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Glacial Beauty and the Final Night
Paul Hastings reporting from Missoula, MT .
“Life changing. Enchanting. Magical.”
Those words came out, but John Orozco had a challenge – “I don’t have the words to describe it,” he said, “because it’s beyond description.”
The Northern California member of the Hill Gang was talking about yesterday’s ride, which passed through some of God’s most beautiful earth.
The 2001 Bad Boys were humbled by the awesome beauty of Glacier National Park, especially Lake McDonald and the magnificent Going-to-the-Sun Road.
Lake McDonald is first seen upon entering the park’s west end. It’s a lake surrounded by tall, majestic mountains. The park’s main road travels along the lake for miles until it turns into a narrow, winding road highlighted by switchbacks and rocky ledges before reaching Logan Pass 6,680 feet above sea level.
The top of the pass also is the Continental Divide, the point at which it is determined whether water flows to the Atlantic or the Pacific.
Of course, the influence of the Hill Gang flows everywhere.
“I feel like we’re a gang of bandits, like Robin Hood and His Merry Men,” Orozco said. “Every day we get on our horses and go from one town to another. We’re good bandits, we spread the good word and cheer, and people sense it. And when we leave we sprinkle a little pixy dust and make them feel better.”
While cleaning up his bike near the Glacier Park Lodge, Fred Davis made an interesting observation. “I think it’s (the business) going to work,” the diamond said. “I think it is working.”
Davis, on his fifth Hill Gang motorcycle trip, loves the trip for various reasons. “I think it’s the greatest way to build friendship and manliness, and the greatest way I’ve seen to build duplication,” he said. “There’s more to duplication here than meets the eye.”
The sweeper, Davis always had a view from the back of the Bad Boys going down the highway. And he always had a smile on his face. “Unity and harmony and duplication are built on a trip like this in way you would never imagine,” he said.
After touring Glacier, the Hill Gang stopped in Big Fork before continuing a beautiful journey along the east side of Flathead Lake, the largest natural freshwater body of water west of the Mississippi.
It was a two-hour ride to Missoula enjoyed by each rider, but especially so by the second bike and its rider. As the new Focus tape played, the occupants soaked in the mountains, cherry trees and sparkling lake thanks to the late afternoon sun during their fifth annual ride.
After dinner, the Hill Gang ventured to a campsite outside of Missoula for the final night’s festivities among tall pine trees and a heaven full of stars. As at every ILD motorcycle trip, magical things occurred around the campfire.
“It’s hard to put into words,” Rick Matthews said, even before the campfire. “One of the things that really struck me is listening to Jack and David and hearing the emotion in all of us. There’s something happening. I don’t know if I can put it into words. “It’s the power of the purpose and the mission we’re a part of,” Matthews said. “And it gets stronger the longer we’re with David and Jeff and Jack. It’s bigger than us – the power of the vision – way bigger than us.”The Minnesota Diamond has become the unofficial Hill Gang mechanic because he’s able and willing to tackle the little repairs necessary on the various bikes
Today, most of the Bad Boys headed back to Spokane, although Matthews went east from Missoula back to Minnesota, Stu Shelton and Davis continued on to Seattle and Frank Sorrels headed south to The Dalles.
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