Pistol Pete's, Ping-Ping, Gravelly Roads, Snow Capped-Mountains, and A Jingle-Jangle-Jingle - Day 11

We started out with a breakfast at a local café in Buffalo, Wyoming called Pistol Pete's. What an appropriate name for a restaurant in the Wild West. And I do mean the Wild West. Cowboy hats and all. 14-point Stags adorn the walls. Heck, there was even a T-Rex head mounted on the wall. While a dinner last night at the Bozeman Trail Steak House we dined with real cowboys, ranchers, cowgirls and cowpoke. The women wore cowboy boots with spurs and all, and so did the kids. As they walked through the dining room, you could actually hear them clanging Jingle-Jangle-Jingle. Weird. Pick-up trucks in the parking lot with bales of hay in the back. Did you know that real cowboys eat with their cowboy hats on? Well, they do in Wyoming!

Now to the Ping-Ping. As we're riding north in I-90, Rte 3, or any other road we took today, there was a sound that followed us all day long. It was a low Ping-Ping, or maybe a soft thud-thud, I don't know what, but it felt like rocks were hiding my legs, things bouncing off my helmet, and the windscreen was covered with every color bug that ever lived. A collage of colors that could fetch millions if it were on canvass. Another opportunity missed.

By the time we got to Billings, MT, the temp had risen from 61 when we left Buffalo, WY to 82 degrees. You would think that travelling north, the temps would drop, but not here. In the time span of a few hours it went from comfortable riding to hot.

When we left Billings, we opted to take a "shortcut" that was a secondary road (one lane each way) and a more direct route to our destination, Great Falls, MT. Several miles into what seemed like a nice road to ride, we came upon the inevitable - a construction zone. What that means in this part of the country is a gravelly road. Lasted for a few miles, then blacktop, then more gravel. Made it through alright, just slowed a little.

The road took us toward a range of Snow-Capped mountains in the distance which we soon closed in on and had them in our rear views before we knew it. Temp around 87 degrees. I had to wonder, did this detour take us to Florida? The mountains were a dead giveaway that we weren't, but the mercury continued to rise. By the time we reached Great Falls, the temp was at 89 degrees. That's 7 degrees warmer than Florida during the same time. Go figure.

Found a place to hole up for the night. Tied our mighty steeds to the hitchin' post, and grabbed some grub. At least that's what the locals tell us we did.

So far, 10 states, count 'em - Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana. 394 miles since Buffalo, 3237 from Clearwater, 3699 fron Key West, and 4160 total - Clearwater-Key West-Clearwater - Great Falls, MT.

Tomorrow is another adventure, another country, border crossing, funny money - Loonies and Twonies (Canadian one's and two's) and who knows what.  Stay tuned. More to come.......