This morning we are on our way to our 15th road in the 15 Great American Roads challenge, which is #16 in the list out of the 20 to choose from. Every morning Rick would check the weather of where we are going to give us an idea of what we might face. Todays report hot and sunny, with the added subject to change…..

We start our typical time of 6:30ish and we are rolling south west out of North Dakota into Wyoming today. Roads are straight and flat and sure enough, we are watching the morning skies as we seem to miss showers on our left and on our right, with a few sprinkles here and there. It wasn’t before long that we punched through this cloud cover and we were in sunshine and the day’s heat started to accumulate.

We again are doing the back roads and we come through a town called Miles City in Montana crossing the interstate and we stay on the back roads out of that town. The road is fast cruising along ranches that seem to last forever out here. We make another turn and we are traveling down a road and I feel things constantly hitting my feet. They are not rocks, but just a constant splattering of grasshoppers are hitting us about from the surface to 3 to 3 1/2 feet high, pelting our bikes and what ever is exposed at that level. We past a farmers truck and while passing the splattering intensifies as the truck seems to be pushing more grasshoppers in our path. I take a gander at my boot as we are riding and it has changed color.

After about 40 miles since we past the town I start downshifting because of what I see ahead. We come to a stop on this road because the pavement ends and it is gravel. We have been using google maps to navigate back roads. We just set our destination, change the options to avoid highways, and we have had very good luck with our outcome most of the time, we never had this issue. We didn’t know if it was just a construction patch or what, so we ride slowly about 100 yards further to see over the crest and the road is still gravel. A couple of ranchers trucks stop and check on us. I question them how long is the gravel road and what is its condition? The report is it is gravel all the way to Ashland, 35 miles away. The condition is washboard then it deteriorates with some potholes for a bit, last 10 miles the road is good.

We opt not to tackle the road as but at a pace of 10 to 20 mph, it would take us about 2 1/2 to 3 hours and do a number on our bladders. Our route was to take us to Ashland to Route 212, then take that west to Arapoosh. Not really much options out here as roads are far and few between these vast areas. We double back to Miles City through the grasshopper killing field and hop on the interstate a bit to take another back road, but now we are a bit leery of Google maps. Never had this happed this whole time. The detour probably added another hour to our riding today.

The day is hot at this point, in the low 90’s with some humidity. We continue along and the skies are clear and at about 2:30ish in the afternoon we arrive in Ranchester WY to document and start our ride #15. Both of us have done this road before, for me twice and always west to east in direction (and one time in a tow truck – another story). Roads take on a different flavor on direction of travel – the vistas are different on the direction of travel and you get another perspective of the area. This was a treat approaching this ride from the east and it was beautiful. The road is a pass, over the mountain areas in the Bighorn National Forest. The temperatures dropped about 30 degrees when we were on the summit plateau. Typical of mountain passes that you do in the afternoon, the area usually has showers and this was no exception, but we stayed in the sunshine and just had some wet roads as we missed the showers again. We stopped a few times to enjoy the scenery before heading back down the mountain.

Once down in Greybull, it was back up to about 92 degrees and a slight breeze for our documentation at the post office and the gas station. It was about 4:30-5:00 pm and a decision was needed on where to go for the night. I was thinking about a historic hotel right in Greybull, but decided to start heading south to the next town and see how we feel and what we find.

The next town we saw a Days Inn which was all single story, park in front of your room, and the upkeep was pleasant in this barren type of terrain. It wasn’t your typical Days Inn. We check inn, they have for us fresh baked cookies , ice tea and coffee, and ice cream! Outside, we find a hose and they say sure, clean your bikes, which Rick started to get rid of all those grasshoppers that committed suicide. Next door was a non descript pizza/bar establishment which was lively on the inside and good food after a long day.

In planning these rides, originally we thought we would be in Michigan on the last week on July. We ended up being there mid month. At that point we made the decision to skip Sturgis as we are early, and when we were going after our last 15th road, we chose to go home after that as oppose to go after the 20 roads that we originally set out to do. We have been on the road for 5 weeks now on phase 2 and I think both of us miss our beds and have tasks to do that are in the back in our minds with our lives back home. Plus we have one more big ride over labor day weekend. Getting home early to take care of a few things and relax. and also enjoy summer in California was part of the attraction.

With our bellies full of pizza, we retired for the night to get an early start the next morning.

2023-07-22 ride video

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