Day 66, Saturday, August 20

On my way out of the park this morning, I headed past the ranger station again and picked up some reading materials about the park There in the brochure, clear as day, was a listing of which campsites in the park have showers. There are about 3 of them. That really pisses me off. You are expected to treat the rangers as though they know what the hell they’re talking about. In this case, both rangers essentially lied to me. Instead of going for a hike today as I’d originally planned, I moved my campsite to the Many Glacier (seems like the word glacier ought to be plural there but that’s the name…Many Glacier) campground on the East side of the park. Getting there was a real chore though. Traffic in the park was bumper to bumper and consistently I had idiots in their rented Cruise America RV’s cut me off and stop abruptly in front of me on steep hills. Because of the trailer I’m pulling, my motorcycle definitely does not like starting off on hills. It’s incredibly rough on the clutch. I’ve concluded that while the concept behind the “CruizeAmerica” campers is a great one, give people the chance to rent a camper so they cans see the parks in relative comfort, it’s also a dangerous one. Why? Because you get ton’s of city dwelling folks from the US and especially from Europe (where the cars are almost all small) stuck behind the wheel of 30 foot full sized trucks with ABSOLUTELY NO INSTRUCTION on how to drive them. They’re pretty much the worst group of drivers on the road.
Anyway, I set up camp at the Many Glacier campsite, and went for a short hike up to Apikuni Falls. While I was up there, just sitting and contemplating, a coyote started to walk by me, unaware of my presence. Let me tell you, the second I reached for camera, that animal darted like its life was at stake. Bummer, I’d have liked a picture.
This evening a guy stopped by my campsite, never really introduced himself, and wanted to talk motorcycles. He was kind of a strange bird. English accent, scraggeldy hair, and fairly nasty, smelly jacket and clothing. Turns out he’s and ex-teacher, is on a 2-year trek on his Kawasaki 650cc dual sport motorcycle, and wanted to talk about the possibility of pulling a trailer with it. I told him that, based on my experience with this trip, I’d strongly recommend against him trying it. The motor on his bike is simply too small and the suspension on bike is too tall. It was interesting to talk with him about where he’d been (US and Central America) and compare notes on what each of us had seen in the places we had in common. I found out that I’ve managed to see a lot more of the scenery than he..