Day 18 Dog Creek Lodge to Whitefish MT

July 5, 2023

The Dog Creek Lodge was a really nice place. I told Hubs if I could take the mattress and the pillows home I would. They were soooo comfortable but for some reason I didn’t sleep well. We knew when we left this morning that we had a climb right out of the gate. You guessed it, it became a pusher. We were on route 93 again so we knew the traffic would be bad and of course the shoulders may or may not have been there. We had to do about 5 miles and take a left off of 93. Phew. Well, the road was dirt which isn’t too bad but when we saw it go up we decided to get back on 93. We only had to go another 5 miles or so and then we would take a different road. When we finally made the right hand turn we felt like we were in the Montana that we biked 6 years ago. It was quiet, the properties were beautiful and we didn’t have any climbs. You know the old saying, “all good things must come to an end”. It did. We had to make another couple of turns off this road and that’s when it became hell. This road had NO shoulder at all and the turns were sharp and steep. We decided to push for our own safety. Luckily this guy pulling a 5th wheel slowed way up and held the traffic back for us. When we got to the end we had to turn back on route 93 but this was not like the route 93 we had the previous 2 days. There was barely a shoulder and if it was there it was all chopped up. The road was a mess and the drivers were crazy. It is a 70 mph road. We finally found our turn onto another dirt road but it was well packed down. It actually brought us into Whitefish and had a nice bike lane. We happened to get in real early, like before noon but none of the rooms were ready. The lady here did tell us that check in was at 4 pm. Oh no, what do we do now? We told her we would go get lunch and maybe one of the rooms would be ready. No such luck. She told us that they each had to do their own laundry but still couldn’t someone do a room up and let us have it? We finally got one a little after 2 pm. We decided to see if we could replace our 4 wheels with something else with 4 wheels so that tomorrow we could go to Glacier National Park. Budget rent a car wasn’t open so I thought maybe a car dealer would rent us one. So off to Subaru we went to meet Bill. What a great guy he was. We said if we rented the car now when would it have to be back and he said 24 hours. So we said could we come back and pick it up@ 4:30 so we could have it till 4:30 tomorrow. He said how about I give it to you now and you can have it till 5 pm tomorrow? Wow, ok. He asked us where we would be driving it as he was going to give us an electric car and we would have 250 miles @ no charge but we didn’t want to take a chance so we took a gas car. I tried to get tickets for the road to the sun for tomorrow but they didn’t have any so I texted Joyce to see how she did it. She had reservations before hand but did tell us we could get in after 3 pm for free, plus Hubs had his National Parks card. Bill had told us the same thing so we decided to go today. Boy was it busy. The views were beautiful but when we came to where the wall on the edge was real low I couldn’t look out. My height fear took over. I did see some spectacular views so it wasn’t like I was missing something awesome. When we got to the top we went in to get a drink but they don’t sell food or drinks so we started back down. Now I could look out more as I was on the inside of the mountain. Just as we were leaving we did see a mountain goat. Yay I got to see A wild animal. So tonight we can relax as we decided to also stay tomorrow night so there will not be any biking per se tomorrow. Hopefully we can mail some of our stuff home to maybe lighten the load. We did get to see what we will be biking once we leave here and there is a good section of no shoulder again. Can’t wait for when we get into what I call the calm areas. There were some miles of biking paths that we will be on but know if they go past the entrance to Glacier. We will have to see.

This is the first dirt road we got on and decided to get off

This is an entry to a ranch we saw on the road we really did enjoy riding on. It was gorgeous

I did get to see my girlfriends finally. I love seeing the cows. Have to say Good Morning Ladies every time I see them.

Can’t go buy a hay bale without having a Green Acres picture taken

This was the 2nd dirt road we took. Much better

Hubs saw some artwork and had to get a picture

This is Bill. He was just the best guy to work with while renting a car. If I lived in the area I would definitely buy my next car from him. Thanx Bill for your great hospitality

The ski mountain you can see from near our motel

This was the shuttle they had and Hubs counted 12 of them. Always on the move

Mountain goat. He seems to blend in the background

Gorgeous hanging plant at a restaurant we stopped at.

Today's ride: 26 miles (42 km)
Total: 2,923 miles (4,704 km)

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Joyce KramarGlad you were able to get into Glacier! Looks like you had a beautiful day for it!
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9 months ago

Debbie ColeNice! A whole day off the bikes with a vehicle for exploring. The photos are amazing. It must be so scary when there’s no shoulder and they’re riding 70 miles an hour past you be safe sounds like you’re having fun.
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9 months ago