Day 3 - Going to the Sun

Today was a wild day of riding. Started immediately with Glacier National Park and a climb up the Going to the Sun Road to Logan pass. Unbelievable. Down the other side and out of the park.... long twisty ride on the Montana plains.

I saw Oz & Aaron parked outside some... dive bar in a... tiny town, decided to pull in. Had a grilled cheese sandwich for $2 dollars. The celing was covered with $1 bills with town names written on them. I found a $1 and wrote "Mertztown, 19539" and stapled it up. I should have tore a $100 bill in half and wrote it on that... Mertztown would be real famous then. But... I didn't.

The next check point was off some gravel road south of Great Falls. I met up with Brian along the way and we headed for it. Inbetween we met up with Jim & Geoff and from the gravel road checkpoint ended the Lewis & Clark National Forest and onto the ATV trails for the dirt section for the day. WOOHOO. We all went down or got stuck. The trail was pretty bad, major wash outs, deep ruts, mud pits, etc. What a blast.

After that 86 miles to the hotel. My scooter was running really bad with my exhaust issue. Along the way... 56 miles from the hotel we "lost" Jim. We waited 40 minutes at an intersection, Geoff determined he probably ran out of gas... Geoff was also out of gas, but was able to get enough to make it 3 miles into the next town, buy gas, and return to Jim and fill up his scooter.

Brian and I road the 56 miles in together. Tons of deer. Jumping all over the road, my scooter engine cut out 3 times on me, I think its bad gas.

Got to Harlowton, checked in. Laid scooter on its side to get into up close with my exhaust at the header. Determined that one of the exhaust studs is unthreading itself. Perfect. I have a bunch of studs and nuts... get it fixed in the morning.

"UK Dave" and I walked a mile or so to this dive, wagon wheel bar and "casino" (which means they had 5 video poker machines) -- to meet the rest of the riders and exchange stories. 9 riders in total did the dirt section, all of them went down as well or got stuck!!! Lots of drinks and toasts to the mud trail. What a great time. I caught a ride back to the hotel on 4n6iscool's scooter.

Many of us rolled our scooters into the rooms tonight, a truck has been driving by slowly all night checking out the inventory.

I took 300+ photos today. I am using my Verizon MIFI card again, so can only upload a few, and at the smallest quality. Better than nothing.

Hopefully tomorrow brings a better running scooter and safe travels. Dirt section in the middle of the day, praying for no mud.

Day 3 - West Glacier to Harlowton, MT Photos