Day 7 - May 15

Whew!

A few folks we met along the way suggested that we ought to avoid Idaho altogether, since some of its residents are reputed to have an aversion to people driving them furrin sports cars (and they're armed). But since Idaho was in our way, we gritted our teeth and blasted through. Hey, it wasn't so bad!

We left north out of Spokane on US Route 2, which will be our byway for the next couple of days. Yesterday, it rained all day and the forecast was for more today, but they couldn't have been more wrong—it was beautiful! Our route took us through Glacier National Park, a beautiful area in the Rockies. We tried to take a northern 50-mile detour through the park, but it was still snowed in and won't open till June—good thing we asked.

Tech Corner: (Hope this doesn't become a regular feature.) Our fuel consumption appears to be on the high side—we're getting less than 20 MPG. It's partly due to altitudes and, uh, the pace we're maintaining, but still something seems amiss. Today, we encountered some very rough roads in a construction area, and they jarred loose the wiring to the side marker light, which then was shredded by the font tire. We also had to replace a broken headlight this evening.

But otherwise everything's going fine, and we're enjoying a lot of terrific American Beauty. Montana is the Big Sky State (or something like that), and we can testify to it.

We're (sadly) beyond the Rockies now and about one third of the way across Montana, staying in the city (?) of Shelby in some gawd-awful fleabag motel because of some gawd-awful golf tournament that's going on. (Golf in Montana?)

This is where we went today
Today's Map

Stealth Fighter
Concerned about potential conflicts with the northern Idaho local population of sports car loathers, we decided to camouflage the GTV with a good coating of mud in hopes that it would be mistaken for a pickup truck.

Glacier National Park
Stunning beauty. The GTV is so mud-encrusted that she doesn't add as much to the scene this time.

A Slight Adjustment
The wires to the side marker light came loose and got shredded by the tire, so we taped it up and jammed it up inside the fender to be tended to in Massachusetts. The headlight is also broken.

A Last Goodbye...
...to the Rocky Mountains, as we head out onto the Montana plains.

John's view to the left...
...for most of the last 1500 miles, and for another couple thousand to come. Total concentration, eyes glued to the road, 90 MPH ... well, something like that.

Flattening out.
The Rockies are at our back. To our front is ... about 10,000 miles of this flat crap.

Beer(s) of the Day

(Various)
Bayou Brewing Company

Doug warned us that the good brewpub in Spokane had closed. He was right. We found this one. Blecccch! Yugggggh! Ptoi! Gag me! OK, sue us, but we're gonna call 'em like we taste 'em—their beers were horrid.

Moose Drool Brown Ale
Big Sky Brewing Company, Missoula, MT

We were enraptured by the name. It's much, much better than what we envision moose drool to be. Actually, it's better than that—a pleasant quaff.

Culture Feature

Lovely. This penguin is the town of Cut Bank's claim to glory—the inscription purports that Cut Bank is the "coldest spot in the United States". Yeah, right. I can remember that time laying out in the snow changing a transmission—ain't NOTHING colder than that.

Alfa Spotting!

Day 1	0	(Except for a bunch while still in San Francisco)
Day 2	0	(No Alfas, but one Fiat X-1/9 parked, but standing on its own wheels)
Day 3	0	(No Alfas, no Fiats, but one Corvair that looked like it might have run)
Day 4	1	The Milano parked in Doug Zaitz's driveway when we pulled in.
Day 5	23	That's 20 or so on the Wine Tour, plus the three in Doug's loft.
Day 6	12	(All of them in the Veloce Motors garage.)
Day 7	0	Hey, we were in Idaho and Montana.
__________	_____
Total	36

May 2001

May

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