Daily Summary

A Great Day!

It started a bit chilly but warmed up fast. We also had an all day slow descent instead of an all day slow climb. We still climbed the equivalent of about an empire state building, but it was just little hills here and there adding up. Most of the day we were alongside the Yellowstone River.

Today, the wind was at our back most of the day and pretty strong. We averaged over 20mph over the whole day and the middle 50 miles or so was closer to 23 mph. Between the downhill and the wind, I wasn’t even getting my heartrate up much to move that fast. The pavement was great for almost the whole ride and very few cars most of the way too. We all hope for more days like this.

The Interstate

We ended up having to go onto Interstate 90 three different times today. Once for 2.5 miles, once for 3.5 miles, and once for 8.5 miles. The first few were uneventful, but multiple people had flats on the last part as the shoulder hadn’t been cleaned off recently. I got one puncture, but my tubeless tires sealed it off quickly with the sealant in the tire and it didn’t cause me any issue. Had I had a tube, I’d have had a flat. 

Oddly there was one exit that appeared to have an offramp and onramp that literally went to just a single house. No other road was available. That was pretty interesting. How many people get their own interstate exit?

Other than the flats, there were 2 bridges we had to go over that did not have any shoulder. As Murphy’s Law predicts, a big double tractor trailer decided to pass me without moving over a lane as I crossed the bridge. I wasn’t too happy with that…

The Sights

The first picture if you zoom in shows some ground squirrels by the hotel. They are all over the place here. You can see their tunnel entries easily. They are about the size of the regular squirrels back home and they make a neat little “cheep” type sound.

The starting view are mountains we couldn’t really see since we got to town due to the rain. The early view is similar. Then, I got a shot of a bunch of snow caps in the 3rd picture.

The speed limits are high here. The next picture shows the 80mph speed limit sign on I-90 if you drill in. I was not on I-90 at this time, but on the frontage road alongside it. That’s where we spent most of the day.

The toilet paper holder cracked me up and was in a little coffee shop in the town of Big Timber that we passed through. We were making such good time that we decided to stop a bit longer and hit the shop instead of snacks at the van. The owner said that the figurine (which is about 2 feet tall) was an antique that was originally a chess piece on a large chessboard. I forget which piece she said this was.

The last two pictures show how the landscape is getting rockier and dryer as we headed into Columbus.

The Hotel

So, we’re at a Super 8 tonight. My expectations were quite low given that many Super 8’s I see are sketchy as heck. I was pleasantly surprised to see that this one it pretty new and actually nice. If you had dropped me into the room without knowing where I was, I would have never guessed it to be a Super 8. So, that was a nice surprise when we got here. That, and the fact that even though we got here pretty early the rooms were ready.