Mounting Mountaina - Three some...

[GatorTiger]

Just before Havre I got to Laredo. Not only can they not spell my last name right, the whole town is somewhat, err, run down:



Exceptions prove the rule! You can see where the money sits!



Behind the bank one can see the main business of these parts: grains!



I got to Havre around 6 pm. Nothing spectacular to see here:



Again the whole town was booked solid! What is it with that? There is nothing out here but everything is booked up... Good thing I had a reservation! I had some more beef jerky and a few beers and hit the hay...

And I traveled to lala-land very quickly...

[GatorTiger]

Friday, August 3rd...

Today was a special day. Wedding day! After a good night's rest I got up, showered, and got ready to hit the road again. But before I did get on the road I called GatorWife. And what did I get? The answering machine!! LOL! At least I couldn't get blamed for forgetting!!!

So on I went... The land continued to be flat. Perfect for mellow cruising. If it weren't for oversize lawn machines:





With the little traffic this wasn't a road block and I could pass quickly. Only to be straight for a while longer:



Strange locomotives they have in these parts:



Pets look different as well:
 


Although it was tempting with the border being so close and all I controlled myself:



Since my passport was being renewed right now there was no chance of border crossing anyway. Timewise I was somewhat restricted also, so I turned right and south. And after exactly 5 minutes I came to a sudden stop:



Cr@p!!! :(

[GatorTiger]

After about 20 mins we finally were allowed to drive on... Finally!!!

I imagined Fort Peck Lake to be more dramatic! They do have a power plant, but no raging waters you could see driving the turbines



Evidently the common drought had caught up with the lake as well! Here is the lakes's overflow...waterside!



This is the drain:



Enough seen...

The area became more desolate again but the road stayed straight. All of a sudden I came by some strangely erodes sand stone:





The countryside had its appeal. It felt wide, open, and peaceful!



Not to forget and to mention that I was on my Mary's way on two wheels!! - Even if only in a straight fashion!

[GatorTiger]

Once in a while there still are small highlights:



I hope this bridge will hold another 100 years!!!



As I was coming closer to Medora the landscape was starting to change again





But it wasn't just the landscape that was changing:



Fortunately this storm sailed through in front of me and I only had to deal with the roads being wet. What is it with Montana showers on my ways home?
There was scenic overlook a couple of miles before my exit into Medora. I took it, luckily, and found this:



The interstate also became nicer. Now that I was almost in Medora...



Oh well, off I went into Medora... The views now really got excellent!!!

[GatorTiger]

Medora is a big tourist trap. The city is nice and antique and radiates that old wild west character quite a bit, but just like with a dish where a bit of salt can add taste too much salt spoils it, the same happens here. Too many tourists spoil the taste, even if they have nice back sides!!

Old meets new around every corner





Even here hardcore bikers are present...



From the front desk of the motel where we had our reservations I had to ride for another half a mile to get to the cabin where Keith was already waiting. The clock read 5 pm...



Keith had thought ahead! One or six beers were cooling in the fridge already! Good deal! The dinner was arranged already also. Keith had set that weeks ago. Many years ago he had had a taste of the local specialty and was taken by it. When he had asked me about I wanted to give it a try as well: Deep fried steak on a pitch fork!!! Yummy!!

The restaurant was on a hill overlooking the town and the entire valley:



After the three S we went to the bus stop and were waiting for the pick up, taking in the atmosphere. Keith had drowned his old cell in the pool at his father's house and was now setting up the new one



After a short bus trip we were not over, but on the hill:

[GatorTiger]

It was another 30 mins or so before the whole thing would start and that gave us some opportunity to look around. A small rain shower skirted us leaving a few drops, but quickly went away. The air was warm, the wind soft, and the light warm. It was a very relaxing situation and the view into the valley put the cherry on top:



On the left side of the picture is Medora and on the right side is the open air theater of the restaurant. One had two options for the reservation: just the meal, or the meal and the show. Getting hungry yet??

Here another shot of our motel (between the trees to the right of the road on the left side of the pic):



Of course I wanted to get to the best spot to take my pictures! So I had to engage in a little climbing exercise (which felt good after all that saddle time) to reach the g-spot:


photo by Keith



Keith had fun as well. It was the perfect end of a perfect day!!



And now for the food:



Mass production requires the right tools:

[GatorTiger]

And of course the goods to be devoured:

STEAKS!!!!!!



MORE STEAKS!!!!!!



EVEN MORE STEAKS!!!!!!



Hungry????????? The masses are lining up already!!



Can it be a bit MORE STEAK?????



The feast preparations are progressing well:



To keep the masses calm there was music for them:

[GatorTiger]

Finally the sticks were dipped into oil and the fun started:



The steaks only need a few minutes before they are ready to be eaten. So the hungry masses line up to get some:



Everything was disposed of ecologically sound and under avoidance of any dishwashing efforts by using plastic plates. But there were many sides:



As the sun was slowly setting...



...we were enjoying a fabulous meal!



Yummy!!!!



Keith and I both said: ìIt doesn't get any better than this!î

[GatorTiger]

About one after it had started the whole thing was over: Tables cleaned, dishes disposed of, steaks gone... Whoa! Yet we never had the impressing we were rushing! We felt great!

In case you were cringing on the sound of a fried steak: try it first! I never had a steak that was juicier! The meat was slightly seasoned and the oil added more flavor! Try it! You won't regret it!!!

