Two days and no raingear needed, yahoo!

One thing that I have noticed while riding is the ginormous numbers of empty rail cars parked on the siddings. All over the place. Miles and miles and miles of ore cars, tanker cars, railroad cars that they load truck trailers on, lumber carriers and grain cars. Is this normal or is this part of the recession?

I just hate it when I do dumb things. Like leave my motorcycle ignition on for two full days. And this did not end well, not only was the battery deader than that restaurant in Golden CO that the Coroner directed me to, but it didn’t seem to want to hold a charge, even after 45 minutes of charging. I didn’t let it charge long enough you say, possibly, very possibly, but without the support of Matt’s BRTMobile #Uno, I wasn’t about to take any stinking chances. It takes 25 minutes of work just to get to the battery, even after you unschlep all the luggage off the bike. So off to the local motorcycle dealer for a very overpriced $80 battery, which saved my bacon.

All in all, a very late start on Tuesday, didn’t get on the road until nearly one pm, and I had a 400 mile ride to Idaho Falls. Not too much of interest to report, I spent way too much time on the Interstate Freeway, but sometimes you just can’t get there from here without doing the Interstate. I stopped for a bit at Craters of the Moon and I’ll bet that placed gets unbearably hot on a sunny day. Sorry for showing up so late Rox, but thanks for having that bottle(s) of wine open and ready for immediate consumption! And thanks for this mornings hangover!

Today I was back in pursuit of the two DamTour2009 dams located in Montana. I have not spent any time in Montana before now, and all I can say is that I sure wish that Montana was a lot closer to Seattle! It reminds me a lot of Steamboat Springs, the big valleys, the mountains, the plains, this state is really, really gorgeous! And property values look reasonable! The first dam I visited today was between Anaconda and Phillipsburg off of Highway 1. And then it was off to Great Falls Montana to visit Rainbow Falls Dam. I can’t say that I am even remotely impressed with the actual town of Great Falls, but the countryside is sure pretty. Too bad they spoiled it with all those casino’s (is anyplace with a slot machine allowed to call themselves a casino here?), empty storefronts, oil tankyards and other unsightly crap. It looked like it was going to rain on me again (so far it’s been two days straight and I’ve not had to put on the rain gear, close however) so I skedaddled south to Helena.

Which leads me to my first Interstate Highway nomination for best riding road of the trip, I15 south from Great Falls to Helena. A 75 mph speed limit, coupled with winding roads, hills, sweepers, the Missouri River, canyons, butte’s and vistas, to date this stretch of road was the best of the trip. And I really liked that ride from Shaniko to Fossil OR.

So, the past two days I’ve done over 1,000 miles . Total mileage for the trip is just shy of 8,600 miles and my fanny is still doing fine. But it sure will be nice to be home!


Dead tree at the Craters of the moon:

the entrance:
the camping looks a bit primitive, eh?

an urchin in Idaho Falls, the bike is like an urchin magnet........

how did that hole in the rock get there?

in the boonies (and Lincoln was not too impressive)

Flint Creek Dam:

what are all these #'s on the hill above Arco, Idaho?

Rainbow Falls Dam:

Now I head west and come home! Only 691 miles to go!