Dispatches from the road day 3-4

 Dispatches from the road, by Bill Poindexter 

(Season 2: Diaries of a bicycle traveler and novice saloon keeper in remote Montana )

Day 3 and the beginning of day 4

6:46am -40f’s -light rain

 Slept well in my little cabin/shed:) it rained a little bit during the night, but I love the sound of the rain on the metal roof. It’s very soothing, and I have a window open right next to my head so I can hear the wind in the trees and the sound of rain in the forest. It also soothe my soul that there are wilderness areas surrounding me and critters lurking in the darkness to feed themselves. If you were to look at a map and look at the air, I am in, you’ll see a river that’s just to the east of me called north fork. And then if you look to the west of the north fork, you’re going to see the N. Fork Rd. and then you’ll see the Flathead national forest you will see a Hay Creek Road which is Forrest Road 376 and I’m just 3 miles to the south of that. One of my objective this summer is to explore the Flathead national forest and just a small area I’m in so I’m also basically just off the Pacific Northwest trail. So if you look up that you’ll see it outside of glacier national park going over to Eureka Montana plan to explore part of the trail to in this whole area is full for forest service roads that I plan to explore and some really nice hiking trails as well. I know that later in the summer it could get pretty warm here and I’m not sure if a small plywood cabin with the metal roof it’s going to be the best place to sleep, so I’ll probably head up into the mountains every night after work And find a nice piece of dirt to lay my bedding.

So I’m on day four right now but day three was yesterday and it turned out to be a pretty good day. Actually I’m waking up with the sunrise so I’m getting up about 5 AM making coffee and a little bit of breakfast and just doing some chores around the camper area taking a shower And I make my way slowly up to Polebridge and yesterday. I had to do some paperwork early and had a coffee and walked over to the Mercantile, which is really quite an extraordinary place. You should look that up and it’s like an old general store with the hardwood floors they also have a bakery in there with exceptional baked goods And they make other food sandwiches things like that they have really good coffee my friend Bill Fordyce , who you are a know of for me talking about he told me he was up there, so I walked over there and sat down with him and an employee of the Mercantile we had a good chat. I met some other people, so it’s kind of like my coffee shop for this wilderness area but it has a flavor of a 1900 old general store were locals would gather around a woodstove and tell stories some true some not. They’re famous to further huckleberry bear claw. I don’t think I need to say anymore about that :-) Work yesterday was good it’s still pretty intense because it’s it was only my second day and it’s just a lot of information. I feel willfully underqualified because I’ve never bartended professionally before so there’s just a lot a little things to learn but I did make some drinks. send learned a little bit more yesterday. And then we had a food tasting of all the things on the menu yesterday and that was fun. It’s really good food here so I’m really impressed with the chef his name is Ryan and he’s been all around the world. He calls his home, Rome, Italy, but actually, which is kind of funny his home is Kansas City, Missouri where I live he want to Rockhurst high school. So he’s probably close to my age. If I were to describe him I would say think of Anthony Bourdain personality type and actually this guy kind of looks like Anthony Bourdain with short hair he’s fairly lean tattoos wear his glasses, how’s that kind of Italian look walks with a little bit of a limp he said because he was injured because of Covid. Smoke cigarettes. And he and I have had some pretty good conversations yesterday shared with me that he lost his dog to a pitbull where he was living I’m not gonna go into the details of the story. It’s heartbreaking so. But we all have our demons and we all have our stories and I was appreciative that he shared his with me. He’s a hell of a good cook. I can tell you that so if you make your way up this way, he has food trust me you’ll like it and the prices for the restaurant up here are pretty reasonable compared to other places I’m impressed with that. Before I started working yesterday I did meet a couple Bob and Deb they’re from Pittsburgh. They’re exploring the area they’re traveling around this part of the United States right now and it will complete exploring all 50 states I’m assuming they’re retired couple and so they are just exploring this area and yesterday I sent them up to Bowman lake as they were waiting for the Mercantile to open and then they came back as I was talking to Bill Fordyce can I introduce them to Bill and we had a nice chat with them really super nice people and I’m glad I got to meet them and I’m sure they will be the first of many people I will meet that are traveling It’s so funny to see people traveling. How do you know? Relax, they are from ““ real life. So Bob and Deb I know you were going to look at this post today. It was fantastic meeting you and I hope to see you on the road again and you’re always welcome up here. Anyway, yesterday went well and it was a long day. I think I worked from 10 to 730 and then came back and just went to bed and slept really well so and today and tomorrow I’m actually supposed to be off and then I start bartending on Sunday, but I’m gonna go back up to the saloon because this is their opening day and just ask Heather what I can do, so there’s always work to do so I’ll probably yesterday oh by the way yesterday I planted flowers and cleaned up the tables outside in the lawn so that was a lot of fun. I love planting flowers and gardening. So and then last night on my ride home and I should talk about my commute so my commute basically about 4 miles or 4 miles back and I take my time part of it’s on pavement part of it’s on gravel. It’s really beautiful, as you see in some of the pictures if you see me on a long road or a picture of a long road that’s my commute and the views are spectacular and last night it’s just very peaceful very little traffic and you can just smell the pine and I usually stop at one or two of the creeks that I cross and just watch the water flow… You know what I’m talking about I know you do. Peace and love from the road Bill Poindexter.