Last week my wife and I camped at Five springs Fall campground in the Bighorns of Wyoming and that got me interested in going back on the FJR but also to ride over the top. I talked to Bill and he was in so we planned for Thursday.
My Billings Urban Sketchers group sent out an email announcing a meet up on Thursday in Red Lodge at 10am. This is a rare event in that we are meeting out of town and I didn’t want to miss it. We usually sketch for a few hours so I told Bill to meet me at the Twon Pump there at 1pm.
I got the bike loaded up and in addition to what I needed for an overnight stay I took along my drawing tools, my watercolors, a stroll, and sever sketchbooks. Here I am all packed and ready to go.
I left about 8:30am and took the usual route to the end of Grand Ave and over to Buffalo Trail.
It was beautiful out and the ride to Red Lodge was pleasant with light traffic. When I arrived at the address, the sketchers were just deciding what view each of the would capture. I parked right there and go my stuff out and started to work on the Rock Creek Aesthetics building and the one next door.
It started getting pretty warm so when I was about done inking my sketch I switched to the other side of the street to get in the shade while I worked on the watercolor. Here’s what I needed up with.
A bit after noon I headed out and stopped at Las Palmita for a burrito. I took it across to the park and it was delicious. At ipm I rolled into the Town Pump, topped off the gas, and then parked where Bill was waiting. I was surprised to see another FJR. Turns out it was a guy from Texas out touring around. I had to take a photo of his ‘16 with my ‘21.
Bill and I hit the road and road through Red Lodge to get to Hwy 308 that took us to Belfry, passing through Bearcreek, a route O’ve ridden many ties in the past. In Belfry we turned north and rode the the intersection with Hwy 310. That took us all the way to Lovell, Wyoming.
I had 3 throngs to do in Lovell. First was to top off the gas. Next was to pick up a couple beers to go with tonight’s dinner. The next was to ride around to the back of the Travelodge to check out what their web site said they had for EV charging. OK, not really what I expected as these are just the 110 outlets that people can use for their block heaters in the winter. Yes, they will charge an EV but pretty slowly, 3-4 miles per hour of charge.
The ride the campground took us about 25 miles east of Lovell at the based of the Bighorns. I didn’t take photos on the way up since I’ve done so a couple time in the past. They are here
We took a Quick Look at part of the lower campground but my goal was to stay in the upper one, a mile up another steep road. When we got there we saw only one car and we took the site next to it. While we walked over to another site to check it out the owner of the car came over and told us they were picnicking and were about to leave so we took the site he was in as it was larger and more shaded.
It was a 168 mile day.
We had our breakfast and got stuff packed and ready to load on the bikes. Here’s my stuff:
We headed down to Hwy 14A and took that over the mountains. Lots of twists and curves but once up on tape it’s long straightaways and sweeping curves.
After passing by Burgess Junction we started the long downhill to Dayton, WY. Here’s a map of that route:
After a gas stop in Dayton, we took the two-lane roads all the way to the Bighorn Battlefield. From there we hopped on I-90 and roads the slab back to Billings. It was starting to get pretty warm out, upper-80s, and we were ready to be done.
It was a great outing, covering 350 miles.
No comments:
Post a Comment