We left Basin this morning after 2 days’ lovely rest and relaxation.  It had been an airBnB property we had rented again, and was very well suited to us. Over a garage/ storage area and completely alone along a dead end, it meant that we really could shut off completely.  The only other thing that was on the same road as us, was an Amish community who ran Health Trips down in to tunnels in the mines in the area, ‘Merry Widow Mine’ was also opposite us. Apparently there is Radon down there and it is reputed to have health benefits, so people visit in the hope of being cured, much like visiting Lourdes or Fatima.  We had seen one of the Amish when we had arrived on Friday, but not realising, turned to each other and said why was that weird bloke in a suit, riding along on a push scooter?  The next day we saw him, again on the way for lunch, and he spoke to us, so we managed to work it out. 

For lunch we visited Basin, about 1 ½ miles away, with a population of 255 people, a tiny but very arty and creative town. There was an artist’s retreat, a crystals selling shop, therapies and Basin Creek Pottery.  We were lucky enough to see the pottery first hand in the apartment we stayed in, as the Potter owned the place, and it was truly beautiful. Lunch was at the Saloon Bar, Silver Saddle, where we had the best Iced Tea so far, and great food too.

Anyway, whilst relaxing yesterday, Paul had been reading about the many Ghost Towns in the area and we decided to visit one today.  It wasn’t far, although once we had ridden 10 miles up there on the dirt road, over the way washboard, juddering up and down, it may as well have been 200 miles again!  I felt like I was doing a ride at Alton Towers! Still, Coloma and Garnet Ghost towns proved worth a visit.  Garnet is maintained as a ghost town, for the attraction of visitors, and heritage of course, so was pretty busy, whereas Coloma was just the remnants of a village occupied in a very precarious position for just 6 years around 1895. It certainly made you think about how difficult it must have been for the settlers to try and make their way up the long winding roads with horse and carriages, but obviously they went where the gold and silver panning was.

We now find ourselves in a cabin at Seeley Lake, a most tranquil place, where as I type a family are enjoying a barbecue in the fire pit just above the lake.

A later leaving time this morning, which meant time to enjoy our little cabin in the woods a little longer.

We had made use of the hot tub last night, but luckily the moose (HUGE!!) that walked past decided to after we had gone in, I rushed out for a photo, after thinking Paul was joking about the moose, and got a picture of its hind legs disappearing behind the trees.  Actually, when we had booked in on Wednesday, we had been warned that we could not leave any food outside or in the bike, as the bears would most definitely smell it, and come down to investigate. In the area there are bear proof bins, or dumpsters, because of the danger of them coming to scavenge.

Anyway, time to leave, and as we made our checks, Paul commented that after 4 ½ weeks we are now over 5,000 miles into this trip.

We rode back along the US 20 highway, and hurrah! Those pesky roadworks had gone, but hold on, what’s this? A new set, much further along where we had to wait for the pilot car to come and take us along, maybe only 10 minutes this time. Anyway, back to West Yellowstone before heading upwards, and we weren’t either of us sorry to see the back of that busy little town, a town which solely serves the needs of people visiting the park, and is always extremely busy.

However, before long we were heading back into the North of Yellowstone Park, as the road we were taking runs through it, in the National Forest of Gallatin.  Alongside the road for mile after beautiful mile runs the River Gallatin, a river made famous by the film ‘A river runs through it’, and the river really was peppered by people fly fishing, thigh high in their waders with their fishing lines whipping to and fro.  We thought we’d found paradise.  Only in Norway have we witnessed such roadside scenery for mile after mile.

We are staying for the next few nights in an apartment, ‘Potters Canyon Retreat’ and it really is a retreat, just perfect for us.

Paul is now sitting thinking about the next few days, in particular that the bike now needs a service, and he is using the map, that was given to us by a lovely guy we met in West Yellowstone, Joseph Simmons.  Joseph had been doing his own trip, and was very excited to hear about ours, so wanted to share the map he had used to explore Montana, which is excellent.

Prior to visiting the more tourist heavy areas, we have been making our motel or cabin bookings one day ahead or on the day, and we’d like to get back to doing this, when we can, it takes the pressure out of having to reach somewhere by a deadline.

We were up at 5.30 am, as the lady at the Ranch told Paul yesterday that there was a better chance of getting through the 17 mile roadworks more quickly, if we went about 7.  We had also decided we wanted to enter the park early as there was a chance to see more wildlife earlier in the day.

