It still took me about an hour after I got up before I was moving out. Still not sure what takes so long, although it is kind of a chore to fold a tent alone… I stink at folding sheets and this isn’t all that different.

At this point I’d ridden about 1600 miles, averaging 400 miles per day. The odometer read right at 2000 miles on the bike when I was in front of my brother’s house in Wisconsin and I was at 3642 in the morning. The first two days were pretty low miles and the most recent two were probably the bulk of those miles but I started to get a bit concerned about how much farther I had to go.

Day 5 was planned to be a riding day without too many stops. I needed to make some time and I’d started to want to get home. I don’t like being on the road feeling like I need to be somewhere so when I get antsy I tend to push on and drive, drive, drive… whatever it takes to get it done and I was getting that feeling.

I did want to see Yellowstone, though, and was on track for getting through there so off I went. Did I mention that Wyoming is really big? Well, despite the fact that I was “most of the way” to Yellowstone I still had a few hours of riding before I got all the way there. These were taken coming out of the Bighorn area…

…and these were in the flatlands on the way to Yellowstone:

The ride was nice, although it was now pretty darn warm. Where I’d started was quite chilly so I’d dressed warmly. I was cooking by noon, but there really weren’t many places to change. There are some pretty areas in Wyoming, even through the desert areas. Irrigation, of course:

There are some really neat places in that area that I would like to check out some day. I’d been through a couple of towns that had a pretty serious “Old West” theme going. Right before the mountain roads going in to Yellowstone is Cody, Wyoming, which reminded me of some of the towns in Nevada, but actually made me want to stop and check it out. I didn’t, pressing on…

Yellowstone is quite an experience. A lot of it is much like any mountainous area – the Sierra Nevadas, much of the Rockies (which I suppose this is almost part of), Alaska – but it has something other places don’t. Smelly steam, water and mud boiling out of the ground. I didn’t take pictures of any of that – there are plenty available online and I didn’t need to say, “see, I took this one!”

I did take a few of the roads going in. Wow, what fun – the best roads of my ride so far. Hills and curves…. lots of curves, most of them pretty mild but a few that were nice and tight. I didn’t push too hard, no peg scraping, but did let myself have some fun. On the way in there was very little traffic and I had a great time.

I’d asked about any “must see” things on the way in and was told that the falls were probably among the best sights. They were certainly impressive:

I stopped pulled in to the parking lot, rode to a convenient spot near one of the paths, parked as one can on a motorcycle and jumped off. Walked a few feet, snapped some pictures and was off again.

Going in was nice. Heading out was a real chore. The roads were just as nice but either the location or the time had brought many, many people to them. There was always someone driving 20 mph in the 45 zone looking at stuff and building a mile long train of cars behind them. I passed quite a few people and got out in front of the looky-loos a few times but there was always another one not far ahead.

I did get out and was dumped into Montana. There’s another place on the “go back” list. Talk about beautiful… I only saw a very small part of it and then I was in Idaho. As the afternoon was drawing on I stopped for gas, thinking that I’d fill up and go for the rest of the tank. I was headed for Utah in order to pick up I-80 and finish the ride back home and was hoping to get as far as possible before nightfall.

It was as I was leaving the gas station that I felt a few drops of rain… that quickly turned into a bunch of drops and then – horrors! – hail! I thought I saw that I could keep going and dodge the storm clouds so I hopped on the freeway and headed out. At first I was fine but in the nature of afternoon storms clouds just appeared out of nowhere and started dumping rain. I could see that where I needed to go was solid clouds and rain and I was headed right into it.

The rain started really coming down so I got off the freeway and over to one of the first hotels I could find. Went in, “got a room?” and that was it for the day. I’d thought the rain might let up but it didn’t and looking at the forecast showed that… I was screwed. Rain and storms “unusual for the area” and all between me and home.

Good day, crappy evening – but comfortable bed.