The Billings-Roundup-Lavina-Billings Triangle

April 20, 2025

It was a busy day but I still squeezed in time for a ride.  Early, 8am, we had to take the dog to the vet for his annual shots.  After that, and breakfast, I went over to our other house and took my saws-all and cut up the old patio furniture so it would fit in the trash can.  Then I swept up the patio and the driveway.

I'm in deep into a new art project, more cyanotypes, but experimenting with using paper negatives.  I take the original image and reverse it to negative using the computer, tweak the brightness and contrast, and then send it to the laser printer.  To make the paper semi-transparent I coat it with canola oil, wiping off the excess.  The it gets placed on a sheet of watercolor paper that I have previously coated with cyanotype sensitizer.  I cover that with a sheet of glass and then expose it to UV light using the lightbox I built.  Each exposure takes about 25 minutes.  Then the paper gets washed in an acid bath followed by a water wash.  The results are quite satisfying and I plan to continue in this direction, possibly trying to print from drafting vellum.

While that was going on I put together two loaves of raisin bread and left the dough to rise.

By the time I was free it was almost 3pm.  It was warm, upper 70s and off I went.  I rode Main Street through Billings Heights as I did on the previous ride, going north on Hwy 87.  When I got to the turnoff for Old Divide Road I took it, like I did the other day.  Once back to 87 I continued north to the intersection with Hwy 12 where I turned west.

My goal was to ride Hwy 381, AKA Goulding Creek Road.  I saw online that it was paved for a distance and it look interesting.  It was.  It's full of curves and hills until the pavement ended after 5 or 6 miles.  Here I am at the end of the paving.

I rode back and continued west on Hwy 12, looking for another road but never saw it.  I need to ride it again and put its location in the navigation software.  No problem, it was getting late and I turned south at Lavina and set the cruise to 72 MPH and rode back to Billings.  

While it was warm, there was very little wind so the ride was quite pleasant.

I pulled video from the dash cam but I learned a lesson: it's spring so stop occasionally and clean the lens on the camera.  Lots of bugs today.  I suppose I could use the camera viewer on the screen but I'm still trying to get the hand of this.  Here's what I have but not sure I'll go after the rest.

It was a 133 mile day.

Discovering Old Divide Road

April 15, 2026

With some colder weather on the way, today looked like a good time to get a ride in before things got wet and snowy.  It was in the low 60s in the early afternoon when I got started but with a bit of wind.

I headed out via the airport and Main Street through Billings Heights, always a risky route, and took Hwy 87 north toward Roundup.  Traffic wasn't back except to the moron in a new Audi R8 zooming and around cars.

Once on 87, it was pretty quiet.  The goal to the explore a road, Old Divide Road, that is a loop off the east side of 87 and is the route to the Signal Peak coal mine in the Bull Mountains.  I've passed it numerous time but had never ridden on it.

While the turnoff is marked with an extended right turn lane and sign indicating "Trucks Crossing," I almost missed it and had to brake quickly to make the turn.  The road is a smaller two-lane, paved country road and the curves presented themselves right from the beginning.

The road goes past a few farms and then a few developments but there is still a rural feel.  I rode past the turnoff for the mine as I want to feel the whole length of the road where it reconnects with 87.  When I got there, I turned around and went back the way I had come but turned east on Fattig Creek Road,

I knew from looking at a map that the road goes on a few miles to the main entrance to the mine and then the pavement ends a few miles past that.  I stopped at the entrance for a couple photos before heading back to Hwy 87.

Here's a video of the ride on Old Divide Road.

The ride back to Billings was swift.  When I got to Wicks Lane I tuned and took it to Skyline Drive and then down Zimmerman Trail and to home.  

It was a nice ride of 88 miles.

A Ride to Huntley Project

April 10, 2026

I've been on a mission this week to visit each of the 4 country museums.  On Tuesday I spent some time at the Yellowstone County Museum which is up on the rims adjacent to the airport.  The artifacts are rich and the didactic panels provide plenty of context.

On Wednesday I visited the Western Heritage Center.  While they have a new exhibition on the hosiery of beer in Billings, I was really interested in the Ben Steele exhibition as I had just finished reading "Tears in the Darkness," the history of the Bataan Death march and Ben Steele experiences in it.  The display features lots of his original drawing and paintings.  After the war he pursued an art career and taught at Eastern Montana College, now MSU-Billings.

On Tuesday I went to the Yellowstone Art Museum to participate in the Write-Along session.  I think this was the 7th or 8th one I have gone to this year.  We write about some aspect of Kent Monkman's "Death of Adonis."  Afterwards I stuck around for the artist talk by Sean Chandler.

So, today I had one museum left to check out and it was a beautiful day to ride the 20 miles to the Huntley Project Museum.  The ride was glorious in that it was reasonably warm out, no wind, and light traffic.

I arrived at 1:45 pm and park the bike just outside the main gate.

I went through the main building which had all sorts of artifacts from the homesteading period and after, everything from ribbons awarded at fairs to a player piano to objects related to the train that traveled nearby.  The next room had information about sugar beets, local veterans, and more artifacts from the Homelife back then.

There are a half dozen or so out buildings, all moved to this site from Worden, Ballantine, or Pompey's Pillar.  All were open to inspect and I went into a homesteaders home, a bank, a doctor's office, a general store and several others.  At the other end of the property is a one room school house.  All are well-preserved and show the dedication that local residents have for their history.  Here are some random photos from my visit.

The ride home was uneventful and quite pleasant.  Before heading back I went up the road a bit and di a tour through Worden.

  I turned back onto Hwy 312 and went a bit faster than the train on the left.

It was a good day to be out.

It was a 59 mile day.