Day 11: Columbia Falls, Montana

Today's viewing pleasure owes a thank you to Megan and Michael Taylor, friends and colleagues from work. Both independently and fervently said that if we ended up here we must ride the Going to the Sun road. Clearly they both had fond memories of the place.
I'm assuming those fond memories are due to the natural beauty of the area rather than any steamy romantic getaway that I wouldn't mention here in the interests of keeping things professional. Whatever the case, thanks guys. It was most surely worth a days diversion off the great divide ride.
We had braced ourselves for the labour weekend crowds and were in the correct mindset for sharing the place with others. Under different circumstances I really would like to be here camping for a few days but today will do. For every photo you see there could be 20 more as spectacular.
Enjoy.
In keeping with my little theme of random comment over the last few days I'd like to talk about the Harley set today. The first thing is that one mustn't generalise as there is a whole population of Harley riders out there. In fact last night we spent a very pleasant hour chatting to 2 couples staying in our motel and they were clearly both nice and good company. Especially when they started pouring beer into my very empty stomache-but that's another story.
No, the Harley riders I want to talk about are the bandanna'd moustachioed variety. The lengths that this bunch will go to for "tough" fashion is pretty extreme. If you saw my helmet visor at the end of the day, dripping with insect entrails and god knows what else, you would have to wonder why you would go out there with only a pair of sunglasses and a giant moustache. It just can't be nice and anyway, those bugs hurt at 70 miles/hour!
And don't get me going about the fact that the roadworks here have signs advising motorcyclists to take alternate routes. Are you serious?
Never mind, each to their own. Given how poncy Dave and myself look in our matching adventure riding gear I do need to be careful about casting aspersions.
The travel gods were kind to us today. We took a chance on not booking a motel tonight. Given that we are at the gateway to a National park we could have regretted that as there is absolutely no accomodation to be had here. Lucky for us then that we popped in at our favoured super 8 at the right time to pick up a cancellation.
We do have to share a bed again but seeing as Dave only spends about an hour in it that shouldn't be too hard.
Today was our first documented crossing of the continental divide.
Alright, enough babble. Check out this truly stunning landscape.