Day 7:

We took highway 14 out of Sundance, past our old friend Devil’s Tower and onto 24 to Hulett, and at Hulett turned due north onto 112 to Alzada just across the border in the extreme southeast corner of Montana. Route 112 intersects 212 at Alzada, and we headed northwest and then almost due west on 212. We stopped in Broadus for gas and met a group of large friendly Harley-riding West Virginians heading east on 212. The terrain was beautiful and empty, with low hills spotted with rock outcroppings and dark green pines, just like in the westerns. Still heading west on 212, we rode across Custer National Forest and then into the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. We had lunch in Ashland, just at the eastern edge of the Reservation, in a café/bar/casino run by native Americans. The hot dogs were so-so, and the floor was littered with sunflower seed husks.

We pushed westward on 212, under perfect skies, through Lame Deer and Busby, and hit the Interstate at Crow Agency, in the heart of the Crow Reservation. We were very close to the Custer Battlefield National Monument, but we had a long way to go over uncertain roads. We asked a friendly UPS driver about the road from Pryor to Edgar, a dotted section on our maps, and he said it was a good road. Without that brief connector, we would have had to make a huge loop through Billings to get to our destination for the evening, Red Lodge. Avoiding the gravel section would also have forced us onto the interstate, and forced us to miss the beauty of the middle of the Crow reservation. From Crow Agency we took I-90 16 miles north to Hardin, and then turned south back into the reservation on Route 313, which roughly followed the Bighorn River to St. Xavier. St. Xavier was about as jumping as Chernobyl, minus the burnt reactor and Cyrillic characters on the signs. The church was established in 1887 by Friar Peter Paul Prondo. The “new” school was built adjacent to the derelict old school, and it was looking a little tired. The area was heavily irrigated, and much greener than the surrounding scrub desert.

At St. Xavier we turned due west again on a skinny road with no name, through the hills of the Crow reservation to Pryor, where the dotted line on the map began. It wasn’t a terrible road, but the gravel was loose and dry, kicking up huge dust clouds. Mark roared away, and for once I was thankful he was far out in front. I caught up with Mark about 6 miles after the gravel started, and waited with him for Kim and Barbara. Kim came along shortly, but Barbara didn’t appear. After what seemed like too long a wait, Mark took off back towards St. Xavier. Kim and I surveyed the beautiful countryside and the tiny horses and cows off in the distance, and I scoped all the cool cowgirls in filthy ¾-ton pickups and duallies that rolled by and gave us the eye. No Dolly Parton big hair in this neck of the woods.

A little while later a pickup stopped and the driver (a guy, bummer) told us that Barbara had dumped but was ok, so we went back as well. Gravel roads suck on street bikes, especially if you have to cover the same distance twice.

Barbara was indeed ok, and had removed most of the luggage from her Rosso Mandello to lighten it in the vain hope she would be able to right it herself. Other than a dented muffler (albeit an expensive factory titanium one) the bike was rideable, but Barbara’s beautiful red baby was scuffed, and it bummed her out. We went back down the same damn gravel road, eating the same damn dust, and finally reached pavement again at Edgar, where the no-name road dead-ended into Route 310. Eureka! We headed north on 310 to Rockvale, where we made a hard left and headed southwest onto 212. Thirty-five miles later we rolled into the KOA just outside Red Lodge and quickly set up camp, and headed into town in search of grillable grub. A rather un-chatty BMW rider was a couple of campsites over, and we invited him to join us for a beer, but he had better things to do, we guessed, like play with his GPS in his tent. We had a nice Mark-cooked dinner and enjoyed a big-sky evening, and Barbara’s stress over her dinged Rosso seemed to fade a little with the light.

Day 8:

Up early, we headed into Red Lodge in search of chain lube. There’s a Harley-Davidson boutique, and right across the street a custom chopper store, but no chain lube in sight. The Napa store around the corner had something called chain lube that looked like it was intended for use on garage-door opener chain, but it was better than nothing. All the grit on the UPS man’s no-name road had attached itself to Kim’s and my chains, and my inner anal-retentive maintenance freak couldn’t stand it. Chains wiped and spritzed, Bear Tooth pass loomed ahead, and it was everything Mark and Barbara had told us it would be. The air was crisp and cold, and I layered up at the base as the temperature dropped. I was almost glad for the steep switchbacks that prevented much passing, so I could enjoy the incredible scenery the dropped off thousands of feet on either side of the road. There were skiers and snowboarders at the top, and we stopped for photos and snowballs and to let the slow moving cars pull away from us.

We re-entered Wyoming, and Mark and I raced out front and made the hard left onto 296, the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway. We had a great time chasing each other, easily dispatching the few cars and trucks over the 47 miles of the highway, cutting through the Shoshone National Forest on our way to the junction with Route 120. Post-card-perfect snow-melt lakes and creeks lay on both sides of the road as we flew downhill. At the junction with 120 we stopped and Mark smoked while we waited for Kim and Barbara, who were less than a cig behind. The final 17 miles into Cody on 120 were a bit less twisty, and we initially planned to grab a quick bite and ride some more, but the loop we had planned, Alt 14 west to Burgess Junction and then back on 14, would have left us out on the road late, and the weather was looking not-so-great, so we decided to stay in Cody. We got a room across from the Sierra Outfitters store and did a little shopping, and walked around town and across the big grassy square where a local fair or circus was packing up. Cody has a rodeo every Saturday like Knoxville has high-school football every Friday. Back at the motel, we weren’t up long before the day’s ride had us all heading for the rooms.