Saturday 7-7 Day 13

Start: Harlowton, MT
End: Billings, MT
Scheduled miles: 90.1
Acutal miles: 90.9

This was a strange morning. In the Kiwanis building was a kitchen,so the breakfast crew, decided to do breakfast indoors, a good idea. Well, when one of them got up to start the water for the coffee and oatmeal at 4 AM he turned on the lights. Now most people on this trip don't wear watches, especially when sleeping. So when the lights went on some people started getting up. And when you're in one big room If a few get up, the rest of us follow like lemmings cause it must be time, right?

So breakfast was scheduled from 5:30 to 6:00 so while it opened up early it had to stay open till 6:00. So with Mike being on KP that morning we were one of the last to leave.

There was not a lot to see on this day, so we pretty much just hammered it. It was mostly cloudy for the morning, and we had a tail wind for, I think, the first time. This is the Montana I had envisioned, mostly flat and the roads straight. At one point you could see the Comanche Grain elevator from eight miles away. and it just took forever to get there.

The highlight of the ride if you want to call it that, was in Ryegate. See above photo. This was our first checkpoint and we went in for coffee. The owner could not find any Styrofoam cups for us so he gave us some rather nice plastic mugs with the festivals name on it for 2 bucks. Coffee included. (no I did not have any, yeeuuw!)

The view over looking Billings was pretty interesting. It sits in a valley and we approached from the "Rimrock" side. I didn't take any pictures as aside from the height we were at, it looked just like any other mid western town. Complete with Malls and such. We pull into Montana State University before noon. Our actual riding time was 4 hours and 44 minutes for an average speed of 19.1 miles per hour. Along with the tail wind, did I mention it was mostly down hill? There were some rollers, and for the most part it was pretty desolate with only a few ranch homes here and there.

Everything has a price, and once again, we are one of the first to get in, so we help to unload the truck.

After a quick shower we went and grabbed a bit to eat then back to the room to do laundry.

The catered dinner was awesome. They rolled in their barbecue trailer and did chicken, vegie stuffed peppers, fryed tofu, and grilled swordfish steaks, along with pasta and lentel salads. I had my first swordfish steak and I'll order it again any chance I get. I went back to try the stuffed peppers, those were just as delectable! Dessert was bowls of Huckleberry ice cream. They sure do a lot of things out of Huckleberry in these parts.

Tonight Billings had its worst thunderstorms in years. Over 2 1/2 inches fell in two hours and wind gusts were recorded up to 85 mph! According to the papers, they were over 500 lighting strikes. Tonight was a great night to be sleeping in dorm rooms! As we watched the three different storm systems roll through all of us riders were thinking how lucky we were and wondering if our tents would have stood up to this!

Tonight I get a private room. When we checked in Mike and I were going to bunk together, when we tried using our keys, his wouldn't work, cause it was so bent, so they gave him a separate room. It is a nice bit of privacy that I have not had the past two weeks. Spent most of the evening just sitting around the lounge areas chatting and watching the storms.