Day 6 Friday, July 1, 2011

Riverdale, North Dakota to Havre, Montana
Miles Traveled Today: 532.0
Total Miles: 2379.3

Perfect weather for riding. High 70s to low 80s. Almost a perfect day, but not quite. It had rained last night, and we left Riverdale with wet roads, but they dried quickly. Reached Williston, ND, and were able to visit the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers. This is where Lewis and Clark followed the Missouri west, but on the return trip they split up. Lewis took the northern route to explore the Marias River almost as far as Glacier National Park, and Clark took the southern route and followed the Yellowstone back to the Missouri. They met up within 8 days of each other at the confluence, none the worse for wear, although Lewis had an incident with the Blackfeet where the Corps killed two of the Native Americans who were attempting to steal horses.

The Yellowstone is over Paul's head, the Missouri is on the right side, and they both flow to the left.

After visiting this site, Ginny began having problems with her bike. Jeff played around with it and as we continued along it semed to get better. We had figured on stopping in Glasgow, MT, but since we gained an hour as we crossed into the Mountain Time Zone, we decided to continue farther. Lucky for us we did. We were hoping to reach Havre, and just outside of town, we hit a rough patch of road and Ginny's bike started acting up again. We have about 110 miles to reach the Great Falls Harley shop, and hopefully we will find the problem to be something minor, like a plugged fuel injector or a bad oxygen sensor.

As you can see we traveled well over 500 miles today, so we are a little worn out and concerned. However, we had great riding on the High Plains. Long distances of stark desolation greeted us, but it was still absolutely beautiful. The colors were awesome, especially the fields of canola that were a bright yellow that contrasted with the green flora in other fields in the early morning light. We saw a whole herd of pronghoen antelope, which we found beautiful, but the locals consider them pests, kind of like white-tails in our yards back in Wisconsin when they are eating our flowers, shrubs, and hostas.

Looking forward to tomorrow. Wondering why? Hint: Look at this last picture and you will probably figure it out.