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:
Bismarck 2024 Day02
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.
