FJR Adventures: An International Ride

October 9, 2023

It’s almost the middle of October and in Montana, motorcyclists are thinking about picking up a bottle of Sta-Bil and figuring out where they left their battery tender since winter storage is just around the corner. But I want to get at least one more overnight camping trip in the books before things shut down until spring so I came up with a plan. Hey, I’ve never been to Malta, MT and I see that camping is available in their city park so that would make a good destination. I thought about this for a couple months and finally put together a plan and left Keith and Bill in on it. Both were interested but Keith had a conflict so it was just me and Bill set on a Monday departure.

Then I saw that the brewery in Malta is closed on Mondays so we switched the departure day to Tuesday. But then the weather report indicated that the chance of rain was increasing so we moved the leave time back to Monday. Bill and I met up at 7:30 am on Monday and got this trek underway.

Here’s my bike ready to go.

The plan, and I did make an itinerary, is to ride to Malta. Then, for those with current passports, continue on to Val Marie, Saskatchewan. Those who would stay behind would have an alternate activity.

Instead of heading to Roundup via Main Street in the Billings Height (a massive traffic hazard) we rode Hwy 3 to Lavina and then headed east on Hwy 12 to Roundup. This is a nice ride except that we had the sun in our eyes for most of it. In Roundup we took a quick break in front of the Musselshell County courthouse.

Next we headed north to Grassrange but did a comfort stop along the way.

I ridden past Grassrange numerous times and I has sort of set a goal to stop/tour all the small town I go past instead of just ignoring them or only using them as a gas stop. When we got to Grassrange we pulled over in the city park.

We did stop for gas there before continuing on Hwy 191. This is a highway that Bill and rode last May on our San Diego Adventure as it runs from the southern border to the Canadian border. Back then we picked it up near Lander, WY and rode it to just north of Douglas, AZ. But that has its own blog posts.

We stopped at the Missouri River at the James Kipp Campground, for a break.

Back in the road, we headed for the last leg that would take us to Malta. The roads are pretty good except for a few miles outside of Malta where some construction is taking place and we had to ride a packed gravel detour for a a mile or two. In Malta we got gas and then went the Trafton Park, the city park that is along the Milk River. We plan to campe here tonight but for now we just had our lunch.

After lunch it was time to, temporarily, part ways. From what I saw on the Canadian government site, one needs a passport to enter into the country. This was no problem as Bill has an alternate plan to ride over to the Nelson Reservoir and search for some walleye while I did this trip across the border. We agreed to meet up at the campground around 5pm and I headed out to find the end of Hwy 191.

The road is a fine 2-lane with a few sweeping curves and, as one might image, there is very little, if any, traffic. It’s 50 mile to the border and it slipped by quite easily. The weather is perfect: about 68 degrees.

The only settlement of note is Loring, MT. I have a friend who has family from here so I was at least familiar with the name. There isn’t much here as the bar and cafe appear to be closed as is the Post Office but it’s Columbus Day so that explains that.

I continued on and stopped just short of the border for this photo.

I snake my way through the traffic cones and stopped at the Canadian border checkpoint. I pulled off my gloves and my helmet and handed my passport to the agent. She ask where I was from (Billings), where I was going and why (to Val Marie to take photographs of their grain elevator), and if I has any drugs, including marijuana in any form, or weapons (No). I was there less that 4 minutes.

The ride to Val Marie was similar to what I’d been riding on except for the reduced speed limit which is 90 kilos/hour which is about 55 MPH from Montana’s 70 MPH. I arrived in Val Marie and went right away to their historic grain elevator. My plan to to shot photos of this using my Rolliecord VB twin-lens reflex camera that I bought in 1975. It shoot 120 roll film and I’m using Ilford FP4-Plus which I’ll develop in my darkroom when I get back.

I did shoot some digital with my phone.

While I was taking photos an elderly gentleman stopped by to chat. He’s in his 80s and ranches and farms outside of town. He showed me the antiqued fire truck and talked about the town a bit. What he really wanted to talk about was politics: Trump and Trudeau. I sort of dodged that stuff.

I did a very quick sketch of the elevator and then headed back through town, stopping to take these photos. While it’s a very small town, they have both curling and a hockey rinks.