Bob and Anne wanted to go to a sidecar rally up at Wolf Creek, MT and asked if I would come over and stay at their house and take care of their dogs for a weekend. Well, those of you that know me, know that I love dogs, and it was an opportunity to take some rides on my R80GS bike.  It was too bad that the weather wasn’t that good for them up there. It rained quite a bit but they had time that way, to visit with the sidecar folks that came. The weather just sort of circled around the Red Lodge area and I had quite a few nice rides around the area. There were the occasional thunder showers in the afternoon, but nothing serious.

 

A couple of weeks later I was headed over to the Quigley shoot just north of Forsyth, MT. This is getting to be a famous shoot for the guys that shoot the old time buffalo guns. Shooters come from all over the US as well as a few foreign countries for the event always held on Fathers day. It has evolved into a two day affair. The shortest target is 240 yards and that is shot off hand. The other ten targets are spaced out to 800+ yards and are shot from crossed sticks. The shoot is held on a beautiful open area where the wind is a constant variable. It is amazing to watch these folks (some dressed in period costumes) shoot those old and new black powder rifles with such precision.

photo from last years shoot

I never did make it out there as the drive shaft went out of my big old yellow dog about twenty miles out along the freeway. Damn, or yahoo, it didn’t do this down in the Amazon jungle somewhere. I had to take the bike over to Bob where he put in the drive shaft he took out when he installed a new drive shaft for my trip to South America. These shafts are known to go out and Bob and I thought it best to install a new one for the trip. It is wonderful to have a primary care mechanic that is so knowledgeable and can help prevent problems out there on the road. You may remember he recommended I take a spare throttle cable with me and oh, was I happy to have one in my saddle bag when a throttle cable broke up in Michigan on my way home….. THANKS BOB!!!!!

While I was there a friend of Bob’s showed up. His name is Roger and he is from Australia. Several years ago Roger broke down up on the Beartooth pass and lucky for him, Bob came to his rescue and  brought his bike to the shop and got him back on the road again. Roger keeps a BMW here in the states and has another one in Australia when he is home. He has been coming to Bob’s Summer Solstice party for several years. It is a long way to come for free Beer, Brats and Burgers. I had a really good time talking with him and should have pumped him more on info about Australia as I think I want to go to Australia this winter. I know it is a long way to go to get away from a Montana winter, but should be fun according to a lot of folks as well as Roger.

 

I had the opportunity to do some more riding in the area in between helping Bob get the shop cleaned out and organizing the bikes to make room for the tables that would be loaded with yummy food.
This is a really cool little church way out in the country with hardly a ranch near by. It is well taken care of and the grave yard next to it was still fresh from Memorial Day care.

The view from here was fantastic. Those are the Beartooth Mountains in the background.

This is an old School building way up on a ridge. They had a nice view too but it must have been rather chilly in the winter up there with no wind protection.

This is a nice little rock walled canyon along the way. Did I mention I tried to take mostly the back gravel roads? There are lots of them in the area and it sure is fun to explore them. I was riding the little R80GS and I really like it. It is light and nimble and all the power a person could want.

This is along the Stillwater River. All these fine trout streams/rivers and I don’t think I saw a fisherman anywhere. Even near such a tourist attraction as Red Lodge if you get off the pavement, you can find peace and quiet. Well, there is an occasional rancher in a pickup pulling a stock trailer, but they are all friendly and wave back. Isn’t Montana just great! 

I got to get over and see Sam, my step son over in Big Timber where he is the head of the maintenance department for the High School. Sam is extremely well organized and he showed me around his office and working areas. He has a wonderful school shop to work in with all the tools a person could want. It is really nice to see him doing so well and I got to meet some of the folks he works with. I hope to get to go for a back country ride with him this summer. Sam is a serious hunter and experienced back woods man. He rode dirt bikes when he was young and also had a road bike at one time. 

I took along the banner that Mark and Karen Weeding made for me when I went to their house and gave a slide show of my trip to South America. When we were setting up the shop for the party Bob said that he wanted the Yellow Dog to be on a stand in a place of honor. I told him that hell, it will do just fine outside as it is all dirty and wouldn’t look nice in his nice clean shop with all the shiny bikes. He was adamant and actually it was nice to have it on display.

We arranged the other bikes along the side except for Bob’s R69S and a couple of other really fine lookers.

Late in the party, I set up a screen by the bike and showed my power point slide show of my trip to South America.
The bikes started showing up early afternoon and there was a lot of bike talk and friends seeing each other from all over the country.

I didn’t get a real good photo of the camping spots but in this photo you can see a few of the tents that popped up.

This guy (dang, I cant remember his name) showed up on an old Guzzi with a pot of Jambalaya on the back. He found it in a barn in some little town near here and has a lot of fun with it. It sounds great. You can see the welcome that riders get when they come to this party!!! He has been to Central America and recognized some places that I had photos of when I gave my slide show. He is the Ambassador of the Christian Motorcycle Riders and has taken several little Hondas that the members fix up and take to the poor countries so the preachers can service more of the churches. His son showed up on his old Goldwing. The son wants to go to some of the little countries down there and was most appreciative of my slide show. He must have thanked me a half a dozen times and about shook my hand off.

There were some really pretty bikes that showed up. This one had a very nice Avon fairing on it.

This bike belonged to a guy that does some serious rally riding. He and his buddy are planning on heading down to South America in a couple of years.

A nice little hack showed up ridden by a woman who was packing a little dog in the side car. It has a really nice earls type front end for side car work.

Gary Smith showed up riding his scooter. Gary only has use of the left side of his body and has ridden motorcycles for years and is the BMW Ambassador for several states. He lives and works in Billings and is a great guy to talk with. He just recently bought this scooter and loves it. these things are pretty amazing he says. They cruise at 80 and the hot shot motorcycle guys cant leave him on the twisty mountain roads.

The scooters plate. It just gotta be bad to get passed by a scooter………

This guy had more to say.

It was a great party and wonderful to meet new folks and see old friends. Did I mention the great food?

Thanks, Bob and Anne. We all had a great time.