Corner To Corner - Chapter 12, My God Montana is a Big State

Mile marker numbers start at 0 on the west and south ends of states, and get larger as you go north or east. When one is traveling across a state, east to west like we are, you can see how far you have to go just by reading the mile markers. Montana is a freakingly large state. When we got onto 1-90 yesterday at Crow Agency, MT, southeast of Billings, the mile markers on I-90 were in the 500s. And although we didn’t travel much of the Interstate on Friday, we are still in the 100s in Missoula. This state just never ends.

It was cool when we left Billings – I had on a long-sleeve t-shirt for the first time this trip. However, once again the sun was shining and not a cloud in the sky. We headed north on MT-3 to where it picked up US-12 West. As is usual in these sparsely populated areas there was little or no traffic. I was able to put my feet up on the travel pegs, stretch out and enjoy the sun shining on me. Going up hills on straight runs at 65 mph or around gradual curves with my feet out and arms up, it almost feels like flying as you bank into a gradual curve, or climb up into the sky. A lot of riders like tight quick curves, and they too are fun, but these long gradual curves where you can lean into them, stretched out like an eagle flying are what I really love. In fact a couple of times I got so lost in it I actually lost sight of Tony (and his buddy Sturge) behind me.

In Montana, the American Legion puts up a marker wherever someone has died along the road. They are small white crosses, and judging from the number we saw, both on US-12 and on other roads when we were here two years ago, Montana appears to have a disproportionately high number of highway fatalities. It’s actually kind of creepy to see these markers all up and down the road.

At one point US-12 merges with US-89 – and I had a chance to have the same moment Tony had back in Michigan when we were on US-41 and US-2. US-89 is the main street in my home town of Salt Lake City, and it also is the main street where I spent a number of years, Tempe, Arizona. US-12 heads back to Seattle. It’s one of those crossroads in life that appear on the horizon, quite literally in our case on this trip, and I think it makes for a great visual.

You have a lot of time to think and contemplate while riding a motorcycle, and my mind tends to be all over the map, from work and relationship problems, to song lyrics, to philosophy, to curiosity, to contemplating how life has changed over the years. Take for example bales of hay. Huh? Bales of hay? When I was a kid we’d go visit my uncle Ted on his dairy farm in Southeast Idaho. I was – and still am – fascinated by farm machinery, and how much like Rube Goldberg contraptions they tend to be. Its one of the reasons we stopped at the Farm museum back in Minnesota. Anyway, one of the cool machines Uncle Ted had was a hay bailer. It scooped up the hay, compressed it into blocks, bound it up, and spit them out the back like a Pez candy dispenser. Rows of perfect little green blocks that ripened in the sun into yellow hay bales, which then got stacked into building sized piles. This was the ONLY field we saw this trip with normal hay bales.

Apparently now days however, bales are made into huge minivan sized round balls. These things don’t stack into nice haystack sized things, and they are so massive you have to have a forklift to move them. All these hundreds of miles we’ve traveled in farm and ranch country in Minnesota, South Dakota, and Montana, only once have I seen the square hay bales – and everywhere else it’s been field after field of minivan sized round balls. The sad thing is that the farm boys won’t build up nice muscles tossing square ones around anymore. What a shame.

We kept heading west on US-12, and of course passing what seemed like hundreds of bikers headed east to Sturgis, which gets rolling officially today. At one point we were riding through a hay field and ran into a cloud of grasshoppers. These little monsters HURT at 60 mph, and they make a big mess on the bike and on me – it felt like I was getting shot by a bunch of bb’s, and by the time we got to Missoula they were stuck in every crevice of my bike and we had to go spray it off at a car wash. Tony, in the Geezer Glide, with all it’s faring did better – all that plastic blocked then from hitting him, but his bike was plastered as well.

We started to get hungry as we were pulling into Helena, and Tony and Sturge pulled along side to ask where we should eat. I did my hand signal of making a swirly motion on top of my head which is Gary’s universal sign for “small drive in with a vanilla soft serve cone on top”. Tony just rolled his eyes, but I had another thing planned as a surprise. Tony’s buddies in Minneapolis have been raving about a regional chain called Taco Johns, and I had seen a billboard for one outside of Helena. Tony lit up when I signaled and pulled into the Taco Johns and couldn’t wait to get in. To me it was the same as any chain taco joint – just OK, but he was a happy guy.

Wile we were sitting there I was contemplating our route and what to do. We still had many hundreds of miles to get out of Montana, and we had wanted to complete the ride on Sunday. The more I looked at the map, the more I saw how far we had to go, and more importantly the distance between towns with hotels. We had a couple of options at this point, neither of which we really liked. We could stay on I-90 and blast to Idaho and maybe as far as Spokane, or we could take US-12 and try to get to Lewiston, ID. Both of those options would involve almost 600 mile days, and we were just barely at 250 miles at that point. We would be riding well into the evening. We had to make our mind up at Missoula where the roads diverged. While we were eating a fellow diner who over heard us talking told us we needed to stop by the “Testicle Festival” up the road. He said some “Hells Angels” were there, but we should have fun anyway. Eating castrated calf testicles with Hells Angels – hmmm, sounds like fun in my book. Neither of us thought twice when we passed the billboard at the exit for the festival.

We rode West out of Helena and US-12 merged with I-90 again for 70 miles into Missoula. As we merged onto the freeway it was hot, and we faced into a strong head wind. In addition there were lots of trucks, and truck ruts on the road, and more than a few hundred bikers headed east. Getting buffeted by high winds, dodging 75 mph traffic on an Interstate, and realizing we’d be on this for some time was not a pleasant thought. I remembered as well what has become my “Prime Directive” if you will. We ride on the road to HAVE a good time, not to MAKE good time. Yes, we wanted to get Neah Bay on the other corner on Sunday. But in order to do that we’d have to sacrifice the enjoyment of the road trip itself – which is why we are on it. I realized then that we could call the kennel, have the dogs stay another day, and finish the ride on Monday. We could stop in Missoula for the night having done 356 miles. We’ll do another 300-400 on Saturday, taking US-12 which we haven’t done and ending up in Washington somewhere, then another 300-400 on Sunday, getting us to the Washington coast That way on Monday we finish it by riding up to Neah Bay, and then back to Seattle.

So, that’s what we’ll do. We will be on the road an extra day, and that’s a good thing. Never forget the Prime Directive of a Road Trip. Travel on the road to have a good time – not to make good time.