Miles: 445.1
Start: 7:00 AM MDT
Stop: 4:45 PM MDT
Temps: 62 degrees to 96 degrees
Hotel: Thunder Cove Inn, Deadwood, SD $79.00
We woke up in Red Lodge, MT ready to hit the road. We were still excited about all the sites we had seen the day before in what may have been the best riding day of our entire trip. We decided we would catch breakfast somewhere down the road as we knew that we were going to cover a lot of interstatenon our way to Deadwood, SD.
We started out at 7 AM on US Hwy 212 and made our way the 45 miles to I-90. The ride was actually very peaceful and serene with pastures of grazing cattle on both sides of the road and the sun not yet warming up the day.... a perfect environment and time of day to appreciate why we ride long distance. At one point we passed a dead deer laying along side of the road. Carole remarked, "The main difference between riding in Montana versus Northern California is the size of the road kill." Ineed, this part of Montana did remind me a lot of the Trinity Alps area on Northern California.
Traffic was extremely light so all to soon we made it to the freeway. Once we were heading east we quickly made our way to teh suburbs of Billings where we stopped long enough at a Denny's to catch a quick omelet and proceeded on with the rush down the freeway.
I am still working on this journal entry, more to come.