Spokane Washington to Miles City Montana

There was no bread or bagels in the Super 8 breakfast nook this morning. We headed out before 6:30, still partly hungry. The rear tire always looks worse in the morning, so I think I will just look at it at night in the future.

We had stopped on the wrong side of Spokane. My general rule is to try to get through a city before stopping to avoid rush hour traffic in the morning. I guess we were early enough, though, because the traffic density wasn't a real problem and we were through Spokane and into Idaho before we knew it.

While we rolled through Coeur D'Alene, I worked on breakfast plans. The GPS said the next two McDonald's were in Kellogg, Idaho and Missoula, Montana. We would be in Kellogg sooner than we wanted to eat but we would get to Missoula, with the time change, after the breakfast was finished. So Kellogg it was. But it wasn't, because they were sealing the McD's parking lot and the place was closed. So we rode over Fourth of July and Lookout Passes and had a breakfast of hamburgers and fries in Missoula.

In the Missoula Mickey D's, we met a Beemer GS rider returning to Seattle from Detroit. We shared some tales of cross country riding and then went our separate ways.

The ride to Billings on I-90 was dull. The ride from there to Miles City, Montana was duller. I was trying for Glendive, the town I got stuck in for four days back in 1988 waiting for a drive shaft for my GL1100. I haven't been back since. But it was 38C (100F) and the sun was going down so we stopped at a Super 8 in Miles City, Montana after a 693 mile day.

There was a couple from Quebec on a Harley towing a trailer at the motel. They had just had the primary chain tensioner rebuilt in Billings under extended warranty and were now heading home to Quebec City. I talked to them for a bit while bringing in our luggage and then Sandy and I turned in early.