oh, i'm sorry, it was actually 103 degrees

yeah - we found out later that it was actually somewhere between 103 and 105 degrees on the day mentioned earlier. uh right. whatever. today, once we got out of glacier, it felt that hot again. we just checked into a KOA in Spokane, WA (we blew across Idaho in about one hour - very pretty...in the north anyway...) and at 8:30pm it was still 89 degrees. this shit is unacceptable. therefore in the spirit of unacceptable, i will now uncover some of the less glorious events during a cross country motorcycle road trip:

1) I have a raging case of athlete's foot on the big toe and pinkie toe of my left foot. nice.

2) The bathroom at the Glacier campgound had a moth problem. they were EVERYwhere. on the sink faucet, all over the walls...the floors...the lights, in the toilets. one landed in my hair when I was doing my girl preening type things on the first night. however, she was one of the most beautiful moths i've ever seen and she was staring straight up at me with a surprisingly adorable moth face. so I let her stay and when I went to wash my face, she flew away.

3) Just out of East Grand Forks, MN we followed Business Route 2 into town so that we could find food. Ok. fine. we eat and get back on the road, cross the river into Grand Forks, ND and after a few blocks end up in desert and the road is just gone. we go a little farther. yeah....this is wrong. so we go to turn around and do some retracing when a lone car pulls up with it's windows down and I shout to the woman inside. she's nice enough to get out and tell us where to go. we just have to head down the road we turned around in and we'll smack right into Hwy 2. ok. great. so i move to do something and my ipod falls off and drops down just as dave pulls forward. i let out a screech in the now sweltering heat because I think he's just driven over mr. green (my ipod). I scare the shit out of dave, who stops and i jump off the bike. it turns out that it had fallen down and become stuck down between where the tire and the side bag starts. i end up having to pry it loose with a bungee cord and hook. ridiculous. it falls to the dusty ground and seems fairly unharmed. just dirty. ok. so i get back on the bike and we start down the road. the GRAVEL road. if you know anything about bikes, you know that gravel is BAD NEWS. always. sometimes cars and trucks have created nice little tire tracks for you that have less gravel on them. no such luck here. sheer gravel for the length and breadth. i'd say it was the scariest half mile of our trip. steering is really difficult in gravel. dave was holding on for dear life, but still the handlebars started to freak out seemingly uncontrollably at one point and oh dear god, i thought we were going down. thank god, dave kept it up and straight and we finally made it, but it took a year or two off my life. the surprise trotting of the mule deer took another, so i better stop having these things happen or i'll never have a chance to get old. and i'm excited for my hair to turn silver someday.

4) the $45 motel had bedbugs. and they seemed to only like me.

5) i was bitten by a very mean spider during the night in my aunt's cabin.

6) being rendered mute during our time in quebec was so hard on me, i had more than one meltdown. although i did also get my period during that time. oh - and that's fun while camping too...

7) interesting things get inside your tent, no matter how careful you are.... dave just had to take care of a corn pincher (aka earwig) about two seconds ago. ick. they are nasty looking.

8) and yes sarita - good point...i've been eating a lot of eggs and salads. it wasn't so bad for me on the east coast or even canada...but there must be precious few vegetarians in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota and Montana.

and don't even get me started about how much time it takes to pack, get gas, pee, eat...anything that requires dissassembling anything on the bike....whew.