Woke up with thunder and a little bit of rain at around 7am. Made slow work of getting camp packed up, and headed over to St. Mary's at about 9. I started driving up the pass, but realized that was just silly, so I pulled a u-turn and parked down at the boat dock. Rode up to pass in just over an hour, temperature was perfect. At the top a girl offered to take my picture by the sign, and turns out she's a graphic designer for Hammer Nutrition - she noticed my waterbottles. Cruised back down at mach speed, then cleaned up in the lake, which was tough as the rocks there are bad on bare feet. Got back in the car at 11:45 and started to log some miles.
I decided to picnic near lake McDonald, next to a vacationing family of 5 whose waistlines didn't indicate they were here to bicycle Logan Pass. As I made my way out to West Glacier it went from hot to stinking hot... which put me in the mood for some cherries from a roadside stand, and got talked into taking a bag of huckleberries too.
As I headed south, I decided to hang a left on highway 83 along the east side of Swan Lake. Right at the turn, there's a few shops, so I stopped in and got Tori a little present. Peak temperature the car thermometer registered was 37C, so I stopped a couple of times for a swim.
Pulled into Helena at about 7pm, and grabbed a cup of tea from starbucks that was a block away from a downtown music and arts festival. Hung out there for an hour or so, and scoped out some of the food tents. After that it was just a quick drive down near Townsend, at the south tip of Canyon Ferry Lake. Had a swim in the river and made camp before the mosquitos got me.
sweet! i dont know if i've ever told you this, but i LOVE presents!
ReplyDeletealso, as it turns out, i was also recently upsold by a fruit stand dude. it's funny how ones arms turn to rubber on a nice summer day.