I would have stopped, taken a few pictures, checked out a few stops and had a good time. But this isn’t Route 66 and it’s certainly not the beginning of my trip. Maybe I just need to get my “sea legs” back.

The town of Wilber, Washington provided a couple motels. The Willows Motel is my choice for the night. And it’s quite nice. If you ever find yourself here, definitely stay. It’s a good place run by some nice folks.

And dear readers, that was my day. I’m beat and sleepy and hopefully tomorrow will be better. Sorry for being such a downer.

Miles while in Seattle: 67
Miles today: 233 (yeah, only 233)
Miles total: 7,984

1. I don’t actually have any idea how long it’s been [↩]

Ok, one and all! I’m loading up the scooter and riding east for the first time (well, I did it when riding to SLC, but that wasn’t REALLY east, that was just a fake east).

Expect an entry from the road tonight (or tomorrow, if’n I’m lazy).
Expect one tomorrow.

Goodbye, Seattle… Hello the rest of America!

Sing me out, Snowman!

I didn’t take a TON of pictures while in Seattle, but here are 60 or so.

Click to see them!

I’m pretty excited about moving here. It’s a nice town and there’s some fun things to do. Mostly, I’m moving here for the friends. My friend Sarah (the one who visited me in SLC) is planning on moving out here as well (actually, we’ll probably just make it a joint effort). That should be fun. Corby was thinking about it too. That would be wacky fun.

I’m going to take all the fun people from the Lewisburg area and move them to the west coast. That is my plan.

Ripley: I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
-Aliens

Starting tomorrow (night), this blog will go back to the regular daily on-the-road updates that you used to be used to.

Tomorrow night: Spokane area. Hang onto your seats!

Ok folks, just letting you know I’m not dead. I’ve been busy here in sunny Seattle (seriously, it’s been sunny everyday that I’ve been here except one!).

And I’ve decided to leave on Thursday morning. That should get me home around August 3th. We’ll see if that actually happens, but if all goes well, it should.

I’ve also decided to make Seattle my home. While I’m not completely in love with the place, it’s close. A bunch of my friends are here and I’m pretty thrilled about that. Sarah will also be moving out here, so that will be pretty cool too.

Portland was a very very close second, and I could see myself ending up there in a year or so and staying there “forever.” Albuquerque was also in the running and I could see myself there too. We really really dug Albuquerque. The east coast wasn’t on the radar. Winter and humidity… nah, you guys can keep it. I want mild, sunny summers and not freezing cold winters. I want to (and will) ride year round.

The rest of my summer plans are to get to the beach in early/mid August, head to New England in mid to late August and a possible gratuitous jaunt to Florida in early to mid September. Moving will happen in October.

The two main things I have to do while in PA is sell my Yaris and put a new engine in the Stella. Also, I have to figure out how I’m moving out to Seattle.

When I return to the road on Thursday, I’ll be blogging like I always have. I might even blog about the trip to New England (though not the one to Florida).

When I return to the road, it will be Day 78. I should return home on Day 95. Nearly three months of straight travel (with occasional stops in wonderful places). I pretty much love my life.

Ok, I realize this makes for some boring blogging, but I’m staying a few more days.

Basically, I’m just not feeling up to traveling just yet. Not sure why, but I’m pretty beat with the road. I think that will change soon, as I’ve felt a few twinges of wanderlust last night and already this morning.

I’m thinking that it’ll be Thursday. That should bring me home in the beginning of August. And that’s fine. I’ll spend a few weeks in PA and then head to New England on the Vespa. That should take me into September.

Just thought I’d let you know.

Sorry about this. I feel bad. I really wasn’t planning on staying in Seattle this long. Actually, I was planning on coming here at all! It’s funny how these things can change. But no worries, I’ll be back on the road soon enough, heading back across the country.

Woo! I can’t wait till I can’t wait!!

I liked rap and I liked metal. Go figure. But how could I combine the two? Rap and metal were light years apart.

One of my favorite metal bands was Anthrax. And one of my favorite rap acts was Public Enemy. Now, here’s a funny story - when I was in 9th grade, I bought PE’s “Fear of a Black Planet” (already owning “It Takes a Nation of Million…” Almost immediately after that, my parents found it and read the lyrics and promptly took them away from me.

