EAST BOUND AND DOWN

I am at Sandpoint, ID tonight. I made about 450 miles today. I was on the road about 11 hrs. Most of the travel was on WA 20. I rode it from I-5 to US 2. It was a very fun motorcycle road. I could see that by all the bikes that were running the pavement. It is full of nice curves (sweepers) and some really nice twisties ( tight corners). This morning and early afternoon I had excellent riding weather. The sun was out and the air was warm. I enjoyed the run through the tall Douglas Firs and other big trees. The only problem was that the trees blocked the Sirius signal.

I followed the Skagit River to its origin. It was interesting to see the reserviors because they looked like giant emeralds. This river takes alot of the snow and glacer water to the Pacific. The color is the result of the mineral silt that flows into the river. It looked much the same as the last time I came through in June, 1990. I did notice that the last reservior was a clearer color. There is apparently much less silt that high up. I passed a couple of areas where the trees apeared to be dying. It looked like there was a major shortage of water in this area. There were all kinds of signs stating that there was a total ban on any type burning.

The problems started after my brief stop for lunch. I noticed the sky cloud up and then the clouds got dark. I stopped and got set for rain. I had just completed the process when I ran into the rain. I hit a couple of hard downpours. The rest of the time of the time I was just in a drizzle. The real problem was that they were working on this road at this time. They had recently put down tar and small pea gravel to resurface the road. The gravel was packed down but there was still alot of it on the road. That slowed the travel time conciderable. About an hour down the road I had a real treat. They had just freshly layed the tar and gravel. That was a very slow ride. In addition I was going over a pass with very tight corners. I like corners but not under these conditions. Riding on that type gravel is like trying to walk on b-b's, not fun.

In eastern WA I finally connected with the Pend Oreille River. I followed that all the way to Sandpoint. The biggest problem that I experience for the whole day was that this past week of being off the scoot softened the postierier and legs. I had sore legs and burning bunns most of the day. It sure felt good to get to the motel tonight. Like I said when I started, a very long day. I hope to do equally well tomorrow. Milo

AUG 1 THE DAY BEFORE I START AGAIN

I spent the day getting ready to load up tomorrow and head east. Last night I talked with my friend Ted about us hooking up. They were in north central CO last night. Their plan was to head east today. We had a good talk but agreed that I would probably be about 1 day behind them. Also, they are going across the central US and I plan on taking the High Line.

The past week has been very relaxing. Of coarse, Lorrie was working every day and Marty was suppose to be off all week but got called in for overtime on 2 days. I took tuesday as a "go to hell" day and spent the day readying a book that Lorrie got from the Library. It is call the "Horse Solders" and I highly recommend it. It is about the start of our war in Afganistan. It also documents how badly the Bush Administration messed that war up once we had it won. I am talking about Afganistan not Iraq. Enough on that for now, I need some serenity for tonight.

I did cook up a mess of Milo Special Spagetti Sauce and now they have spagetti enough for 2 months. They both like the sauce. I got to me another neat new acquantance while here. Marty and Lorrie have a fellow glass worker living here during the summer. Allen is currently frScottdale AZ but fount the heat to much for him this summer so he came north. He is really a nice open minded guy who makes just really beautiful fused glass jewelry. I am really impressed by how he works the glass, which is difficult and make really unique items. He is also a fellow philosopher and we all have had many a spritual discussion. It was refreshing to have those this week.

Marty had a number of projects on his lists. We got some acomplished and had fun each day as we did them. Theresa and Nichol were also involve in the process. The week was full of friends having fun doing things together. Between Lorrie and I, we got the office trim cleaned, stained and finshed. We also got the replacement door for her bedroom finished. Shadow and Nuggy convinced Puzzini to crawl out the window last night.

I am packed and ready to go. I am going to miss this visit but look forward to getting home. I have contacted Skip to call me to set up a stop over on my way through MT. I haven't heard back from him yet. I plan on doing WA 20 east to US 2. Then I will cross ID and head into some back road around NW MT. I traveled some of these road when I came out to Seattle for the International in 1990. I want to go back and look them over again. I do plan on doing the "Going to the Sun" hwy over Glacier Pk and then will hook up with 2 again and put the hammer down to US 13 in WI. Jim told me that I need to avoid Daluth because they have some major bridge construction going on there, so I will need to check out the map.

This has been a good run but am really looking forward to getting home. I will keep this updated as I travel my return trip. Should be home on Thursday or Friday. Later Milo