Continuing westward, we hit the road for Missoula. We have been members of the Missoula-based Adventure Cycling Association for years, and I guess I'd always thought of Missoula as some little dot on the map -- I'm not even sure why. But knowing how many cyclists pass through here on bike tours and what a bike friendly city it's supposed to be, we were looking forward to checking it out. The drive over from Billings got prettier and prettier the farther west we got, especially when we saw the Rocky Mountains up ahead out our windshield. Absolutely breathtaking! Our pictures would have been even nicer if we'd had a clearer day, but as you can see, it was overcast. The closer we got, the more impressive they were. The rivers were also beautiful. I am pretty sure this is the Yellowstone River, but I wouldn't swear on it. This is what I get for not writing blog posts right away, while things are fresh on my mind. When we arrived in Missoula, I realized that this was no dot on the map. It was a real city! We stayed in a nice La Quinta, which was unfortunately absolutely chock-a-block full of people and their four-legged companions for a big dog show in the area. What bad luck...we'd thought that by avoiding staying on a weekend, Missoula would be pretty quiet, but that was not the case. There were some noisy dogs on our hall, so our sleep quality was not the best for the two nights we were here. Our room faced a nice rushing creek out back, though! After checking in, we decided to walk down to find a grocery store to pick up a few things. We were tired of sitting in the car and certainly didn't want to get back into it. It was quite a hike down a very busy street, but we finally made it to a Walmart about two miles one way. On the way back, we got caught in a sudden rainstorm, which was kind of surprising considering how pretty the sky looked when we first checked in (see photo above). Weather can change on a dime in this part of the country.
The following day, we planned to bicycle around Missoula and check it out more thoroughly. Stay tuned for much more from this pretty western city -- we had a fantastic ride and saw so much!
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We chose to spend a June weekend in Billings in large part because we could get pet friendly lodging there. As we discovered, weekends can be busy in touristy areas during prime family vacation season, and hotels often raise their rates simply because they can. Our first choice, Sheridan, Wyoming, had a major event going on this particular weekend, so lodging was booked solid. West Yellowstone was busy and pricey as well. Billings, being the largest city in Montana, has more lodging available and is not a tourist destination to the extent of some other western cities. But we really didn't know what to expect in the way of cycling. Turns out, we got incredibly fortunate in picking this spot to park for a couple of nights. Barry found a Billings-Molt Road Ride loop online that we could ride in Billings and out into the rural area west of the city. As the description says, "This ride offers plenty of heart pumping hill climbs, adrenaline rushed descents and fantastic Big Sky scenery." I got a little nervous about the heart pumping hill climbs, but of course Barry just saw the fun of a challenge! And as it turns out, Billings is actually quite bike friendly with some nice marked bike lanes and a good bike path that took us to the edge of town. Here's a map of the route we followed, though we modified it slightly since we pedaled to Rimrock Road from our hotel. We avoided one really steep climb into Zimmerman Park since we had no need to park there. Lucky us! First, we headed from the hotel on mostly good, flat roads with bike lanes. We then hooked up with a bike path that climbed gently the rest of the way north to Rimrock Road and provided views of dramatic rimrock that flanks the city's north side. Once we were up to the rimrock, we took a slight detour to get a closer look. Next, we turned our bikes westward and headed out into the rural countryside beyond Billings. The road was beautiful, lightly traveled, and initially mostly flat, but that would soon change. We heard and saw many Western Meadowlarks along the way. They look so similar to Eastern Meadowlarks (and their ranges overlap), so we'd never been able to say definitively that we'd seen a Western one, though we probably had. This time, we were in Western Meadowlark territory only, so we could finally add this beautiful bird to our life lists and not feel that we might be cheating! As we continued heading west on Molt Road, we reached those heart pumping climbs we read about in the route description. As the description states, "You'll pass by a golf course as the road begins a long (and sometimes steep) ascent on a narrow hogback. As the road continues up, the views of the Beartooth Mountains to the south and the Crazy Mountain to the east steadily improve." So, this must be a "hogback"! I had no idea, but it was definitely a heart pumping climb, as promised. The views were indeed great. You have to look closely to see the distant snow-capped peaks beyond the foothills in this photo. Here, I stopped to catch my breath and take a couple shots, and Barry took a photograph of me taking photographs. This was definitely big sky country and worth the suffering of the climb! Fortunately, there was almost no traffic as we slogged up the climb (Barry much faster than me). Good thing, too, as this speed limit was just a few miles per hour quicker than I could manage! Once we finally made it up to the ridge, we had a nice flattish ride almost to the tiny town of Molt, before turning on Buffalo Trail Road. Most of this road was downhill and very scenic. Time to head back east to Billings.... Close to the hotel, one more important stop was in order. I think we deserve it, don't you?! Blizzards and cold drinks all around on this hot day. Yum! Since we had to ride to and from the loop, we ended up with over 50 miles on the day.
One thing we found interesting about Billings is that nowhere near our hotel nor on the ride through the city did we ever see a single grocery store. Plenty of restaurants, but no groceries. Don't people in Billings cook?! After a couple of great days in lovely Spearfish, South Dakota, it was time to continue our westward journey. We were hoping to stay in Sheridan, Wyoming, which looked like an attractive town, but we would be arriving on the weekend, and there was a big camping and music event going on. This made lodging options pretty much nil, especially with a pet and for a reasonable cost. So, we had to content ourselves with driving through beautiful northeast Wyoming but staying in Montana over the weekend. We took a detour off the highway to head up to Devils Tower National Monument. Thanks to my high school friend Danny who reminded me just how close we'd be -- one of the great things about Facebook! It was only about an extra hour of driving (it's north of Gillette in the map above) and well worth the drive, especially since we have our national park annual pass, so entrance was absolutely free. Long before we arrived at the site, we could see it up ahead. This is one impressive "igneous intrusion"! Gotta think back to your high school or college geology class for that one, and that's been quite awhile for us! Devils Tower rises an impressive 867 feet above its base. It kept getting more dramatic as we drove closer. We pulled off the road several times for photos. This one was my favorite. But this zoomed-in one wasn't bad either! Finally we reached the entrance to the NPS site. We couldn't stay long since it was a hot day, and dogs aren't allowed on the trails, so no hiking for us this time. A lot of folks had the same idea as us as the monument parking lot was packed on this Friday morning. We took a few more photos, bought a refrigerator magnet for our collection (even though we have no fridge to put it on!) and left. On the way out, we stopped to check out the prairie dog village in the park. Cute and busy little rascals! Continuing on, we pulled off for a pit stop at a Wyoming information center. Turns out that this place was along the old Texas Trail (which I'd never heard of prior to reading this monument). It's much more interesting to me learning about American history by traveling the country than from books in school. MUCH more interesting. Before leaving Wyoming, we were treated to glorious views of the snow-capped peaks of the Bighorn National Forest to the west. Wow! You just don't see things like this back east. I was struck by how green and lush Wyoming looked as opposed to my first and only brief visit there when we were in South Dakota last fall and everything was pretty dried out and dusty. It was soon time to say goodbye to Wyoming as we entered Montana and made our way to our next stop, Billings. Wish this photo had turned out a bit better.... Stay tuned -- Montana is up next!
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Emily & BarryWe're a long-married, early-retired couple who are currently traveling as nomads with no fixed home base. After years of living in North Carolina (Emily's home state), we spent 18 months living oceanfront on Ambergris Caye, Belize, a year road-tripping the US in a Honda CR-V, a year in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and are now roaming North America in our 32' motorhome, Pearl, following warm weather whenever possible. Archives
July 2019
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