5-14-05

We have had some early spring weather and this is what it looked like in the morning when I got up last week.

This morning it looked like a perfect day for working on my lean-to shed.

 The night before I went to town and attended the open mic music at Joe Whalen's,  Miles City Books and News. On Friday nights he turns the book store into a live music happening. We have an amazing diversity of musicians living here as well as those just passing through or visiting friends. You never know who will come in the door packing a guitar, banjo, blues harp, mandolin, or ???? Last night there was an exchange student from Sweden that had the most amazing vice. She sang a Swedish hymn with a voice that was so open and forceful that the house just erupted in applause and we begged her to sing another, which she did latter after practicing in the back room. There were quite a few young people that came last night as the Universities have let out for the summer and some young musicians were home. It is all acoustic instruments and the blues, bluegrass, fold, country, rock and you name it happens. It is something I try to go to every Friday night.

While I was talking with Joe, he asked if I was going to the Bike show over in Glendive on Saturday. I didn’t know anything about it but immediately said, “YES”. Glendive is only 70 miles or so east of Miles. I had been looking at the weather since it had been so shitty for the last week and I had been looking forward to working on the shed and maybe doing a little riding too. Saturday was supposed to be 61 degrees and sunny so it sounded perfect for a ride. As it happened my friend Mark Weeding was at the music and  I knew he was probably ready for a ride.  I had ridden with Mark last year when we went to Ingomar one day for breakfast, about a 80 mile ride one way out in a big wide open prairie. When I asked  Mark he was immediately interested. We rounded up one more rider who usually goes over every year to the bike show, his name is Bruce Hellen. Bruce rides a Harley V-Rod and Mark rides a Kawasaki Vulcan and with my BMW we pretty much had a cross section of the world motorcycle products, USA, Japan, Germany. 

This morning was a little chilly. The weather channel said that it was 28 but I think it was a little colder than that here, maybe 24 or so. We had decided to meet downtown at the new coffee shop next to the health food  store at 10am. It was still a little chilly by the time we pulled out of town, but we were dressed for it. We had to stop once for Mark to put on another layer not too far out. We had a really good ride over along the back/frontage roads whenever possible. Some of the way we had to go on the freeway, but the nice thing about this freeway is that there is almost no traffic on it. I read somewhere that it has the least traffic of any freeway in the US. We rolled in to Glendive a little  after noon and pulled into the parking lot.

You might notice the dinosaur in the background. This is primo dinosaur country and a lot of them have been  found around here (dead ones, fortunately).

The bike show was in a closed shopping center building downtown.


This is a bike that a guy in Miles City built out of parts that he collected over several years. Dig his  yellow shoes, I gotta get a pair to go with my ‘big yeller fella’.

He had a nice display. This  is his collection of toy Harleys.




An early Harley.

This is the first of the three wheelers, a Honda 90. It was just so cute compared to the new huge four wheelers today. This is what started the madness.


This is a very cool 1948 61 inch Pan head. The card said that it was bought by a local rancher who used it as a saddle horse and hunting outfit on his ranch.  It is all original. Check out the cool kidney belt that was on the seat.

here is the sticker on this  little ZZ Trike



This was a rather extreme custom Sportster.


Humm,??



OK, I had to put this one in here, it  is a BMW 1200GS and the nice thing about it is that it was ridden here and evidently through the mud and it hadn’t been washed. Bruce asked me what the deal was: “don’t you guys ever wash your bikes?” It was the only dirty bike in the show, it looked ‘real’.

I took a walk out in the parking lot and found  these.

 Indian Reservation? It is nice to see other DOGS out there.

A Triumph beater with no air cleaners, so you know it’s just gotta be fast.

We blasted out of Glendive and headed for home. I was going to stop and take a photo of the coolest squirrel that was squished right down town on main street,  but some S.O.B. must have picked it up by the time we got back. I knew I should have gone back right then and taken the photo in the morning, but who would think someone would grab a pancake squirrel? I tell you it was that cool. It looked like Rocky run over with a steam roller.

Mark has a ranch/farm near Fallon and I had asked him if we could go by it on  our way back. His farm is located on the top of a rise that must be the high point for miles around as there are three big microwave and transmitter towers up there. Mark has one of them on his property.
 

Both Mark and Bruce were born and raised in eastern Montana into farm and ranch families. We had a good time talking crops and the Ag industry in general.  In the photo below is a new planting of spring wheat that  is just coming up.  Mark has a couple sections up here and if you ever want to experience BIG SKY this is someplace you NEED to visit. The exposure is terrific. 

Marks place it 8 miles off the pavement on some really nice gravel roads.



Both of their bikes are really road bikes but they did well on these nice roads. They have radiators down low behind the front wheel and there was some concern about rocks hitting the radiator,  but fortunately there  were no problems.
The only traffic we saw out here were three pickups hauling gooseneck trailers while we were stopped enjoying the view. The cowboys were suspicious of us but they waved nonetheless.

 
The back/frontage roads were great on the way home with no traffic at all.


We got back a little after eight o’clock and stopped for a bite to eat before heading to our places.

It was agreed all around  that it doesn’t get much better than days like this.