Friday, June 30, 2006

Mammoth Hot Springs Wyoming

Mammoth Hot Springs Wyoming which is in Yellow Stone National Park so I made it from Kalispell Montana to Wyoming and figured since I had to meet the Wausau klan, yea their all white, better skip Glacier National Park…right. You can see from the pictures that I did make it thru there and once again, more beautiful country to see. Wanted to get on the road early today, but forgot that I lost an hour, you know, going from Pacific Time to Mountain, so as soon as I saw what time it was, figured I better hit the road – oh how I long for Pacific Time.

First major problem with the bike, the speakers went out so stopped at the local Harley shop to get it fixed, but no luck, they are just coming off the state HOG rally and have the national one coming up this week in Billings so have no room, not even for the out of towner’s…ok, so now I’m back to riding like I use to, no music, just the sound of the bike and the wind blowing thru my hair…I mean bald head. From there, needed medication, no not for therapy, but stopped at the local Walgreens to see if they could help me out. While there had to call my buddy, Steve who builds these places to see if it was one of his so he could move me up on the priority list…no luck, but hey at least Steve now has my blog site address. It didn’t take that long and the ladies were great help…I know, missed a picture opportunity and names because these were a couple of hot looking Montana pharmacists.

On the road to Glacier and when I got there another park fee so when talking to the ranger said, you know how much I’ve already spent on entrée fees, I should’ve gotten the $50 pass, well wouldn’t’ t you know it, if I show them my receipts from the other parks, they’ll apply that to my $50 fee. And to think I was going to send all my paper from my side bag home, but decided to wait and it was a good thing I did since I still had those receipts…got a discount and once again, timing was everything…more on that later.

Another great national park and you can see from the pictures that there was a lot to see and for your benefit, there were a lot more stops for photo opts than usual. Since the camera isn’t cooperating and there were too many shots to be taken, made a number of stops so the hour and half it was suppose to take from one side of the park to the other took more like two and a half hours. Finally to the other side and I better book it if I’m going to make Yellow Stone before the sun goes down. Now this is the Montana country I here so much about long baron roads with nothing but prairie around and you have to like the speed limits around here…70 so that means I can make up time and do 80 – except for the curves, found that out too soon since I crossed the center line and got back just in time as the oncoming traffic was bearing down on me…ok, at least it wasn’t because I was messing around with the camera and I paid better attention to the speed markers for the corners. Got to ride some gravel too since there was two 10 mile stretches under construction, but again made up the time with the speed limit and even with the cops passing me, from the other direction of course, no problems with the law.

Hit a bit of rain and if I would have just kept riding the next mile would’ve been out of it right away, but at least put on the leather and although my back got a little wet, and I mean just a little, I was now suited up to make the rest of the journey without having to make another stop to gear up. Today I was also happy to be a Cenex card holder because when running on empty thought I’d be running into the same thing as New Mexico, no towns or gas for miles, but hey, look what I found, the only gas around and the only way to get it was with a Cenex card…once again, I lucked out on gas.

Made pretty good time and while it was still early enough got the Mammoth Hot Springs where the Wausau group is staying. Checked at the front desk and they said yep, their checked in and in a cabin, but we can’t give out that information. Great, they’re expecting me and you can’t tell me which cabin? Well, drove by the cabins and saw a few that had bikes parked by them and figured must be the ones with the covered bikes…can’t let’em get dirty, but since didn’t have phone service couldn’t call to find out where they were - did at least leave a message for Chris that I was going to hit the restaurant while it was still open and at least eat before trying to find them. Well, guess who I saw when I walked into the place, yep, there they were sitting at a table just finishing up with their salads and waiting for their orders…once again timing is everything and what’s that other one that might be getting old? ‘Everything happens for a reason.’ It was great seeing them all again, and had fun telling them about my journeys. Sounds like I lucked out in the weather department too because their trip today was thru sleet and a heavy thunderstorms, but I at least brought the sunshine with me for the rest of the week. Chris and I had a good time visiting like usual and spent time talking about the two women missing from the group, had fun with them in Tomahawk, but oh well, that was a long time ago that you just have to move on…ok, their loss because Chris and I are still riding – yep, more therapy. Tomorrow I’ll tour Yellow Stone and see where I end up. Getting anxious to get home because if I’m going to make New Hampshire sometime next week, gotta boogey. Not highspeed pictures.

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