Day 17 - Burns Lake to Stewart. Total miles for today - 301. 3,414 miles have been ridden since leaving Indianapolis.

Six iron horse adventurers left Burns Lake under gloomy skies.  At kickstands up, 7:30 a.m.,  the temperature was a cold 35 degrees.  Today's weather forecast called for 100% chance of rain.
 But, you just have to go on!

Fred, wearing his waterproofs, is ready for rain.

The roads are starting to consist of more rolling hills, rather than being full of drastic inclines and declines.
Occasionally the guys will see a farm crop up here or there.  But, what they see the most is uninhibited acres that are full of towering pine trees.  Sometimes they will ride for a half hour or more without seeing any signs of human life.  The country is very desolate.

The coastal mountain range was evident to their west.  Snow laid thick on those mountain tops.

Fortunately, the guys had the good fortune of staying dry until almost 11:00 a.m.

Mike shaking the skunk tail.  That's universal language for, "hope my roommate does his laundry soon!"

   Then the rain came and decided to stick around.  All day.













The group ran parallel to the Frasier River for hours.

David's bundled up, anticipating the approaching rain.

The driving force of the economy in the area that they are riding in today is timber.  They have seen several huge saw mills.  Logs are still floated down the river to the mills.  This is the easiest method of getting the wood to the saw mills.







A mama Black Bear with her two cubs provided a little entertainment for the fellas, as they stopped to watch her for a while.

A close up of mama bear.

Don't these guys look like tourists?

Depending on which direction they're heading out, somebody needs to turn around!

Following the advice from the guy at the Harley shop (from yesterday), the guys took a 30 mile side trip, a deviation from their planned route.  This side trip took them down, into a huge gorge between two mountain ranges.

They saw several glaciers in this area and were glad they heeded the advice from the Harley shop guy.

Mike in the gorge.

This glacier came down the mountain to meet the road.

They ended the day in the small town of Stewart.  Stewart used to be a mining town.  The economy was driven by the mining of gold and silver.  A huge silver vein existed in the upper Salmon River basin.  That was in the early 1900's.  By the years surrounding WWI, almost 10,000 people lived in Stewart.  As of 2005 fewer than 500 people called Stewart home.  Mining has almost ceased to exist.

Stewart

After a wet day, this little hotel was a welcome site.

Since the guys rode in rain almost all day, they spent some time trying to get their gear dried out.  Hmph, some good staying at the Sunshine Inn did them last night!

**The guys had no telephone service (they are using cell phones for communication).  They were not able to send text messages either.

***They did have internet and managed to communicate that way, although they were unable to email images.  I will edit this page and add photos when they have the ability to send them.

****The photos finally arrived by email at 10:00 p.m., Eastern Standard Time.