Stay behind the blue table, where I can see your hands

“Pull the bike into the second bay,” the Canadian customs officer said from the inside of her border, take-out-window booth.

The ride from Metaline Falls up to the border was very enjoyable.  I sabotaged myself with my proclamation the night before, “I’m on a Triumph, I’ll never get stopped at the border.”

Another Canadian customs officer came out to the second bay, pulling on the last of her anal-probe latex gloves.  A note to you potential travelers, never travel to Republic of Kantstandyuh or Canada, unless you find that intimate, personal intrusion thrilling.  She, the Canadian customs officer, looked at the bike and said, “There’s a lot of straps going on here.”

“Let me show you, just unclip here and here,” I offered.

“Sir, step back and stay behind the blue table.  Do you have any firearms, alcohol, or drugs?”

She, the Canadian customs officer with the latex gloves, went through my carefully packed gear and nonchalantly moved the axe to the table with the rest of my stuff when she zeroed in on my prescription pain medication, “This is illegal.”

“It’s like extra strength Advil, just pain killers for my old joints,” I pleaded like some felon standing before a circuit judge.

“No, it’s illegal in Canada.  You need to get a Canadian doctor to prescribe this to you.  You have more than thirty pills in here.”

“I’m only riding the Selkirk Loop, I’m camping in Idaho tonight,” I continued my desperate entreaty.

“Okay, if you come in again, remember to get your prescription filled by a Canadian doctor.”

Escaping enslavement in some Canadian work camp selling maple leaf flags to tourists, I continued my ride up through Nelson, I quick walk around town yielded two bits of worthwhile tourist information: 1. Nelson has no stores selling maple leaf flags to tourists or other crap that I’d be excited about until three years from now I’d clean my bike with the BC screened t-shirt; 2. the restaurants in town don’t serve lunch before 1130.  Off to Balfour to catch the ferry across the lake as part of our loop experience.  Enjoyed a great lunch as the Pot Duck, watching the ferry load and offload vehicles.  After chow, we parked the bikes on board for the 45 minute ride across the Norwegian fjord-esque lake, a really magical scene that would be great place to rent or own a lakefront home, except for the border crossings.

The east side loop follows the lake front that is populated with cottages.  Jeff and I pulled over for a break to take in the scenery of the lake somewhere mid-point.  Proceeding down the east side, we soon found ourselves back in the US (the border crossing into USA was simply a greeting and welcome home).  When we stopped for fuel near Bonners Ferry, Idaho I noticed that it had become oven hot.  It was only a few miles to the campground thank goodness.  Little did I know what I was about to face.

Twin Rivers Canyon Resort was an enchanting park with lush green grass and riverfront access, but….the campground was down a dirt Llama trail built to match the famous Inca death road in the Andes mountains, they achieved great accuracy in replicating the hairpin turns of loose gravel and the challenge of navigating a narrow rut path carved in the cliffside.

Sleeping in, with the canyon campground, the hillside shielded us from the sun’s morning reveille.  We finally showered and packed, escaped certain death up the Inca path to civilization, and proceeded into Montana.  It was Jeff’s first visit to the big sky country, so we paused for a picture.  Following route 2 we stopped at the wonderful The Perfect Assh cigar store in Libby and afterwards got edible pizza.  We veered off the US route towards Koocanusa Lake, stopped to enjoy one of our Perfect Assh cigars at a busy marina, where the entire boating population of Alberta was spending the summer.

Later that day, still experiencing the digestive conflagration from the afternoon’s pizza, we settled camp at Rexford National Park; for $12/night I decided to stay for two.  Jeff rode into town to buy half a cord of wood from a 90 year old mountain man, while I gathered some wood in the woods.  Imagine that!  We gave an attempt to start the great Koocanusa Forest Fire of 2016.

14 August, had breakfast at Cafe Jax, the popular Eureka breakfast joint, and then bid farewell to Jeff.  I am once again of my own devices.