The first '98 Montana trip

  Well, June and July came and went. Spent some time in the car. Spent some time on the bike.. I'd been pestering my friend Dan about the fact that this was going to be the last summer for a while that he'd get to take any kind of long road trip, due to an impending baby in the family (They had a beautiful baby girl in November). Anyway, I kept telling him,
"Look, you'd better take a trip with me, or it's going to be many years before you get an opportunity." He wavered and waffled and we (me and Joe) just started talking to him like his coming on the trip was a foregone conclusion.

By August the thrill of the new car still hadn't worn off, so I had pretty much made up my mind to drive the car, when Dan finally decided that he wanted to go, and he wanted to ride the motorcycle. I thought about all the money I had not spent fixing up my motorcycle this year and decided that I'd be the sag wagon for Dan, and he'd try to keep up with the GTI. :-)

We hit the road the last week in August, and went up the same way I came down for my Montana Motorcycle Trip. That means we went I-70 to hwy 40, over Berthoud Pass, through Winter Park and up to Steamboat Springs. From there, west to Craig on 40, then north on SR 189 to I-80.

Just before Craig we decided to take a "shortcut" that the mapping software had shown as a way to cut off a few miles. CR76.. which turned into CR38 which turned into CR29, which turned into CR18. Yes, that's "County Road", which means that it went from paved, to gravel to dirt, to "Where the hell are we?". We faithfully followed the directions of Delorme Street Atlas though, and it dumped us back out on SR13. Our whole jaunt through the dirt saved us 7 miles.

From there, it was north on 13 to Baggs and then SR 780 to I-80.

 

  We took I-80 west to Rock Springs and then pushed on north on 191 to 189 toward Jackson Hole Wyoming. We stopped just short of Jackson in Bridger-Teton National Forest, pulled off at one of the many national forest access roads and found a nice little camping spot, where we camped on the banks of Granite Creek. The picture to the left is from the next morning with the fog starting to lift and Dan probably wondering if he's left his contacts in the grass somewhere.
 
From there we cruised on through Jackson, up over Teton Pass and on through Idaho Falls and north into Montana, land of open highways and "Reasonable and Prudent" speed limits. We turned off short of Dillon onto HWY 278 which runs into the Big Hole. Somewhere around here with a 5 mile straight stretch of road visible in front of us, we cracked it wide open to see what the car and bike were really made of.
I can just see all the relatives cringing when they read this.
Let's just say that the car flies past 120, is still pulling at 130.. creeps up on 140.. and runs out of steam at an indicated 146. (All hypothetically of course..:-) Dan couldn't get down behind the windscreen on his bike far enough with his tank bag there, so he could only go about 2mph faster than the car.


  We passed over Lost Trail pass, followed Lewis and Clark's trail up the valley and rolled into Darby, Montana in good time.

The week in the Bitterroot Valley consisted of a multitude of entertainments. My father Joe and his wife Val were in the process of rehabilitating some raccoons, who's mother's had been killed on the highway.
To the left we see them exploring Dan's head. They really enjoy pulling on peoples' hair.


Later they defy gravity. This picture looks just as good turned upside down.

The raccoons were released in September or October. Two were taken to a wildlife refuge area, and the other two seem to have been drawn to the Darby city lights, and are surely living the high life now.


  Middle of the week, everyone (me, Dan, Joe, Val, Rita, Walt, Aunt Michele and Cousin Becky, all headed up the valley to Missoula to see the sights in the big town. One of the attractions there is a carousel which was built entirely within Montana. People were given raw blocks of wood, roughly horse shaped, and many different people carved, and painted, and constructed the whole thing. It's a fairly impressive carousel, and we all took a spin on it.
  Seen here is Dan, "hanging off". This is a motorcycle move where you hang your body off to the inside of the turn to keep the side of the bike from scraping on the ground. Boy was that thing fast and scary. :-)

After the Carousel, some of us went to see Saving Private Ryan. (you know.. just to complement the festivities :-) Seriously though, that is an incredible movie. In addition to the powerful story, It may have the best effects soundtrack of any movie I've ever seen.


  Otherwise Dan and I managed to pick raspberries, get out on the lake in the rowing shell and sea kayak, and spend some quality time fixing Joe's computer.

I got a picture of the house I grew up in, before leaving.

And here's Dan and I, three minutes before hitting the road home, standing in front of our previous week's abode.
 
On to the End of the Montana trip.


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