Days 16, 19 20
| July 24th, 25th, 26th, 2007 |
Missoula, Montana
Camping will never be the same! One tent, one kayak...2 computers!
We're jealous!
Even in town, it's scenic!
Our campground is located near the airport.
Most of our time here will be spent updating the web site, running errands, do some
laundry and...chat with folks..
It's interesting and surprising to see all kinds of people, of all ages, from all walks
of life, quads riders or not, are intrigued and interested by what we're doing. They ask
all kinds of questions.
Most did'nt know you could ride quads on the roads here. Young guys wish they get to
have some time to do that when they get older. Older folks wish they were younger so they
could do something like that...
But there seems to be one thing most everybody agree on. It would be very difficult,
not to say impossible, for most to get enough time off to do a trip like ours. Unless one
would quit his job and find another one after the ride...That makes us appreciate even
more how lucky we really are.
Guess our trip wakes up the adventurer in each of us...We feel like the last
"cowboys", a new kind of nomads.
It feels pretty special to meet people you've known from the internet for a few months.
Here's Maurice (Oldmancrash) and Jeff (Mudslinger). I'm terribly sorry but I can't
remember the name of Maurices, daugther...S'cuze me...
Our new friends are super super friendly! About an hour after meeting us, they invite
us to float the river with them, tomorrow.
"With great pleasure! Thank you!"
What a wonderful evening! The air is 85 deg., the water's 73 deg., and the beer's ice
cold! That's what life's supposed to be like.! One guy says we look like we're on
vacations, No idea what makes him say so...
It's a very welcome change from sitting in front of the computer. We spend a lot more
time on our web site than expected. Not that we don't like it, we love it. It's just time
consuming. But the response we get from the people makes it worth while. THANKS!
We greatly appreciate the welcome we get from our friends. After the swimming, they
take time to take us on a city tour looking for the best way for us to leave Missoula. Of
course, it would be easy for us to jump on the highway and drive south but, we decided we
would use as little pavement as possible. Here, it becomes a bit more difficult.
Maurice was kinda worried we'd have to stick to pavement to get out of town. But he
gets all excited when, after half an hour of driving around, he finds a new way out going
east. Not only is it great news for us, it's good news for him too!
"This opens up hundreds of miles of new trails for me!" He says.
There are'nt many forest roads that are'nt dead-ends around Missoula. Plus, seems most
of the remaining roads have gates closing them. Is Missoula sort of an opposite to
Wallace??
Never would we have thought the battle between "antis" and "pros"
mechanised recreation had gone so far. Tremendous amounts of pressure is put on all levels
of gouvernment to block all access to public forests, be it to ride a bike there or to
hike there...Even the logging companies are victims of act of vandalism...What does that
say about those people?
When we first started to think about doing this trip, we thought we should wait for a
trail to be developed from Canada to Mexico. Now that we are doing it, we're very
happy we decided not to wait. Who knows if it will still possible to do that next year??
Get out of the house. Go riding! Enjoy this wonderful sport responsively while you can.
Be respectful of others and the environement and work to keep your riding areas open! It's
worth it!
Polaris
Industries - Canada
Polaris Industries - USA
 
Yeah ! Floating the river!
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What a delightful surprise! THANKS!! |
| Bof... |
The ongoing battle between "pros" and
"antis" quads. |
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Will it ever end?? |
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