lake pend oreille
an impromptu trip resulting from a cancelled airline flight. thanks united!
1200 miles in 4 days averaging 53 mpg.
august 8th found me with packed bags and no flight. everything was arranged for me to be gone for 4 days so i never completed my weestrom ride back to work. instead i returned home, re-packed from the suit bag to the dry bag and headed north, originally intending on glacier national park to be my destination.
my 2006 wee (suzuki v-strom 650-called wee cause it's not the 1000)
i headed north up interstate 15 towards dillon montana and then took 278 working towards highway 43. i had heard this was a great road to travel by bike and in fact it was. after a fuel stop in wisdom, mt i was on 43. continuing on to 93 at chief joseph pass and down to rocky knob. rocky knob has great food and the accommodations you would expect for a $35 room for a single. the staff is great and the locals can crack you up if you catch them at the right time.
leaving rocky knob i continued up 93 towards missoula and then jumped on 200 towards lake pend oreille. forest fires were making things very smoky all along 93. i knew that glacier had also been smoky so i changed plans and headed for pend oreille, having wanted to see it for a long time. pend oreille is as gorgeous as they say.
lake pend oreille near the towns of hope
200 led to 95 south and into the coeur d'alene area and on to interstate 90 east. i-90 led to 3 which i took south to st maries, id and then back tracked on 3 to 97 and along the east shore of lake coeur d'alene and back to i-90.
the coeur d'alene river along highway 3
a family group of wild turkeys in the wolf lodge area.
leaving the coeur d'alene area i rode i-90 back to 93 and essentially back tracked my route home along 43 and 278 until i turned off of 278 and headed to bannack montana.
bannack montana
grasshopper creek at bannack montana
leaving bannack i headed to highway 324 and then to lemhi pass, a historic pass taken by lewis & clark, except they didn't do it on motorcycles ;) lemhi pass led me back to 28 and on home via mud lake and terreton.
the ease of using this dry bag has me re-thinking my need for more expensive luggage. two up this won't work quite so well, but i will have to see how often i ride two up i guess ;)
on this trip i managed about 40 miles of dirt roads. mind you these were excellent roads although a few places were fairly steep. i was happy with the wee's ability to compression ride down the grades and hold my speed around 10 mph. my klr always wanted to go 30 mph down such grades and that was a trait i didn't like about it.
on the highway the klr cannot even compare to the wee in terms of power or comfort.
looking east from atop lemhi pass
