Hey, Get out of here, bear!

22 Aug 2016  A wee bit of a late start, finally got packed and shoved off about 1000.  I fueled in Thompson Fall, MT and shared a spot with four chicks on Victory and Road Stars (one the same red & creme colored 99 I owned).  I transited Montana on MT 200, a picturesque road through the Rockies.  I started seeing fire camps and helicopters carrying buckets off in the distance, and then I saw the top of one of the mountains on fire.  I suppose it’s that time of year.  I bet the firefighters, after risking their lives in sweltering heat to save trees, need ice cream—very medicinal, ice cream.  In the Flathead reservation area I got blasted by hurricane force winds that whipped my helmet around like some evil joke.  I rode into Butte, and committed my last act, I sincerely hope, as an active duty officer, stopping at a UPS store I printed out an evaluation the XO emailed me, signed it, and mailed it off.  I pleasurable relief to have that last task complete.  I was hot, probably dehydrated again, and sick of the high speeds on Montana roads and only made it to Triple Forks—the head water to the Missouri River.  I pitched camp after getting the obligatory trip around the campground with Buddy (the Campground CEO) the four legged mutt, and Santa Claus.  Yes, the bearded man, wearing a Santa Claus tee shirt, reminded me only about 700 times during our sojourn through the camp in his golf cart, about how his other profession was playing Santa Claus.  I picked a spot as far away from Santa and his helper as was possible.  There were about four campers in the old KOA, Three Forks Campground.  It had all the amenities of a KOA without the high price tag.  I chilled by my tent with a little Scotch I picked up in Butte, and wrote a little, made some calls, and basically vegetated to recuperate.

Somewhere in the middle of the night I heard something rummaging through my bags.  I tried to think if I had anything to attract bears, but my mind wasn’t all that recuperated.  I unzipped the tent, yelled at the bear, and shined my light to catch the furry culprit.  The bear was the campers, a young couple caught like dear in the headlights, that arrived late and setting up camp.

23 Aug 2016  Woke early, the temperatures were somewhere south of warm, showered, packed, and set-off before my neighbors could wake and identify the idiot yelling at them last night.  I had to double layer, learning from my earlier experience.  I zoomed on down the highway and passed another adventure bike loaded for the long haul, two-up.  They got into position behind me and we rode together for about an hour.  They slowed and turned off, to my disappointment.  I tried to turn around to greet them, but my limbs weren’t responding.  I burned through a lot of gas today, filling up twice.  That was 11 gallons today.  You know how it is, cruising along and that vicious thing between your ears starts wondering about in thought.  I calculated some stats: thus far travelled 3,102 miles, burned approximately 60 gallons, smoked approx. 20 cigars, drank approx 1 oz of scotch, consumed 76 gallons of ice cream, answered the questions, where you from/where you going? 1,675 times, and shot 3,492 pictures of trees as I flew by, pointing the camera blindly at beautiful scenes.

Where’d I leave off?  Oh, right, I made it to Buffalo about 1400.  Pulled into town and walked the quaint town’s streets, replenished the black box with cigars, ate a giant burrito, sat downtown and people/bike watched with a cigar, and then dropped my bags in the cabin at the Deer Park Campground (the price was a couple of bucks more than the tent site).  So here I sit, relaxing cabin-side.  Looking forward to Deadwood tomorrow.