August 7, 2003 - Ritzville, WA

Forecast: 85 degrees

Road Condition: Good from Butte, MT I-90 West to Ritzville, WA

Fuel: Super Unleaded $1.92

Miles Traveled: Butte, Montana to Ritzville, Washington: 477 (Total 10,587)

Bike Update: Running good after fluid changes in Ironman's FatBoy

Road Trip Log Update: The Harley shop in Butte Montana was waiting for us to arrive and was quick on giving Tim's bike a fluid change service. Denny and his crew were excellent at making sure we had everything we needed to ride the last leg of the journey. They are accustomed to being focused on full customer service and attention to detail as they are the last dealership before heading across the pass and the Continental Divide. They are used to bikes coming in "tired" and several bikes rolled in needing a mechanic while we were there. We highly recommend making Thunderbolt Harley Davidson a stop when riding through this area. They have information about the riding conditions of the area and the pass, which is good to know. Our ride West into Butte yesterday cooked us, then the strong winds set in, then we froze crossing the pass, and on the other side we were met with thunderclouds. All these transitions happened within a few hours. The shop knows how to take care of their customers, and they even let us set up our laptop on a small desk in the office area so that we could write road trip logs while we waited. A word of caution: Watch out for Holly on the sales floor. She has super sonic hearing and is always listening for an opportunity to make people happy. She knows the best place to eat, is well acquainted with Butte, and if she doesn't know the answer to a question she'll find the person who does. We had lunch in Butte, and then headed out on I-90 with the expectation of reaching Moses Lake, Washington. The scenery took us through farmlands and forests, as well as through small towns and resort areas. In the Lookout Pass area at the Idaho/Montana border we went through our last time zone change for this road trip. After a brief pit stop in the small "one stop light town" of Wallace, Idaho we were back on the road. Calling ahead to book a room we found out that Moses Lake was booked for a Dave Matthews concert in the Gorge at George, Washington. The only room we could find was in Ritzville, which was close enough. Riding through Spokane was easy to navigate and it wasn't long before we were on the other side of the city and then back to quiet areas of open farmland. Unpacking our gear in Ritzville we talked about how hard it was going to be to take a left at Seattle and refrain from turning right to pick up Alaska. We've been on a great journey, and in a way it's hard to bring it to an end. We've stretched out our "one more day" allowance by 6 days and we're beginning to feel the Road Trip Vortex setting in. That's were conversations start with questions like, "What day is it?" and "How do we make this into a living where we could get paid for it?" We are eager to see our family and friends, and to see familiar faces in our hometown. One thing we have learned out here on the road is that everything a person needs can fit into a few saddlebags, and everything we need is right in front of us, we just have to be in an open frame of mind to see it. On this trip, whenever we have needed something it's has been delivered to us by a good person who "just seems to shows up" at the right time. We have noticed that this has begun happening more frequently the longer we ride. As we re-enter daily life at home, the trick for us is how we are going to be able to stay in the road trip mindset that we have come to know over the course of the last 38 days.

Denny (Service Manager) and Ironman at Thunderbolt Harley-Davidson	Great Customer Service from Holly
Coming back from Sturgis, South Dakota
Left or Right?? Tough choice!
Click to see Aug 6, 2003	Click to see Aug 8, 2003