To round things up just a small pre-show before the main one:



The stage slowly came to live, but they wouldn't let  the people with tickets to the seats yet:



Hang on... what does the sign say??



WTF? Who TF is Alice?????????

Although we didn't pay for a show we surely got one:



At 8:30 pm the bus picked us up again to take us down into the valley...

[GatorTiger]

We had the driver drop us off in the middle of the town. Time for our cigar!

Keith: ìDo you have matches?î
Me: ìNope...î
Keith: ìMe neither!î

Cr@p!! So we went into the nearest saloon to find some matches (slightly left in the middle of the pic).



We had a beer and got some matches also. After finishing the beer and sucking in the saloon's old times appeal we left and lit our sticks: Oh yeah, baby!!

Enjoying our stoogies we strolled through town:



Almost everybody was still at the restaurant enjoying the show. So we almost had the entire town to ourselves. Great!!! Here are some impressions of Medora:











:D

As the cigars were coming to an end we reached our room again. We had a good meal, good drinks, a good walk, a good cigar, awesome company, and some eye candy! Perfect!!

Plan was now to leave early... Very early... So off into the hay we hit...

[GatorTiger]

We had set the alarm for 5 am. 45 mins later we were sitting on the bikes and heading out. Medora was still sleeping. Nobody was on the streets. We gassed up at the only station in town and hit the interstate heading east. No traffic, no rain, but overcast skies sent us off.

To review the map again: Medora is #6:



In Belfield we turned onto US-85 south. It was still cool and the overcast was decreasing...in altitude! After a few minutes we were inside it! It wasn't raining, but very wet:



The streets were empty and we still had about 100 yds visibility. We were crawling along at about 80-90 mph towards Denver. The cloud was with us until just north of Spearfish, ND, when the cloud cover ripped open and the sun came out. We had not eaten breakfast and pulled over for some fast BF food:





With Sturgis being bout 20 miles east of Spearfish the whole area was saturated with chromy V-twins. Bikeweek was about to officially start the next day. Draw a 100 mile radius around Sturgis and it was filled with 'bikers':



Saturated!!!!!!

[GatorTiger]

I don't mind them being there, but their average speeds combined with the bikes in numbers made for a slow crawl at times!
We finished breakfast and continued heading south. Up to this point the lands were rather flat and not really exiting (from what we could see when the cloud was lifted slightly a few times), but that was slowly changing. It got hilly again:



As we were turning into Spearfish Canyon a chrome-group slowed us down:



The canyon is great! Curvy, scenic, and almost everywhere no-passing zone! So we were stuck behind that group for a while



There were quite a few pull-over-areas, but they kept on snailing on... Oh well!



At the end of the canyon there was a bar that they all pulled into. Finally!!!! And half a mile later the canyon ended! The roads continued to be quite appealing, though!



A bit more of the straight kind, but with nice views! It was fun!!!! And again: to share this with your best riding buddy: can't beat that!!! Life is good!!!

In Lusk (#8 on the map) we gassed up and called Denver to give them our ETA. Chrome was omnipresent here as well. This trailer would look good on my Tiger, too:



After the call and a drink we continued on. Unfortunately we were on a tight time line. So low-level flying was the thing to do:

[GatorTiger]

Just outside of town ñ I had just opened my visor to let some air in ñ I felt that known sting of an insect flying into my helmet. No other thing to do than pull over. Just think about it: if I had not had that bug fly into my helmet I would have missed this place:



A few miles more and we were re-united with the interstate. Up to this point we were doing 80-90 mph. Nice!!! No traffic, no car-induced turbulence: easy!!! Now back on I-20 we had trucks causing strong vortexes and cars cutting us off. We actually had a smaller average on the interstate than what we had on 85!!

Slowly we were closing in on Denver. We saw quite a few storm cloud forming over the mountains!



We got to Denver high and dry:



Today's mileage: 630 miles in about 10 hours. Taking off the breakfast break would make about 9 and a half hours. Not bad for back roads!

We loaded the bikes back on the trailer, had a quick dinner at Taco Hell, and got some supplies at the supermarket. The it was off the next 1400 miles to Atlanta...

The storm clouds caught up with us on the way. We had quite a bit of a light show!! I have some video footage but need to upload that first (more to come on that!!)

We drove through the night and got to Atlanta at 7pm on Sunday. We unloaded the bikes off the trailer, put Keith's tiger back on the pickup, had a beer and something to eat and hit the sack... 2000+ miles will get to you!!
Keith left the next morning at 5 am heading back to FL. He got there at about 11 am. Good time!!
I had to go to the office again that day. Good time!!!!

It was a great trip!! Both Keith and I are looking forward to doing some more trips like that together. What we would do differently next time? Definitely no reservations!!! Too much of a harness and restrictive! When you want to do some exploring you should not have a timetable and set points to reach every day. On this trip it was a necessity, though, since I had to be in Montana for work at a certain time. Hopefully next time we can explore more together! Shared fun is twice the fun!!!!!

I'm already looking forward to the next trip!!!   :D

[GatorTiger]

That antler archway in the center of Jackson is real. They rebuild it each spring after picking up the antlers the elk drop in the refuge just north of town. No animals are harmed in the annual production.  

WOW!!!   :shock:  :shock:  From what we saw in numbers of deer on the road I can understand why there are so many then!!!

Thanks for the info!  

[CBAT]

Thanks for taking the time to post your ride. Made my morning.