Day 34---the lovely Flathead valley and more heat---Ronan to Bigfork

48.8 miles, 4:37, 10.5 mph

Quote of the day:  On the back of a pick up truck, parked at a display of ammo and munitions: "Caution:  this vehicle disperses Prius repellent."

After last night's dreadful Mexican a la Montana dinner, we were looking forward to this morning's Mennonite breakfast extravaganza.  I substituted a cinnamon roll for the toast with my eggs and toast breakfast, and the roll itself was enough for a whole breakfast!  The roll arrived warmed up, slathered in butter and full of nuts. Ben helped eat through it, but we still left about a third of it.

Back to the Starlite Motel, and packing up, and some more bike adjustments for Ben.  We headed out on old US 93, through some lovely irrigated wheat and alfalfa fields, with the Mission Mountains always on our right.  This glaciated landscape is very deceptive, because the scale is so large, and often it looks like you're descending when you're really going flat or up a bit, because the gentleness of the next climb tricks your eye.

More of the old road took us through little Pablo, which is the home of the Flathead headquarters.  We stopped at the museum, but it wasn't open yet, and I was a little disappointed not to learn more about the Salish, who had been deported from the Bitterroot Valley.  Thus far, I had been very impressed with how prosperous the reservation looked, and how many new tribal and non-tribal businesses there were.  Despite the allotment process and Anglo inholdings, this reservation seemed to be able to thrive.  It was quite a contrast to what I remembered from 1978.

At Pablo, a bike lane appeared, and it followed an old railroad grade, all the way to Polson, which is the first town on the shores of lovely Flathead Lake, which turns out to be the largest lake west of the Mississippi.

The town itself is not much more than a strip of tourist business along the lake front and a small downtown that has seen better days.  However, I spotted a sign for Flathead Lake Cheese, and we went to find out what that was about.

We were greeted by the first solar powered cheesery!  It's run by the owners, Joe and Wendi, and we got tastes of their cheese (mostly in the Gouda style) and a grand tour.  Joe is from Wisconsin, and Wendi from Arizona (but a North Dakota native) and they decided to set their business up here on Flathead Lake.  Apparently, there used to be many dairies in the area, and in Ronan there was an old cheesery that had closed.  Hopefully Joe and Wendi are the harbinger of the rebirth of the Flathead Lake cheese industry.  It's certainly a lovely spot, and marketing should be easy!

We climbed back out of Polson along the railroad grade, and headed for the east shore of Flathead Lake.  We'd been hearing that the road was narrow and carried a fair bit of traffic as it rolled along the shore.  Yes, it was narrow, and despite the signs that said trucks not recommended, there was a steady stream of fuel tanker trucks taking a 'short cut' along the lake.  I vowed not to ever go to a Town Pump gas station/convenience store after being passed by 15+ of their trucks headed north!

It was just the beginning of cherry picking season, for which Flathead Lake is known.  The lake doesn't freeze over the in the winter, so the east shore enjoys a mild climate, similar to that of the Traverse City area in Michigan.  Mild means super cloudy in the winter though, and at this latitude, I could only imagine how gray and grim the winters were. 

The first cherry stand was selling cherries from Washington, so we passed.  Just a bit further along, we saw a homier stand, with a mother and daughter selling cherries they had picked that morning.  Tunrs out they were from Amarillo Texas, and spent the summers at Flathead Lake.  The husband is a school teacher, so they starting escaping the hot southern plains, and ended up buying an old orchard.  However, with the big western heat wave this year, she said it had been hotter up in Montana this year than back home in Amarillo!

I learned a little about the industry around the lake.  Most the cherries are picked by Mexican migrant workers, but for some reason they hadn't shown up yet this year. (Not surprising given all the racist comments I'd heard here in western Montana.)  So she and her daughter had picked cherries in the morning to get the stand going, and she said she was lucky to pick 20 pounds in an hour.  The experienced pickers will pick 60-80 30 pound boxes in a day!  At $5.50 a box, that's a big payday for the pickers.  I can pick about 4 pounds of cherries off my tree in an hour, so clearly I need some training.

Shortly after buying some delicious cherries, we passed the ammo and munitions exhibit, which was run by a guy who looked very similar to the Unabomber.  Needless to say, if he was that hostile to the Prius, we didn't want to find out what he thought of cyclists!

Around 1, we stopped at a nice state park picnic location, but it wasn't the place for jumping into the lake for a swim, as it was full of kids.  I was surprised by how little public land there was around the lake, compared to Lake Tahoe, and how little public access there was.  Even when the road was right on the shore, there were "No Trespassing" signs everywhere.  After lunch it got really hot, and the fuel temperature was over 100.  I thought I could nail the last 13 miles easily, but a series of short, steep climbs really took it out of me, and about 6 miles short of Bigfork, I really started feeling sick from the heat.  In retrospect, I should have just ignored the signs and gone swimming.

We rolled into Bigfork around 4, and the hotel had great air conditioning and a pool.  I didn't recover for a couple of hours, and had an upset stomach from the heat for quite some time.  I'm really getting to hate the heat of the afternoons on this hot, hot days, and really feeling like the heat spoils so many days of my trip.

At dinner time, we wandered into the town of Bigfork, which turned out to be a really pleasant surprise.  Lots of nice little restaurants, shops, and a good vibe.  It was clearly an affluent enclave, and everyone was really nice.  We ate outside on the deck at the historic Bigfork Inn, which had good food, great service and friendly staff.  We met the owner, who was around my age, and had owned the place with her husband for 30+ years, and our waiter was a Montanan who had lived for many years in Maui, but returned with her husband a few years ago with their kids.  Turns out they had bicycled up the Going to the Sun Road with her family a few days earlier!  It was their first time, and she was full of enthusiasm for our riding.  Later we met her husband, who makes beautiful handmade wooden canoes, www.morleycanoes.com.  They look really awesome!

Sated from a great dinner, we headed back in the setting sun (sunset is maddeningly late here when you want an early start, 9:30 or later) for bed and an early start to beat the heat on the climb to West Glacier.