When we started out from Spearfish, SD the weather was overcast and cold (balmy to Lyle) and later in the day the sun came out and it was looking nice. Still cold, but nice looking weather. It was probably in the mid 40’s or so. It was cold enough that Lyle told me if it got any colder, he was going to have to put his jacket on. A t-shirt was almost not enough.
We stopped for lunch at a KFC near the Custer Battlefield. It was not a nice experience. Lyle said his mash potatoes and gravy should have been called “gravy and gravy”. They didn’t have any coleslaw (too early in the day), And no ice “you can go over to the c-store and get some ice, they don’t mind”. And the whole place was dirty.
The area around the Custer Battlefield is mainly settled by “First Nation” people.
The KFC had panhandlers on the corner with a sign saying, “need money for gas, trying to get home”. They looked like they had been living under a bridge for several weeks. And a large fifth wheel trailer that took up half the parking lot with a flat tire.
When we were getting on the bikes to leave, a blonde walked by and said, “Pretty cold day to be riding” and Lyle said “It wouldn’t be with you setting on the back of my bike”. The only problem was he didn’t say it loud enough for her to hear. :) I’m going to have to get him to speak up if he wants people to hear what he’s saying.
As we approached Billings, Montana, we ran into more rain. It seems like we just can’t get away from this front.
And for all my OCD friends, don’t bother checking the SPOT ME web page to try and figure out how fast we were going. I’ll save you the trouble. We were going fast!
Well, we were going fast until we came up behind a Wyoming Highway Patrol car in the left lane running at exactly the speed limit. I thought about passing him in the right lane but reconsidered. I didn’t want to have to waste time in a local jail trying to explain just why I wanted to pass a patrol car running at the speed limit.
The most exciting part of the day came when we got north of Billings, Montana and came to highway 12. Last year when I was at that point, there was a thunderstorm coming from the west so I went on an east loop to the north to miss the storm. This time Lyle wanted to go west instead so off we went.
We came to highway 191 and discovered a very large sign that said, “motorcycle rider advisory, dirt road, please use an alternate route. Well, I thought about going down the road to see just how bad it was but then when we stopped at a convenience store, they said the state was widening the highway and the detour just went way out in a pasture to bypass the construction. They said it was all mud!
We ended up going even further west to find an alternative route. We ended up on highway 89 which takes you around and through the Little Belt mountains for about 60 miles. What an experience!. It would have been a perfect ride on a warm day when the roads were dry. But when we went on it, there was rain, and snow and even colder temperatures. I thought any minute we were going to round a turn and there would be snow on the road.
But we made it to Great Falls, Montana and got a room at the Motel 6.
Oh, I almost forgot, when we got on highway 12 and started east going towards highway 89, we hadn’t gone very far when all of a sudden, WHAP! A fairly large bird of some kind (it was black with some white under the wings) hit me smack in the middle of my windshield. I didn’t even have time to blink, it was so quick. Lyle said he could see it going towards me but I didn’t see anything until it hit the windshield. It didn’t break anything so we continued on. I would have stopped to take a picture of the dead bird but we had just passed a large tree trimming truck at a high rate of speed and I didn’t want them to get in front of us again.
Our “moving average” today was only 64.7 mph. I guess the number went down because we had to go so slow in the Little Belt mountains. Otherwise, I think our moving average would be closer to 80 mph. :) Only kidding Sharon!!! Our driving time (or moving time) was 8 hours 56 minutes. Considering all the rain we saw today, I think that was pretty good. Total elapsed time was 13 hours and 21 minutes. A long day! And I’m tired and going to bed.
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