Some of the People I Met Along the Way (continued)

I met Mike and his wife Bernadette, from Missoula, and Bernadette's sister Madeleine (from Hampstead, Maryland, which is between Baltimore and Gettysburg), when I was about 20 miles west of the Lochsa Lodge. They were sightseeing, standing by their truck, and I stopped to talk. I enjoyed their company, and was ecstatic when Bernadette offered me a bottle of ice cold water from their cooler. Several miles after leaving Wilderness Gateway Campground on Monday, I realized that I had neglected to fill one of my three water bottles. It was a hot, dry day, and after drinking about 60 ounces of water that I had in a Camelback, I was down to two 20 ounce bottles to last the next 20 miles. Of course, with numerous (ice cold) creeks running into the Lochsa River, I could have stopped any time, purified some water, and had a cold refreshing drink. But I was impatient to reach the Lochsa Lodge and so had not done so and was keeping my thirst at bay, barely, by occassional sips of warm water. That bottle of cold water from Bernadette was just what I needed.

They were all staying at the Lochsa Lodge, also, and so we had dinner together and breakfast together the next morning. You wOne of Madeleine's three children, incidentally, goes to Pace University in NYC and will be living in Brooklyn next semester...small world. Mike and Bernadette have two sons, of the older of whom is now serving in Iraq; I congratulate him for taking this responsibility at the same time that I regret that our leadership created this damned war. For those of you interested in politics, Mike was wearing an "Obama" sticker on his shirt. He said that he thought that Western Montana would favor Obama, and that Eastern Montana, which is more conservative, would favor McCain.

Their picture is below, showing from right to left, Bernadette, Madeleine, and Michael. The fourth person, on the far left, is Lucas, whom we met the evening before and who joined us for breakfast. Lucas, a young pianist and Steinway salesman from Spokane (by way of Salt Lake City), is also bicycling from the west coast to the east coast. If you Google his name -- Lucas Kirby -- you will find that he is quite an accomplished composer and pianist. I understand that one of his compositions was "number 1" on the Internet charts for quite awhile.


I spent Monday as a rest day at Lochsa Lodge. In the afternoon three motorcyclists, Steve, Ron, and Al, rode in and they had the cabin next to mine. For the motorcycle buffs who are reading this, they had three beautiful bikes: a Honda GoldenWings; a BMW 1200GS; and a BMW 1200RS. We got acquainted, lounging on chairs in front of the cabins, in the afternoon, and then I joined them at their dinner table in the evening after I had finished my meal and they were starting theirs.

In the picture below, taken on Steve's camera and emailed to me, from left to right they are Al, me, Steve, and Ron. Al and Ron are from Lewiston, Idaho, and Steve is from Helena, Montana. They got together to ride along Route 12 and relax at the Lochsa Lodge. (The libarian just announced that the library is closing in a few minutes, so I need to wrap this up quickly!) Steve is a retired journalist who now keeping busy with his ranch, growing hay and raising beef cattle. Al, a retired businessman, dabbles a little bit with motorcycle sales -- he is called in when a potential customer needs to talk with a BMW expert, and he organizes bike tours in various locations, including New Zealand. Ron, who must be the youngster in the group, is still working, as an independent painter in Lewiston.