A pie ride but no pie today

April 25, 2024

After seeing this story in the local news, Klo’s Kitchen: 17-year old opens bakery in heart of Harlowton, I thought it make a good excuse to ride there to check it out.  I texted Keith and he responded in the affirmative and we met up at my house this morning and were on the road by 9:57.  While just going for a ride on a day promising beautiful weather was enough of a reason to get out, I also had another task to attend to in Harlowton and that was to check out the city park for camping and their EV chargers.

Keith led to way to Lavina on his Gold Wing under gray skies that provided a few spits of rain, but only a few.  The highway was relatively quiet and we made it past Acton and Broadview easily with the air temperature at 60-62°.  The bigger treat was an almost total absence of wind.

We stopped in Lavina for break and I grabbed a few pictures.

The sky to the south looked like rain and when I checked the app I saw this:

After looking at the radar map we were pretty sure that it would be going south of us, which it did.  If it didn’t I was prepared with rain gear.

I took the lead and we rode the highway to Harlowton at an easy 67 miles per hour.  We pulled into town and I decided that we should check out the city park first.  We stopped at the sign to check the rules.

While were parked there, the owner of sprinter-type van that was parked at the far west end came up the road to pay her camping fee.  We chatted for a few minutes and I learned that she is full-timing the van life and had just spent the winter near Yuma, AZ. She came to Montana to help some friends and has decided to stay in the state for a while, even getting an appointment for a Montana drivers license.  We said our goodbyes and circled the west end of the park before I pulled into one of the RV camping spots to inspect the EV charging option.

It looks like it has what we need should we come here in our Tesla Model Y.

I met Keith at the restrooms and I must say that it is one of the cleanest public restrooms I’ve ever visited.

I did take a few more photos.  It looks like they may have had a problem in the past with livestock using the playground.

We exited the park by taking the road to the southeast entrance which quickly connected us to Central Ave,. The Main Street of Harlowton.  This took up past Galley’s brewery, which was, unfortunately, closed but a short ride to the end of the street brought us to Klo’s Kitchen, the bakery.  We parked across the street next to the train museum.

The interior is simple and very nice.  I asked about pie and was informed that pies were sold out.  I made due with a piece of apple blossom cake that was quite good and a heck of a deal at $3.00.

We sat by the front window and had a good view of our bikes and the train museum.

It was time to hit the road and after a quick stop at Ray’s for gas, I led us the 45 miles back to Lavina.  We took a bit of a break before Keith led us back to Billings.

We went directly to Keith’s place where we were joined by his wife, Bonnie, and after a bit, another friend, Greg.  We sat on the back deck and enjoyed the nice weather.  Greg just picked up a new Honda Transalp so there was lots of motorcycle talk rover pretzels I’d bake that morning and, of course a beer.  We did end up in Keith’s basement for a few games of pool before calling it a day.

My odometer indicated that it was a 186 mile ride.