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Bismarck/Mandan 2024 - Day 02

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Start Location: Lewiston, ID
Ending Location: Butte, MT
Miles Today: 344
Trip Miles: 679
States Visited: 3
National Parks Visited: 0
Low Temp: 55.1° F
High Temp: 77.1° F
Min Elevation: 753'
Max Elevation: 5604'

Route Map:




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I don't know if there's such a thing as a perfect motorcycle ride, but this morning's ride might qualify. Leaving Lewsiton we took Route 12 East towards Lolo Pass and Missoula. The ride included temperatures from about 65 to 73 degrees, almost 200 miles of winding mountain roads, incredible scenery, and virtually no trffic to speak of. I remembered there was a sign that read WINDING ROAD NEXT 99 MILES but I missed it and road right by it. Fortunately there's the Internet and literally hundreds of people have taken pictures of that sign and posted them for all of us. We have taken this ride 5 or 6 times and we never tire of it - one of our favorites. We commented that many of the views reminded us of the North Cascades Highway. You have to plan your fuel because there is an 88 mile stretch with no gas but it was not a problem for us.

At one point there was a vehicle that had gone off the road and was sitting on it's side in a ditch. There were already rescue folks on the scene and it didn't look like there were any medical issues so we decided not to stop.

After we fueled up in Missoula we got on I90 and headed for Butte. The freeway is not as much fun but definitely gets you there faster. There were some ominous looking clouds coming into Butte and we got some slight rain but not enough to bother us.

It looks like most of the issues from our last ride have been resolved. The new speedometer cable and gear worked great and having cruise control back was very handy - especially on I90. The new headset worked although my method for anchoring the cable to the helmet left a little to be desired. I'll have to work on that while we are in Mandan Wednesday. Some time around Missoula we started to have trouble with the music we play from my phone. We play it through a digital modulator which modulates the feed onto an FM channel. First we started getting a small amount of static and then we got all static. I suppose it's possible that the modulator failed but I haven't gotten a chance to check it out yet.

Tomorrow we head for Miles City - again tomorrow is a freeway ride.

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