Day 3

Note to anyone reading this, please be understanding. My laptop has taken a beating and a few of the keys aren’t working :- ) If I say I’m having a rate time, you’ll have to use your imagination. Luckily spell check catches it most of the time.

So here we are, greetings from West Yellowstone Montana - the gateway to Yellowstone National Park and Wyoming USA.

And you guessed it, I spoke to soon - the gods smiled, the stars aligned and if anything, the roads only became better. We left Lowell and followed the L&C Byway for another 100 klm or so. It was cold and foggy at first but VERY beautiful - stunning would be an understatement. The road hugged the shore of a quiet river on one side and towering mountains on the other, and twisted and turned it’s way to perfection. At the end of the river we climbed to > 7,200 and we crested the LoLo Pass, where we stopped for a hearty breakfast at a great fishing/hunting lodge in the heart of the forest.

From there we crossed into Montana which was VERY cool in it’s own right, if for no other reason than the speed limit increases to 75 mph - Buenos!

Montana is Big Sky Country and it comes by the slogan honestly. Without exaggerating, some of the scenery is spectacular! Beautiful mountain vistas and wide open spaces - but without the desolation of rural Nevada (but then, isn’t all of Nevada rural? ) The road was amazing! At one point we dropped out of a high mountain pass into a wide valley bottom with rolling hills and HUGE cattle ranches as far as the eye could see. Montana is lakes, rivers and ranches - and all of it’s simply amazing. Well worth the price of admission!

So here we are, a KOA campsite that’s so big it’s like a small town unto itself. Kids everywhere but clean showers, an on-site cafeteria and electricity at the tent sites. It’s not our regular thing but when you show up with no reservations at the main gate of the most popular park in America, you soon learn to compromise
:- )

Yesterday (Day Three) was 715 klm of great riding, great company and new experiences. It’s now 6:00am on Monday and as I type this there’s a god awful roar in the background - really loud and closer than I’d like! - that I assume is Moose or Elk and last night around 3:00 there were wolves howling in the distance. And all this on top of the dire warnings throughout the park about bears. There’s a women next to us that is sleeping in her car because a bear walked right up to her tent the night before. Hmmmmm maybe paying the extra 50 for a cabin wouldn’t be such a bad idea !

That’s it for now - today we’re off to Yellowstone!
Cheers