Of course, about a week later, I found them, copied them, and again was the happy owner of the second and third Public Enemy albums. Go me!

They didn’t seem to have too much of a problem with Anthrax. I had their State of Euphoria album and dug the crap out of it. I also had the album before that, “Among the Living,” which had the song that really put them on the metal map - “Indians”

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I also had the “I’m the Man” EP, which was Anthrax’s tribute (?) to rap (which my parents, thankfully, never discovered). However, I was never sure if Anthrax liked rap or was just making fun of it. And with “I’m the Man,” how can you tell?

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But in 1991, Public Enemy and Anthrax got together and rerecorded the song “Bring the Noise,” a 1987 Public Enemy song I first heard on the Less Than Zero soundtrack that actually mentioned Anthrax (”was is for Anthrax”). I was pretty well in heaven.

By 1991 I was pretty well out of rap, diving fully into hardcore punk - even joining my first hardcore band that summer. Even so, I still listened to it a bit, especially Public Enemy. I don’t think I ever stopped listening to Anthrax. But this mixing of rap and metal really thrilled me and I still have a great time listening to it.

And, hey, I hope you did too!

Hello, and welcome back. Ready for a few more random hip hop videos from my past?

I’m still in Seattle and to pass the time (for you, not me - I’m actually rather busy!), I’m posting some videos of hip hop songs I dug when I was in middle school (circa 1986-1990ish).

Around that time YO! MTV Raps was on for two hours on Saturday mornings with Fab 5 Freddie.

It was Run DMC, however, who hosted the first show. So here’s RUN DMC’s “It’s Tricky” to start things off.

You’ll have to click here to see the video since Sony doesn’t allow embedding. Go figure.

Hey! It’s Penn & Teller when they weren’t freakishly right-wing and annoying.

The first group to have their video on YO! wasn’t Run DMC, it was Eric B. & Rakim. The first song I heard of theirs was “Follow the Leader,” which was also the first video on YO!, but my favorite cut was from the albums after that, called “Paid in Full.”

I was really getting into remixes and “Paid” had an amazing seven minute remix. This is the single version.

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YO! MTV Raps gave exposure to a bunch of groups I wouldn’t have heard of otherwise. And while this caused what I (and apparently Madhava Gosh) see as the downfall of rap and thus the hip hop culture.

One of those groups was EPMD. Now, I never really got into EPMD, but I dug their song “Strictly Business.” Great use of samples.

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Rap started to change with the increased popularity and shifting of styles from the carefree Run DMC type stuff to the more overtly political Public Enemy type stuff. I followed it up until the NWA album came out. After that, it opened the floodgates to “gangsta rap,” something that I really couldn’t relate to and didn’t care for.

One of the last acts I saw on YO! was Audio Two. MC Milk’s style was a bit off beat (literally) and that’s what a lot of rap artists are doing today. I’m not sure where he got that idea from or if he influenced anyone else to do it, but I always dug “I Don’t Care”…

YO! fans will notice that the intro to the show was largely taken from this video.

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That’s it, folks. I hope someone’s interested in this.
I realize that this is mostly a scooter / Route 66 sort of blog, but really, it’s my blog, so I get final say.

Which is why I’m now going to play “Angry White Boy Polka”

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And this…

Well, one of the reasons is the IWFL Championship Game. IWFL is the Independent Women’s Football League. The Seattle Majestics are taking on the Dallas Diamonds this Saturday at Memorial Stadium in Seattle.

I’m fairly excited about this. Most folks don’t know that there are minor league football teams, let along minor leagues womens’ football leagues. So on Saturday, we’ll go watch them womens play the football. Fun!

Incidentally, there is a Central Pennsylvania team called The Vipers. They didn’t do as well this year as they had hoped. They didn’t win a single game and actually didn’t even score a single point. Better luck next season, gals!

And on another note, PCN now has the Gettysburg DVDs for sale. It’s a right rip off, if you ask me, but I’ll probably end up getting them once I get back. Here and here.

It’s looking like I’ll be getting home on the 25th.