Getting Ready to climb Logan Pass

From Fortine we had 55 miles to Columbia Falls. The roads have been narrower and in many cases with less shoulder for us to ride. We said good bye to Jerry's Saloon, were happy none of the revelers drove through our camp ground when the bar closed this morning at 2 a.m. Had a lot of thunder and lightning but no rain on us as we headed down the road for Whitefish and our destination-Columbia Falls. Had lunch at Stillwater Saloon which was in a nice setting beside a river and somewhere before Whitefish we took a back road. While on that road we spoke with a local couple on a tandem that were headed home and they gave us additional directions. Despite our map and the tandem folk's advice we still found ourselves not sure of a turn. Mary flagged down a motorcyclist who gave us directions back to the main highway in Whitefish. He left us with sage advice "keep the rubber side down". Once back on the main highway it was very congested with July 4th travelers. Once in Whitefish we discovered that our other traveling companions from Maine were ahead of us and had stayed on the main highway all day, our back road detour was much prettier and safer but a few miles longer. Once through Whitefish all was good and we took yet another back road with little traffic on into Columbia Falls. We have a nice campsite ant the Glacier RV Park on the edge of town, ate some BBQ and fry bread at the Back Door Restaurant and topped off the night with some fire works. Our total mileage is over 700 to date not quite the equivalent of 2 BAK's. It seems like a majority of the 700 miles has been climbing so we are doing well in terms of schedule despite the current mileage. The group is happy but look forward to a couple of easy days as we head up to the base of Logan Pass and the Going to the Sun route which, depending on who you talk to, will be the most difficult climb but consensus is it will be the prettiest, that day will take us into Canada for a day or so.