Due to our extremely grown-up behaviour last night I was up at 0730 and started packing the bike at 0755. Only takes about 10 minutes, but I was still a little late for our 0800 departure. I promised to do better in the future. Bill, as always, was magnanimous and never said a word!

Main Streent Shelby was partially blocked off due to a classic car Show N Shine but our path to the East was open. I was only halfway through my ramge, and Bill, having had been up since 0600 (or earlier!) had already gassed up, so we just headed out on Highway 2.

Is was about 30 minutes later that I thought, well, maybe we should be going SE not just E, towards Great Falls, but it was too late. My original plan was for us to head diagonally south and east, but I also have rules about going back, so we just ran with it, er, rode with it.

The riding conditions were outstanding. One of the (many!) benefits of starting the day at The Crack of Bill (TCoB) is that there is typically no wind at that time of day. What little wind there was, was at our backs, traffic was light, and it encourage a hard twisting right hand. It was a struggle to keep it under 140.

Fortunately Montana has the very rational speed limit of 80 MPH, 130 kmh so I don't feel bad straying over that. Back in 1995 when the National Speed Limit, 55 MPH or The Double Nickel was repealed, Montana set its day time speed limit at 'Safe and Reasonable'. Unfortunately some drivers thought 200 MPH was S&R. If you are in a Corvette or NSX, or 300ZX for that matter 200 might be good. If you are in your Ford Aerostar mini van, not so much.

Montana Number 2 eastbound has a small town every 50 miles or so, I recall driving that road with my buddy Rob Pakai way back in, oh lets say, the summer of 1995 going to Toronto to visit his parents. I specifically recall getting into Wolf Point pretty late at night, no restaurants, nothing open and we had gas station popcorn for dinner.

Pakai's riding style was way different than mine, he always wanted high mileage days and we would ride long past the supper hour. Eating at gas stations happened quite frequently, although we usually departed at mo'tel checkout time of 1100. Things have change alot in 20 years! Alot of things!

I always forget how tough the first couple of days of a motorcycle trip are. My back hurt, my legs ached, my hands were numb, spending 7+ hours a day on a motorcycle takes some getting used to. Especially hard as I was completely out of riding shape having not had The Rocket for the 5 weeks before our departure.

Every year I swear I will come up with a highway peg solution for next year, but I never do. The highway pegs typically mount to engine guard bars, but I never liked the look of engine bars, I need a creative welder in my area. Anyone know anyone?

Ultimately not going on a diagonal highway to Great Falls was a good idea. If we had started off on a SE tangent we would have ended up in the Sturgis, SD and there are 2 phrases that come to mind; cluster f*** and s*** show. As an aside I noted that this Travel Blog site had edited a previous usage of s***, I guess I will test that theory with the aforementioned!

Anyway, who wants to compete for the sparce resources of South Dakota (fuel, eats and accomms) with 500 000 bikers. Yes, that is the expected attendance of Sturgis 2018, half a million bikers! No thank you Bob! The facts and statistics surrounding the rally are unbelievable, and I won't quote any of them here, but there is a Wikipedia entry that boggles the mind.

Not going to western South Dakota means we will miss Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse, but the pros far outweigh the many cons! Generally speaking it was a pretty uneventful day, at least I think so, hopefully I didn't miss any tractor fires or train derailments! I will check with Bill!

The deal with leaving at 0800 (or close to it) means the day ends at 1500, no matter where you are. So we stopped in Williston, North Dakota, well we thought it was 1500. I don't recall seeing a sign, but we entered the Central Time zone at the North Dakota border, so it was now 1600, but still early by my standards.

We staying at a Super 8 chosen due to its proximety to a burger joint and gas station. The Trifecta, remeber? We freshened up, slip into something more comfortable and went across the parking lot to Dunn's Burgers. From the outside it looked like as Post Office, maybe a Dental Clinic. Inside it was a high end steakhouse that featured a 16 ounce bone in rib-eye that was killer! A couple of Meyer;s and Coke sealed the deal!

Suitable sated with meat and TAB's we retired for the evening at a time that I will not share with you (but everything is early right?!).

The only downside of the day was finding out, way too late to change rooms, that everybody smoked outside the front door which was right next to my window. Often a group of 20 or so young men and women would congregate to smoke, swear and talk at the top of their lungs. Conservative Lou was not digging it. Bill's room was on the MacDonald Drive Thru side so he got headlights and intercom chatter.

Day Three

Shelby, MT to Williston, ND

653 kms