583 miles, 13 hours.

I woke up on the side of a cow pasture, a large handful of miles from civilization. Nobody had driven past me (remember, I was just on the side of the road). Guess I chose a good spot. I had crazy dreams last night: someone had stolen my bicycle, and I was looking through large racks of parked bikes trying to find it. The other half-dream was about having a leaky radiator on a motorcycle, perhaps while I was racing said motorcycle. They were vivid yet abstract enough to be confusing.

Unfortunately for you, none of that is relevant to the rest of my day. I packed up the bike and proceeded to ride the DL650 out of the grassy ditch. That's easier said than done, but my recent offroad experience really helped. I got up on the second try without a lot of screaming or crying.

I had breakfast at the little restaurant in Drummond. I've eaten there before, a few years ago. I like it- the food is decent, but the real entertainment is hearing the conversations. This time the talk revolved around the harvest: how well the new 40-foot combines work, irrigation, and things like that.

Drummond is where I fell in love with Thomas Siebel's Montana Meth Project. It seems like a great idea, and results show it might actually work. It's really neat to see communities behind efforts like this.

I left Drummond, blasted east on I-90, then turned to head over Beartooth Pass. Just before Red Lodge, I noticed the sky wasn't completely blue anymore. It looked like there were some grey clouds across the sky, then I realized- it was smoke from a wildfire. The fire couldn't have been very far away- you could almost see the origination point.

Once I figured out it was a fire, I started watching it, I happened to see a plane fly over the fire. It dropped supressant or water on the fire. It was incredible to see that happening. For the next 30-45 minutes, I watched for the plane, but never saw it again. Oh well.

It looks like they are calling it the Cascade Wildfire. It must have been what they call a "heavy airtanker", though I don't know what that translates to.. probably a C130.

Beartooth Pass itself is neat. The nearest town is Red Lodge, which is at 5500 feet. The road gradually climbs 1000 feet in the next 10 miles. At that point, you are looking south and it's hard to tell where the road will go. It sort of looks like it will just continue south, and there is a pass down there somewhere. However, the road takes an immediate left and climbs 3500 feet straight up the side of a mountain! It really felt like climbing a wall.

Once that is over, the road sort of wanders along the top of the mountain, still climbing. My GPS topped out at 10993 feet; it's listed as 10974 feet online.

I then turned south and west on Hwy296, also known as the "Chief Joseph Scenic Byway". It was twisty in places with some great scenery. I stopped for some photos, but otherwise blasted on.

My next stop was at the Heart Mountain relocation camp, just outside Cody. This was one of the camps where Japanese-Americans were shipped during World War 2. The camp held almost 11,000 people. That's more people than in modern-day Cody, Wyoming!

There's not much left of the camp. There are some placques and such, plus three of the original buildings. The rest of it was torn down and turned back into farmland. There's a foundation trying to build a visitors' center and such- that would be nice, since it is such a significant part of America's forgotten past.

I kept trolling through the center of Wyoming. There were some nodding donkeys near the small highway I was on, so I did a little dirt riding to get in front of one of them. I enjoyed being able to get so close to it! As you can see, there was a fence around the large moving bits, but not around the wellhead itself. I respectfully stayed a couple feet from the wellhead, but did inspect things and wander completely around the equipment.

The whole area had a sulfur smell. This isn't surprising, though it certainly made me worry about the warning sign on the way in that said the area could be full of hydrogen sulfide. Thankfully, I survived.

North of Greybull is a pass through the Big Horn Mountains. In 18 miles, the road climbs 4800 feet! One section is pretty dramatic, both in the views and in how steeply it climbs. I can't believe it was so pretty and yet so sparsely used.

I had about 100 miles on the tank when I went through Lovell. I figured I'd be fine to the next major town, though I didn't plan ahead, and there weren't any signs. By the time I got to the top of the pass, I was puckering, not knowing if I'd find gas nor how far my tank was going to last me. (I get 30-50mpg, depending on several factors, especially speed).

Thankfully, there was gas at Burgess Junction. I was pretty much banking on this fact. It cost me $4.80 per gallon, but who cares?

After Burgess, the road goes through some spectacular twisties as it drops to the plains and I-90. Just like Beartooth, the elevation drop meant getting to uncomfortable temperatures. So far, this day had the most extreme swing in temperatures: near-freezing at two passes, up to well over 100 degrees in the lower elevations.

I got back on I-90 at Ranchester and almost immediately spotted some Boeing plane fuselages on the Burlington Northern track.

As I neared Buffalo, WY, I decided I should find a campground. I found a decent place on Lake De Smet. It was a county-run park, $10 per night, per vehicle. That's a decent price for a developed campground (sans showers), but it does bother me to pay the same price as a minivan with 8 people or a huge RV. Oh well.

Immediately before the park, I saw a big pack of Hells Angels. They were riding as close together as possible, and (of course) wouldn't wave to me. I still waved to them. The funny part, however, is that they were being followed by a chase truck. I assume its purpose was to haul luggage and/or broken-down bikes. It didn't look like it had anything in it. I found it hilarious that bad-ass bikers would need a chase truck!

As I had guessed earlier in the day, the sunset was incredibly pretty. The wildfires were to the west, so the sun set through them. That meant that even before the sun dipped below the horizon, you could look directly at it since it was partially obscured by smoke and haze. Just like the moon, when the sun gets close to the horizon it looks large. The difference is that the sun looks about 50 times larger than the moon at a similar elevation. It was really striking; I tried to take a bunch of photos, but they don't capture the rich colors very well.