Today’s Mileage: 341 miles
Total Trip Mileage so far: 2438 miles
Heading north out of Riverton and east of Yellowstone we are on our way to the roads recommended by Alex as not to miss – Chief Joseph Highway and the Beartooth Highway into Red Lodge, Montana.
Out of Riverton, again the scenery started showing off, big rock mountains with tunnels carved through them, a spectacular road through a valley sharing the floor with a railroad and river, and just big scenery again.
Chief Joseph and Beartooth did not disappoint, winding, ascending, descending, breathtaking scenery – what more could a motorcyclist want…not much…maybe just to do it over and over. We dropped into Red Lodge for gas only to discover why were seeing so many BMW’s of varying vintages – there was a BMW rally in town, We talked with a couple of riders at the gas station and then headed out of Red Lodge on Route 78, a nice looking road on the map, but it turned out to be a frustrating chain of construction projects as we have seen so many of. We finally made it in to Big Timber where I ended up at the Grand Hotel, a refurbished old time downtown hotel with a great restaurant. And we visited there for a great meal – sort of unexpected out in that region.
Addition: I forgot to mention the heavy rainstorm and blasting wind at the summit on Chief Joseph – probably the worst wind I have ever ridden in. Add rain to it and it was not fun. But it cleared off and all was well again.
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- North of Riverton
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- Valley with Road, River, and Railroad
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- Motorcycle Playgroud
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- Grand Hotel in Big Timber, MT
