June 29 2023 Day Twenty Seven

 June 29 – Lewistown MT – Day 27

 

In Lewistown MT, still over 800 miles from home and had a horrible day, but it might be getting better. A group of women just showed up to the bar from Green Bay Wisconsin and they are in town with their husbands for a wedding but ditched the guys for lady’s night. Have already had a nice chat with them and that is really the one of few things that did go well today. 

 

I got up a little earlier since I wanted to work my way home, packed the bike which was a breeze and showered for the ride. I was going to get going to head to the West Glacier entrance but decided to stop at the front desk to checkout and ask about my best way to the entrance. It turned out to be a good thing that I asked, because the very helpful receptionist and her friend told me that I needed a pass at least the day before to be able to enter that way, something new the park had started and now that I know, well I didn’t sign up for a pass yesterday. They did have a voucher for a gift shop by the entrance that I can login to their website and purchase a ticket so that is just what I did. The signup said I would get an email shortly and that it might be in my spam, but after waiting half an hour, no email for the entry ticket that the receptionist called the boutique and they said they might have been sold out that I should try again. This time I did get a negative message that they were sold out so as the receptionist said, I can drive the extra hour and a half and get into the East Entrance up until July 1^st. Ok, I have a plan and it won’t be ‘Going to the Sun Road’ but will be going against it. 

 

Guess what, yep, that first pass that I signed up for was sitting in my spam email, but it wasn’t sent until an hour after I had signed up.  I guess it would’ve been a good idea for me to stop at the West entrance because I happened to go past it to get to the East that I could’ve really saved myself the headache of the day and that was doing the ‘Going away from the Sun Road’. Not so much going away because by the time I got into the park it was already 1 in the afternoon. I took a nice road around the south side, which was a nice ride, but stopped at a couple of different places until I found out I had to head up North to St Mary’s to get on the ‘Going to the Sun Road’. Well at that time I guess I am probably going with, but that’ll definitely cut into making it East closer to home since I have to head West on the sun road. 

 

Not the greatest ride because of all the slow cars and I swear, people don’t know how to drive tight curved roads. I got stuck behind a number of slow vehicles and soon everyone was stopping in the road to take pictures instead of pulling into the many turnoffs that most people use. At one point the person in front of me obviously cannot drive a large SUV, they were really having problems.  The Scenery is spectacular, and I did stop for a few pictures, but the ride would be so much more enjoyable if you took out the people who don’t know how to drive which would be the majority of them. Now the worst part was the last 9 miles of the road heading West which might explain why I didn’t see very many bikes on the path, there was 9 miles of construction, loose gravel and not the loose kind of gravel when they are repaving a road, but road under construction loose gravel that was squirrely and so, so dusty that it was absolutely horrible and probably took an hour alone just to go 9 miles. I have a feeling they were telling the bikers on the West side before they entered the park so most decided not to and I really wish they would’ve let me know thru St Mary’s because I would’ve turned around and spent another hour riding back East behind horrible drivers instead of the construction. 

 

Ok, finally out of the park and now I had to check which way is going to be the best home and I have a conflict between what Siri is telling me and what the bike wants to take to get home. If anything, not sure I’ll be able to get to home by Friday that I might as well just go for it and will decide along the way which way I want to go. The first part happens to be the same hour and a half ride I already took to the East entrance, so I know this road pretty well. I did spend a little too much time trying to decide which way to go, but now with me ending up in Lewistown MT, I guess my route will be the North Dakota route which who knows, still could change.  I dd reach a gas station where Siri wanted me to head toward Billings which would be the longer way home and the bike wanted to bring me here, and the gas attendant said I’d be better off heading toward Billings, that ok, I made my own decision and thought I’d keep going where I was going. Part of it is I think I was ready to call it a night cuz I really didn’t want to push it. 

 

On my way into town, I did see a Super 8 with a sports bar next door and did stop at a gas station again and asked the attendant about hotels and he said the Super 8 is pretty good and clean and there is one downtown across from a brewery which the brewery is great, but the hotel a bit sketchy. I did drive downtown to see and sure enough Yogo Inn across the street from what looks like a nice brewery. Well, this time I listened and headed to the Super 8 only to find out they are booked for the night. Great, now someone else has made a different choice for me that I am only partially grateful for, again the ladies and now their husbands with them from Green Bay, someone to visit with in this hotel I ended up in, the Yogo Inn and the attendant at the gas station was right, a bit sketchy and not as nice as the Super 8 might’ve been. Having the company from Wisconsin to talk to makes a difference and this stay may not be too bad even though packing the bike in the morning may be as sketchy as the Inn.  Ok, a horrible day, but I guess everyone will have at least one bad day of travel. Again, nocking on wood another dry day, now I might need two more to get home. 

 

Before I forget and not sure where to insert, on my way toward Lewistown I did run into the loose gravel construction warning for bikes where they were doing the patching of the highway. Now that kind of construction loose gravel I can handle especially since the entire stretch is only 35 miles an hour which didn’t help me get any further than East that I’d of liked to have gotten. One final note, my bike turned 50,000 today and even though the baby is super dirty, she’s still stupid fast.