First Dirt
18 June 2018
First Dirt!
The day started out pretty ordinary. I woke up and looked at the radar:
Yay, rain!
So, I packed the normal way, trying to shove my clothes in the box with it still on the bike. But, they kept falling out, and after the 5th try, I gave up and decided to use gravity to help me:
Don’t worry, its fine. I managed to push it over on soft ground at least twice more today.
After getting packed up, I headed for Forsyth, MT where I stopped for fuel, and then continued along Hwy 12. That was a super pretty drive, with almost no traffic, though the wide open plains. It follows an old rail bed and if you watch the odometer you can pick up on the roughly 20 mile spacing of towns for trains back in the day.
Then, the Garmin put a funny kink in the path I was to follow, taking me off 12. This wasn’t on google maps. When I turned onto it, there was a sign that said “Pavement ends - 8 miles.” Sounds like fun!
Sure enough, after 8 miles, it turned into a nice gravel road. Which soon degraded to a dirt path. If I were in the pickup, I would have turned around (it tends to get stuck on anything that isn’t dry pavement), but this is the kind of thing the bike was made for. Some of the sections got a little slick and sloppy, but as long as you let the bike just keep rolling, the gyroscopic forces will keep you upright. At least thats the theory, and it worked well today.
And for this little transgression from the pavement, I was rewarded with a little bit shorter ride, and some tremendous views.
The bike stayed clean for an entire 2.5 days, that might be a new record!
After getting to pavement on road 200, I rode toward Lewistown, the place I had intended to stay last night. It looked like a really nice little town, complete with a cafe where I had a tasty monte christo sandwich and some coffee.
Onwward from there to Great Falls I followed 200 until it met 87, and then followed 87 all the way to Great Falls. This was another pretty ride, with lots of hills, plains and even a couple of mountains. It wsa wet and rainy the whole way, with a chilly wind out of the North. I had the heated jacket on, and I think the bike might have wanted one too. The temperature gauge hovered near the bottom pretty much the whole way, but would creep up a back toward normal whenever the crosswind was blocked. Brr!
Tonights camp is at Dick’s RV Park in Great Falls, MT. Its okay, I guess. Cheaper than the KOA, the only other game in town. It could be worse, I could be one of those motorcyclists the lady at the desk told me about - stuck on top of Beartooth Pass in a whiteout. In June.