End of July 2006

After my accident I was not ridding any of my motorcycles as I felt somewhat confused and my balance was not up to snuff. I started slowly with a few short trips and then finally all the way into town. I found myself going around busy areas and taknig the back roads. i bought a new Hi Viz ridding coat in lime-yellow to hopefully be seen and not run over or pulled out in front of. I finally got my little R80 outfitted with side racks for the soft saddle bags I got with it. I had my friend T-bone sew a couple of kids day packs together for a set of tank panniers so i could carry extra fuel as well as water and other small items. i felt strong enough for a good ride and left out going south down the Tongue River. This is a great gravel road and it took me down to the Tongue River Reservoir. 

The road then goes down to Decker where there are some large coal mines. i snapped this huge shovel scraping the overburden off the coal seam. 

I stopped in Sheridan for some lunch and headed over to the Big Horn Mountains. The road goes by the Medicine Wheel where I went years ago when we were checking out the country looking for a new farm. At that time we were able to drive up to the Wheel and it is really something special. It is very old circle of rocks that seems to be somewhat oriented for solar worship by ancient Indians. The wheel was evidently there when the Indians that  live here now arrived. It is truly a special area. when I was here before I camped a ways down the road and it is very high country, maybe 9 or 10 thousand feet. There is  now a guard station about a mile and a half from the circle and they keep people from driving up there. I asked the gal who was greeting folks if it was still possible to drive past the circle and camp. She said yes, so I hope some day to do that again. 

From the Medicine Wheel I headed over to the Red Lodge area. It was a beautiful day and there was almost no traffic on the highway. 

I thought I would stop in and visit with Bob at his shop. He had just gotten back from a long ride down to Colorado and I wanted to catch up on the news and just see what kind of interesting things that are always showing up at his shop. I caught him at a weak point where he NEEDED to take a ride. His wife Anne is a jewel of a lady and always encourages him to go for rides when ever he needs one. He loaded up his R80GS and we headed out for the Crazy mountains. 

As it turned out we had a hard time finding a route into the mountains. When I talked with my brother I found out that the Crazy Mountains are some of the most remote and difficult mountains to get into. They are the only wolverine habitat in the United States and their rough terrain and difficulty in accessing helps preserve them. This was one of the roads around the mountains that we rode trying to get close. There was this old Church or maybe a School along the road. 

It was really beautiful country and we enjoyed the ride even if we didn't make it to the mountains. 

There were some wonderful pastures and the roads although rough in spots, were fun to ride on our GS's. 

We kept on going north and made it to the Little Belt Mountains. We took off on a Forest Service road and were soon in the forest on nice gravel road. 

We found a deserted campground and made camp for the night. It was amazing in that there was not one mosquito there even with a small stream flowing by. We enjoyed the evening, especially Bob, who likes to camp in regal comfort. He brought his camp chair an foot stool. I wish I had gotten a photo of him in complete comfort. I had my little camp cushion that I sat on perched on a log round so we both had it pretty good. I had a can of Buffalo Stew that we heated up for supper along with some special trail mix that Bob had brought. We had a big owl come by and check us out and sat on a fence post showing off his fantastic neck movement. wow, I wish I could move my neck even half as well as he did. In the morning we headed off down the road and came to this junction where we found out that we had just ridden Deadman Road!!!

We had a good ride back to Bob's place. The mountain roads were just beautiful and almost deserted of traffic.