Lewiston ID to Helena Mt

The main reason for ever staying in Lewiston is the Old Spiral Highway.  I'm always saying this road or that road is my favorite, but I really mean it when I say the Old Spiral Highway is the best motorcycle road ever!  It has all the ingredients;  no traffic, good pavement, tons of curves, and good sight lines around the corners.  Check out this pic I took of my Zumo display:

That is a picture of only a small part of the highway. 

After the Spiral Highway I took highway 12 over Lolo pass and then into Missoula.  There is a lot of raving about this road in motorcycle websites.  One sign that people often post is one that says "curves next 99 miles".  I saw that sign and I took this picture of another one:

However, in my opinion it is overrated.  There are lots of gentle, sweeping curves, but mainly just enough to keep it interesting and not very challenging.  The scenery, though, is really nice, as the road follows the Clearwater river for much of the way.  It looks like this:

When I got to Missoula I had a short visit with my nephew's daughter (grand niece?) Emily.  Emily and her fiancé are just graduated from the University in Missoula and are starting full time jobs.  They first spent a fascinating summer backpacking in Colorado, Utah, and California.  They kept a blog of their adventures and I recommend it to anyone who thinks blogs are just boring like this one.  They hiked a bunch of peaks above 14,000  ft  in Colorado and did a 7 day tour of the John Muir trail in California.  The pictures alone are worth the visit.  Aaron is a really, really good photographer.  Anyway, the blog is RambleontoSingMySong.wordpress.com.  It is fun to hear from these two young, fit, bright people in the prime of their lives.  Here is a pic of them in front of their new digs:

And here is one Aaron took of the three of us:

I believe Emily was named after my mother.  Mom would be very proud of her. 

After leaving Missoula, I took some back roads over to Helena where I am staying tonight.  It was Montana Big Sky country:

What it also was, was pretty unpopulated country and I damn near ran out of gas.  I had been running at 80 to 85 mph (I was running late due to the visit and losing an hour from the time change to mountain time) and my low fuel light came on way earlier than normal.  By the time I got gas I had a half gallon left in the tank. 

Another good ride today, with much more pleasant temperatures......and a road beyond being a Good Road, the Old Spiral Highway is a Great Road.