It was a busy day before I ever hit the road. I grabbed swim early and did a 1,000 yards before I went to school and de-installed some of my art from the outer gallery, then took the dog to the dog park for a major fetch session, and back up to school for my oral defense/faculty revue of my capstone exhibition for my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. All of that went well and by 1:30pm or so I was hitting the road.
I’ve wanted to explore Hwy 91 that runs from Pryor to St. Xavier and with the weather a beautiful 75 degrees this has to be the day. I gassed up and worked my way through through Billings to South Billings Blvd. which heads out of town and becomes Blue Creek Road, rising up to the high prairie. Here’s a view along the way:
This road eventually connects up to Pryor Road, AKA Hwy 418. I took this south for 20 miles or so to the town of Pryor on the Crow Indian Reservation. I stopped at the high school for a few photos.
From here it was time to head east.
Before I hit the first mile marker a sign informed me that I had a rough road ahead for the next 44 miles. Great. I wondered what a “rough road” would be and I soon found out. Pot holes, lots of them. Some were 3-4 inches deep but keeping my speed at 50mph or less I could spot them and navigate around them. The other “rough” feature was that it appears that all the cattle guards had been removed and those spots backfilled with loose earth and topped with a cold patch. This means that there was a definite depression at each former crossing and reducing speed and standing up on the pegs was required to comfortably negotiate them.
That said, the scenery was great.
At another stop or two along the way…
Eventually, I arrived in St. Xavier. The town is in decline but picturesque in its own way.
I’d thought about heading to the recreation area around Yellowtail Dam but that will have to remain an excursion when I leave earlier in the day. Today was about exploring this road from Pryor to St. X and I’ve done that so I’ll head north to Hardin and then back to Billings. I’m on Hwy 313 and about 20 miles south of Hardin I see this:
I had encountered one these last summer on another highway and there was nothing about that road that made it an issue for motorcycles so I decided to forge ahead and see what this one was like. About a mile ahead the pavement ended and a sign said it would be like this for the next 8 miles. The road looked like loose gravel with some compacted earth and I considered giving it a go until I saw an oncoming semi and a group of cars creating a dust cloud. No thanks. I turned around and went back to that warning sign and turned on Hwy 1 which promise to take me to Crow Agency. It turned out to be a good move. The road was great.
When I arrived in Crow Agency I decided to "grab the slab" and took Interstate 90 back to Billings. Very little traffic. I set the cruise control at 80 mph and just enjoyed the ride.
It was a great route and one I would consider doing again. Aside from the pot holes in the road, the only other downside was that after I was about 15 miles east of Pryor I picked up a cross wind. While annoying, it is also good practice and I took it in stride.
It was a 178 mile day.
Looks like you had a great ride! I like the hills and turns. Wonder how the new Tracer GT would handle some of the poorer sections of that route. I've made the mistake of turning down gravel and loose sand roads that I thought for sure would end in good pavement and never did. On the Blackbird, it was tense to say the least.
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