The Kalispell Trilogy
Root Canals and Mud Season
Spring had its way with me this year. Between the sensory overload, the appointment stacking, and the general chaos of too many obligations crammed into too few weeks, it was the kind of stretch that grinds anyone down... but especially someone wired the way I am. Three separate trips to Kalispell anchored the whole exhausting season, each one its own small ordeal, each one somehow survived.
The first trip was a root canal attempt. I’ll leave it at that.
The second was a full weekend watching my daughter and her family run the Spartan Race, which was genuinely fun, legitimately impressive, and a welcome reminder that some travel is worth the toll.
The third trip was root canal attempt number two. We tacked on a stop at Legacy Bike Park at the start of that visit since we were already heading that direction. It snowed. The bikes came home muddy. It kind of sucked, and we still had a good time, which feels like an important distinction.
I walked in braced for surgery, already mentally preparing for whatever new disaster the universe had queued up. It went off without a hitch. Completely uneventful. I sat in the van afterward genuinely unsure what to do with that outcome.
So here we are. Three trips, completed. The glass in that photo isn’t just a beer, it’s a small ceremony, a quiet acknowledgment that the season held more than it probably should have, and we got through it anyway. Not gracefully, not without cost, but through. Or did I? we still have the Ogden trip remaining.
May 20th Never Sits Still
May 20th has a long track record of motion, from sausage grinder guilt in 2002 to devil dust rides at Suce Creek and everything in between. Across more than two decades of posts, the date keeps showing up as a launching pad, something packed, planned, worried over, or pedaled through. Same restless energy, different mountains.
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