Butte to Big Sky

Today promised about 200 miles of riding and plenty of time to poke around interesting stops.  We gave ourselves the luxury of a 7.30am leaving time. Mark fell into a deep sleep at about 8pm last night so it was catch up sleep time.

Looking around Butte is is obvious the town has had its hey day. There where once 120,000 souls living and working in the town. There are now 30,000. Many of the buildings are empty and boarded up.  You can see what it was was in its prime. Historic photos abound in the hotel lobby etc.

The people are slowly changing as we travel. We are now in Denims and Cap or Cowboy Hat Country.


The suggested route was a little vague in our route book so Mark googled it and came up with a back road route to our first stop: Twin Bridges we we intended to meet up and have brekkie.

A lack of signs meant the group following us bailed and took the interstate. We chickened out too but the interstate was a surprisingly good ride with vistas, corners etc until we hit roadworks. The  early morning sun  made the steaming asphalting stand out like early morning mist.

We were only on the interstate for a short time and we turned off to find Mark had been right. The road he had suggested came out exactly were we wanted to be

All good then and Mark saved embarrassing himself. Phew.


We had a great stop with most of the group having breakfast together.

The place was great. Cowboys and locals in their Caps etc.

Go on- have a blueberry pancake big boy. (and getting bigger)

We had "crossed the Madison County line" to get into twin bridges. Its another classic American small town. Gerry wandered about and took some photos.

We had 30kms until we hit Nevada City. This was a great little stop to get a feel for the past in the area.

Talking to a local (cowboy Hat and about 60yrs) sheep used to be plentiful in the area but now it is mostly cattle. Unlike NZ this isn't due to any economic reasoning but rather because "there are too many tree huggers, and the coyotes where taking the sheep"

The temperature is rising to 80 degrees plus. 1 mile down the road we stopped at Virginia City, also re inventing itself for tourists. We took a stagecoach ride. Gerry's favorite-two horse power. We learnt a bit of history about Virginia's violent past. The term vigilante steams from this area after a group of locals got sick of hundreds of murders during the gold rush and strung up many offenders without anything other then their own suspicion of guilt. The "vigilants"  became corrupted over time to vigilante.

Gerry with Ernie our back up driver.

 It was really hot now and the clouds where forming. Thunder clouds would surely hit by days end.

We took off towards Bozeman  as there is the Yellow stone Harley Dealer in town.  Gerry found some 3/4 Trousers and Mark a cooler jacket. Awesome. SPEND SPEND SPEND!!!!!

You cant capture this stuff. Its fantastic in 3D

Road King possibilities....

Off we go a little poorer but keen to beat the upcoming storm.  1 minute later: RAIN. THUNDER.

Oh well at least its not windy. WIND.

Actually it was quite refreshing so we just rode along in off again, on again rain and thunder.   The accommodation tonight is very posh. Bugger, we'll just have to guts it out.

Another gold day. Ken has chosen a fantastic route, EVERY day is gold.

Portion Control -American style