I’m back on the road again, but haven’t strayed too far away. There were a couple of other places I wanted to see in the area before the Rocky Mtn Roll this weekend.
One of them was Confederate Gulch and Diamond City, which neither has diamonds nor is a city. The story goes that Confederate soldiers on break came to this area in 1864 and discovered gold, so a mining operation was soon set up. The gold was gone by 1870, which is when the town collapsed as well. I just happened to wake up early on Wednesday, so I took the bike into the mountains once again.
As a side note, I’d planned to take this ride Tuesday, but the temperature suddenly got much hotter than it was predicted to. Even while I was roasting, the WeatherBug app was telling me everything was fine. I saw a high of 99ºF, and didn’t go anywhere.
The road ran alongside a stream and was very scenic the whole way in. At one point the stream crossed the road. It looked short and shallow, and I successfully survived a water crossing at Get On! ADV Fest, so I went for it. I chose the worst possible line, going through the deepest part of the stream! I knew I’d messed up when water began splashing over my fairing and windshield. I felt the bike begin to bog down, but some instinct told me to give it a little more throttle, so I did and made it across unscathed. Look how clean my bike is! It got a free wash! If only I hadn’t gottten water down one of my boots, too…
Once out there, there wasn’t much to see at all. Continuing mining operations supposedly destroyed all signs of earlier settlement out there. But then I saw this shack in the woods, nestled up against the cliff. Could this be one of the original structures?
I had an uneventful ride back to camp. I took the water crossing on the opposite side of the road, which was shallow and easy to manage. I drank the rest of my coffee, got some work done, loaded up, and headed out, though not before showering and refilling my empty water jug at the paid campground next door. I managed to pick up some speed on the dirt road out of there, which enabled me to float over the top of the washboard sections instead of rattling over them at 3 mph.
In less than an hour, I’d arrived at Bridger Brewing in nearby Three Forks. I’d found them on Harvest Hosts, and had planned to stay there before learning about my undisclosed location by the lake, but was still interested in checking them out, so I rescheduled my stay for Wednesday night. Of all the Harvest Host places I’ve stayed, Bridger Brewing is the best set up for travelers. They have numerous large parking areas, including one designated specifically for Harvest Host guests. There are porta-potties and even a doggy bag dispenser and trash can for cleaning up after your mutt. There’s also enough space to fit any size RV in here.
Like this one, with a Cadillac Escalade in tow. An Escalade is big enough to tow a lot of small to midsize campers, but here the RV is towing it!
I sampled a few, then had a Bobcat Brown Ale with the most unusual looking chicken Caesar salad I’ve ever seen. All the ingredients were there, though, and it tasted great, which is what really matters. Their Wi-Fi reaches all the way out to the parking lot, so I turned off the hotspots and caught up on some videos. There are lots of wild rabbits around, too, which were fun for both Lister and me to watch.
I slept so well that my last resort 8:00 am alarm is what woke me up this morning. I stuck around until almost lunchtime, using their Wi-Fi to write a last minute article for ADVRider to publish next week. Then I hopped back on I-90 and headed west.
My first attempt at lunch, in Whitehall, was a complete failure. None of the parking lots were big enough for my van and trailer. Making matters worse were enormous RVs parking in the middle of the road blocking everything. A pickup truck almost took me out by driving the wrong way toward me to pass a poorly parked RV, then swore at me for having the audacity to… exist, I guess? Anyway, I took all that as a sign to get out of there and press on to Butte.
My first stop was Walmart for supplies, which I was rather low on after a week in the middle of nowhere. I’d planned to spend the night here, but my friends I was coming to visit, Willow and Gabe, told me that after months of having no problem with vans and RVs parking overnight, the police evicted everyone from the Butte Walmart parking lot last night. Even my friends got evicted, despite one of them working at that Walmart and having extra special permission to stay! I didn’t want to press my luck, so I moved on.
It’s emergency new motorcycle helmet day, too. While leading Joyce back to pavement the other day, the tab that opens my modular helmet broke, making it impossible to open the front of the helmet anymore. I stopped by Maverick Motorsports, and though their selection of helmets was small, I found a new one that fits well and should work just fine, which I need because I’m going to a motorcycle campout tomorrow. I swapped my Bluetooth communicator from the old helmet to the new one. The tape is only there to hold it in place until I unload the bike from the trailer and have space to go looking for my double-sided 3M tape, which should hold it on the new helmet just fine.
Then I moved on to a nearby truck stop where Willow and Gabe are spending the night. It’s so fun to be running into friends from my new life in the west. This was always a part of my plan ahead of the Rocky Mtn Roll, being a civilized area where I can resupply, and only about 2.5 hours away from the event.
What I didn’t plan on was running into Uno, the retired bounty hunter I met while camping near Pikes Peak last year! We didn’t recognize each other at first but knew we looked familiar to each other. When he mentioned bounty hunting, that’s when it clicked, because I haven’t exactly met many bounty hunters in my life. Random meetings like this are something else I’ve missed while I’ve been back east.
That mountain range is the Continental Divide. I drove over the top of it today, 6,329 feet on I-90, before descending slightly into Butte. I’m really back in the west now.
Tomorrow, the adventure continues to Rocky Mtn Roll, the event I’ve been planning all of my summer travel around. I already know some of the people who are going to be there, not just Amanda and Gary, but a bunch of riders I met at the PNW Motovlogger Meetup last year. It’ll be good to see them again, and make some new friends as well. I’m looking forward to riding some new places, as well as showing off my moto-glamping setup.
Smokey Da Van 