Day 25 - Whitefish, MT to Livingston, MT

Walt and I got up a little early this morning so we went to explore a little in the ritzy area of Whitefish. Seems like this community got discovered 15 years ago and has gone upscale. Don was last here at that time and he said it was a tiny little town. It is much larger now and the area Walt and rode through has million dollar plus homes, nice views, and a golf course nearby.

Today was a pretty long distance ride but other things came up that made it a long day in time too. We started out taking the road along the east side of the lake as the waitress last night recommended. It is a pretty two lane road as she described. We had to take it slow because of some trucks in front of us. Then at the end of this segment we hit more highway construction and delays. Once we got to the end of the lake we reverted back to our original plan, which was pretty nice anyway.

When we got to Missoula we found an accommodating oil change place that sold us some oil for our motorcycles and we all did an oil change in the parking lot! It's been 6000 miles and we have to take care of our bikes!

Next stop was over to Starbucks for a quick refresher. Then out on the road again.

Our ride today took us from western Montana to eastern Montana just north of Yellowstone. The landscape changes a lot along that ride. Near Whitefish it was mountainous and pine forest. There is a ski resort on one of the mountains here. Then in the middle of Montana it becomes more grassland and large valleys. Most of the trees disappear.

The speed limit here is 75mph so we should be able to cover the distance pretty well (when we're moving). We leave Starbucks shortly after noon (1pm?) and it is getting a little warmer. We've all reduced the number of layers we're wearing today to get ready for some heat. Then..... my bike's temperature warning light turns on. Ugh. It is out by the time I get to the next exit and I had slowed down. Unfortunately Don and I get split from Walt. So we hung around for a while waiting for Walt to circle back and find us. In the meantime thunderstorms are forming and we see lightning and hear thunder. We take more time to put all of the rain gear back on!

It is good that we're geared up for rain. We hit it soon and ride through it for 30 minutes or so. No problems though. We had some practice getting our gear working just right. Once we're out of the rain and have neared our destination it is getting warm again. We stopped in Bozeman for dinner and removed some clothes again.

We're finally at Livingston shortly after 6pm. Time to unpack, do laundry, check in, and relax a little.

I'm looking forward to our ride through Yellowstone tomorrow. Hopefully it won't be too crowded. Maybe we'll get through the interesting parts before the afternoon thunderstorms hit again.