Earache

Phil and I got out to our favorite river road for some fun today...

We land in our home for the next 3 days, Anaconda, Montana. Staying at a friend's hostel that he's building. Not quite done yet, so it's mattresses on the floor for us. What the Hell, it's free...

Had to stop in Big Hole, Montana for a break. 30 miles from the fire but the sky still looked weird.....

So sad to see this place burn, but it's a natural cycle of things. Cops in the street keeping people out as we exit the area....

Flames were hot enough that you could feel them from the road and pants, even through our jackets....

Should have listened to the cop, it was kinda scary to ride amongst so much smoke. The forest was getting ready to burst into flames any minute. Fences were already toast....

After lunch we hump north to cross into Montana. When we arrived at our turn onto the Montana road we wanted to take, a State Trooper was there and told us that he had just closed the road. Shit! About a 3 hour detour to get around it. We begged to be let through and he relented and let us go. Wild fire all around...

Lunch stop in Salmon, Idaho....

Next day and we're crossing Wyoming and southern Montana. Desolate doesn't begin to describe this area. Temp was about 98F / 37C...

Walked across the street to eat and survived what had to be the worst pizza and food ever. At ;least the drinks were good.....

Our hotel reservations got messed up and we didn't have a room for Friday night. Luckily got one of the last rooms in town at the Hotel Shithole in Rock Springs. Wyoming. Phil has a BMW and proved his twat-ness by bringing a bike cover for it...

Sorry, internet has been non-existent over the past 3 days. It's a fairly new invention in this part of the country.

No, he goes his own way and meets us at the hotel each night.

Couple more screen grabs from Phil's GoPro...

Zoom zoom....

But the day wasn't all bad...

Riding into the storm in Wyoming...

Stuck in road works several times today, made for a long day...

I'm gonna try to find as much dirt as possible. Phil (BMW GS) has little touring experience and not much on dirt. Tom is on a BMW RT that he rented and little experience as well. But I'll peel off on my own as I can to ride dirt. Tom's father is following along in his Jeep and meeting us at hotels at night. He can't ride but wanted to come along for the beers each night. Can't fault his logic! We are in Rock Springs, Wyoming now and headed to Idaho Falls, Idaho today. Not sure of the route just yet.

We leave at noon and have 400 miles to do. This isn't gonna be much fun. And naturally it rained a good portion of the way across Wyoming. With high winds, too. Nice! One of the sunnier moments in Wyoming in the deep forest...

But I eventually made it to the restaurant where we were going to meet. It was at this time we found out that Tom wasn't going to be able to meet us until noon. So we ended up sitting in the restaurant for 4 hours while we waited. Fun. Remnants of a breakfast burrito with green chile...

And then some of these evil bastids a mile or two later...

Up early yesterday and had to get about 75 miles south of my house to meet up with my riding bud Phil. Dodging the wildlife in our area; juvenile moose...

Yup - it's all about the elevation. From 10,000' at my house to 4.000' across the flats makes for some big temperature swings. Looking forward to seeing the trees and forests of Wyoming. Pic from a couple of years ago...

Should be about 3,000 miles-ish and we'll be gone for 7 days. have a couple of days off in Anaconda, Montana midway through the ride. Most of Wyoming and Montana are flat as shit with virtually nothing there. Lots of high speed miles there. And it's always windy as Hell, too. Should be fairly hot in the flat areas and I'm kinda looking forward to that. 40F / 7C here now so it'll be cold as we take off. Gonna be around 100F / 38C when we get up there...might have to drink lots of beer!