6.25.01

It's cold here in Missoula. 6:45 a.m. Sleepy Inn on W Broadway. Gave myself a lump on the forehead bumping into the bathroom door in the middle of the night. The woman at the counter said there's no sales tax but I was charged a 1.95 bed tax for the night. Thirty-nine ninety-five to stay here. Four dollars more than to camp at the Gorge between other cars and tents in thistles and drugs and alcohol and, weirdly, flying food and fireworks including one large bomb that sent up a tiny mushroom cloud, a shiitake of destruction. I'm in a hotel because last night I was too tired to pitch a tent. Who knows when the last time was that I slept more than 5 or 6 hours in this 8-hours-of-sleep-a-night body. Had to stop yesterday in Spokane to sleep for a couple of hours. My head was starting to nod, just an hour or two after leaving the Gorge. Went to Riverside Park way through and out the other side of town. A man asked me if I knew anything about the bike trails there. Found a parking lot and slept in the seat with my pillow running lengthwise. It was very comfortable and I fell asleep without knowing it. Woke up with the feeling much time had past. The scenery had changed: Cars that were there when I arrived were gone and none had replaced them. Made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich; then took off non-stop for Missoula. Undiscovered country. Crossed into Idaho like there wasn't even a border but soon enough mountains appeared and the roadway went right over them. The walls were made of trees, so many trees the mountains seemed to have movement. The passes through this area were steep and the cruise control withered. Even my foot couldn't make the car keep pace with the speed limit sign. No one else could either. Mountains so high the clouds got stuck and the air became verdant and moist. Hills folded over themselves behind me and I felt like I was finally out of view of home. The Columbia basin feels like it stretches straight back to Seattle, all that openness at your back. It felt safer leaving it behind. Then the rain came, hard, which I love but not so much for my bike hanging off the back of the car. That weirdly titled album by God Speed You Black Emperor was playing by this time and East Hastings held the rain in tempo. It was icy cold rain high in mountains. I-90 straightened some going downhill and this is where I could set the cruise to 90 and it felt like driving. Driving fast but not so fast that it demanded all of my attention. At that speed I still have enough left to notice purple rock upended in suspended violence or a helicopter ascending with logs in tow. And Bison! And baby bison! A motorcycle passed me going well over 100. The driver leaned elegantly into the long wide curves mindless of lane lines and relishing the open road before him. It was beautiful to watch. Lower, bugs smashed into my grill and windshield, popping on impact. So many of them at once it sounded like hail. The range is awash in something delicate and lavender. Large and downy with grass, these ranges are personifications, gentle and tolerant of the people living underfoot and the flora rooted on their benevolence. At Missoula daylight still quite bright I looked for a place to eat and also the YMCA and also campgrounds on the map. Found a sushi place that was not a chain—the rule is not to eat at franchises—that had zarusoba but the zarusoba was not as good as I'm used to at about twice the price. The food was good to put in my belly nevertheless and once it was there I felt too tired to go anywhere else so I drove down the street looking for cheap sleeps, and, well, here I am, 7:05 a.m. in Missoula, at the Sleepy Inn, watching VH-1 and eating cereal.

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