Anyway, we were ready to leave at 6.45 am, and I went outside to take the cover off of the sidecar, and immediately thought, ‘woah, it’s cold out here!, I’ll be wearing my cardigan today under my jacket.’  Paul came out, and said something similar, anyway we mounted our steed, and set off for the gravel road fun, as we turned the corner Paul shouted ‘what do you think the temperature is?’ to which I jokingly replied ‘2?’, ‘no,’ says Paul, ‘it’s 3 ½ degrees!’.  We couldn’t believe it, the day before yesterday it had been 38 degrees in the day, and now here we were perishing!

The roadworks only held us immobile for 11 minutes, so we did manage to arrive at the West Yellowstone entrance for 8am, with our teeth chattering.  Still, it soon warmed up, and we were so glad we’d made the effort, the steam clouds rising from the ground were a real spectacle. The roads were very quiet, and we had decided to do the South Loop in a clockwise manner, as there were roadworks with a predicted 30 minute delay the other way.

We made our way around, and particularly enjoyed seeing the Mudpots spurting mud, Geysers, Canyons and Lakes in these areas.  The diversity of the nature over these areas is astounding. It probably is the most spectacularly continuous landscape I have ever seen.

Despite the fact that it is July, the highest month for visitors to Yellowstone, the road system that is laid out within the park accommodates the many vehicles well, with only the very occasional bottleneck, and even then only because people have stopped to watch wildlife.

A truly awesome couple of days.

Amazingly, we visited three states again today, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.  Our aim was to ride the scenic byways into Yellowstone Park.

Yellowstone is truly massive, and enters all three of these states. It has 5 or 6 entrances, and we came in on the North East Entrance this morning.

Our journey from Greybull took us about 100 miles along first of all route 20, then into Chief Joseph highway, where the scenery began to become extremely majestic. These were by far the largest mountains we have seen on our travels so far, and they really did go on, and on and on, for the 50 odd miles we rode this road, until it reached Beartooth Highway, to take us into the park at that North East Corner.

Yellowstone has two driving loops at the centre of it, one North and one South 80 miles and 96 miles respectively.  Along these you can view all types of animal: bison, elk, moose, pelican, coyotes, deer, osprey, marmots, and if you’re really lucky bears! (no, not yet!).

There is also very close access to waterfalls, geysers, and thermal springs.

We did the North loop today, and return for the South loop tomorrow.

The place we are staying tonight is at Park island, a beautiful cabin on a ranch, and as we arrived the horse riders of the day were just returning to the ranch. It’s 30 miles from Yellowstone, unfortunately we did not forsee the roadworks on the only road to it, with predictions of an hours delay waiting for the pilot car, nor the tremendously long gravel road for the last 4 miles!

We had decided yesterday to visit the Devil’s Tower which was 32 miles from Sundance, so I, being helpful entered the details into the Sat Nav, as a via point, on our way to the destination tonight.

Once we had been about 40 miles, I asked Paul to stop because I could still not see any sight of the tower, and when I checked on Google Maps, I could see it was still another hour and twenty minutes away!  Somehow the co-ordinates in the Tom Tom were wrong.  Not all my fault, as I had chosen a pre-input tourist attraction, but whatever, it was wrong, and we now had the choice of missing it altogether, or going back the way we came.  We chose that, and ended up doing 110 miles, and 2 ½ hours riding, for a 32 mile ride that would probably have taken half an hour, whoops.  We chose to laugh about it, and move on.

Anyway, our route after that took us toward the Big Horn National Forest, which was truly beautiful, with sweeping canyons, and very interesting rock formations again.  We did ride the Interstate first, to make up some time, and boy oh boy was it hot!  We saw 38 degrees Celsius register on the bikes temperature guage.  It was truly like sitting in a sauna, with a hot hairdryer blowing in your face. We were so glad to reach those mountains, just for some respite from the heat, up there it seemed positively chilly at 25 degrees!

A really nice point of the day, was when in Moorcroft we met Rui, a young guy from Boston, who was riding his Honda 250 Rebel over the states, in a similar route to ours, before heading over to the West Coast. We had the pleasure of seeing him a couple of other times later in the day as well. We wish him a lot of luck on his trip.