Motocaching the Top of the Big Sky – Day 1

As you may know, one of my goals is to get a geocache on my motorcycle (motocaching) in each county in Idaho and the contiguous states.  So far, in addition to Idaho I’ve done Washington, Oregon, Nevada and Wyoming.  Son, Yancey, did Wyoming with me last summer and we plan to attack Utah next month.  Meanwhile I’ve been working on Montana a chunk at a time.  It’s a big state with 56 counties.  Last year I did the northwest corner and my latest foray was the northern top half of the state.

I set out a little after 6:00 am heading north towards Coeur d’Alene.  It was a little chilly and the heated grips I had installed on my Triumph was a welcome addition.  My first stop was the Mineral Mountain Rest Stop in northern Latah County, Idaho, just to take a break and warm up as well as logging the geocache there.  I continued north to Sandpoint, ID, and then turned east around beautiful Pend Oreille Lake.  I stopped for a cache along the lake shore but couldn’t find it.  By now it had warmed up and was very pleasant.  My first Montana cache was in Lincoln County along the Clark Fork River at the Big Eddy Campground.  It had now become downright hot and the shade was nice.

I stopped down the road for another quick cache but by now it had REALLY become hot so I stripped off some clothes layers.  I stopped in the shade of a lonesome pine for lunch and tried to call Kathy but had no service.  I went a long ways after lunch before turning north toward Kalispell a ways past Thompson Falls.  My next stop was at a park on Flathead Lake where I found one cache and decided to not go after another which would have required a hike.  It’s a beautiful lake. 

About 12 miles south of Kalispell I found a cache at a shady little park in a little community.  My geocaching handle is my brand (M/W) and I have a stamp which I use to sign the cache logs.  I have it tied to a pen with about a foot and a half of fly fishing line.  I believe when I was leaving this cache which was in a bushy little tree that line caught on a branch and flipped out of my pocket.  Of course, I didn’t discover it until I had unpacked at the motel and was about to go after a local cache in Kalispell.  I did not want to lose that stamp so back I went to the previous cache.  Luckily it was there but off to the side of where I was which is why I think it flipped out of my pocket.

So back to town I went and picked up a local cache before going to dinner at a Mexican restaurant next to the motel.  It was okay but nothing extra.  I had traveled 394 miles for the day.

I stayed at a Motel 6 which was satisfactory but I was really impressed with their business acumen.  You pay extra for WiFi and it is contracted out to a third party that you call if you have problems (and I did).  Ice machines are set up to just give a very limited amount of ice, shower heads give a very controlled flow and they serve coffee only rather than a Super 8 type continental breakfast.  The rooms were nice and clean but not fancy.  I set my alarm for about 5:30 am and had a good nights rest.  M/W