Bicycle Ride to Whitefish

Hi Blog! It's been really rainy here the last couple of days.  We did a lot of trip planning and booked our airline tickets back to Philadelphia for T.O. and Michelle's wedding in November.  Today is Sunday, August 4th.  The day dawned clear and bright.  We'd been talking about getting the bikes out and taking a ride into Whitefish, MT.  Today was the day.  However, we needed to be back in camp by 3:00 p.m. in order to Skype with Matt, Weina, William and Bubu.  We checked the mileage - 16 miles one way.  We used to bike back and forth to work and that was 12 miles, so we figured we could manage a few extra, so off we went.

Just down the road from our campground is the Helena Flats Elementary School. Here is the original school house building.  Rather than tear it down and build a new school, they just added onto this building.

The folks out here in Montana love their horses.  They are no longer used to work the farms and ranches.  It is a hugh expense to keep them, so we know they just keep them because they love them.  Here is my favorite of the bunch.  He's spotted just like a Dalmation puppy.

And who could resist the cutest couple of donkeys ever - Frick and Frack.  The funny thing about riding a bike out here, is that the animals just don't know what to make of it.  They are so used to cars and trucks whizzing by that they don't even lift their heads up out of the grass, but ride a bike near them, and they all stop what they are doing and watch us go by.

Ok, we couldn't resist this little piece of Americana.  How can you hate a white-washed shed with a purple door with a Christmas wreath on it.

Just as we were coming around the corner, we came across some deer in the field.  Several cars passed by and the deer never even blinked.  As we approached, they high-tailed it up the mountain side. Bikes are scary!

We had no destination in mind when we arrived in Whitefish.  We were just going to cruise up and down until we found a nice cafe or restaurant to take our break.  As soon as I saw "Casey's" I had to stop.  Casey's is the name of the pub in Malvern that we use to go to lunch to all the time.  While this Casey's didn't have world famous crab cakes, it did have a bar on the roof called Skybar.  We enjoyed great view of the city and the Whitefish Ski Report.  Glenn Marshall will be happy to know that we did not have any alcohol.  We only had nice, healthy lunches - and David had a tomato juice.

Most of the area between Kalispell and Whitefish is still farming country.  Some of the roads we traveled were just oiled gravel.  There were large sections that were heavily washboarded. However, our comfort trail bikes were more than up for the challenge.  They are not fast, by any stretch of the imagination, but they are sturdy and can take a pounding.

Here a bunch of cows are sharing their field with several bee colonies.

Most of our ride was through a very flat valley.  However, there was one hill we had to climb which meant we had to come down it on the way home.  The road was all loose gravel.  We thought of our friend, Bill Steinmetz, who recently took a fall from his bike on gravel and had to have his hip replaced.  Bill is doing great now with his rehab, but it still gave us pause as we headed carefully down this hill.

The Glacier International Airport is located right off Route 2 between Kalispell and Whitefish - convenient to Glacier National Park and the vacation homes of the wealthy that dot the landscape among the working farms.  Our route took us to the backside of the airport.  We saw a few small jets take off and decided we didn't need to buy that ranch at the end of the runway.

We got back with just a few minutes to spare before our Skype call.  Wow - 32 miles, not bad for a couple of old people.  By the way, we are going into Glacier tomorrow.  We are looking forward to hiking the Garden Wall.

Chat at you later!