Mystery Ride

Last Sunday Gary and I went on our HOG Chapter's mystery ride. This is the ride that we were supposed to do on the 20th, but it was raining too hard that day and not enough people to participate.

Sunday morning was beautiful. It was very windy earlier in the morning, but by the time we left Hardin to get to the dealership by 9:00, it was nice. At bit on the cool side, but with the sun shining it would warm up.

We arrived at the dealership with plenty of time. We waited around a bit for more people to arrive, there were about 20 bikes in all, plenty to do the mystery ride.

We all gathered around to get our instructions. The organizer of this ride first talked about how this guy in Texas is an iron butt rider and he rode around Texas and took photos of all the county courthourses in Texas, then he made his project bigger into the courhouses in the United States.

That was our mystery ride. We were divided into two teams, your team had to go out and take as many photos of county courthouses as you could in the time allowed. We all had to be back in Billings at the meeting place by 5:00 pm.

Our route took us to Hardin, Big Horn County and Broadus, Powder River County. If we had the time, we were to hit Baker, Fallon County. Away we went, made it to Hardin. I asked Gary if he would have a hard time finding the courthouse here. Ha Ha Ha was the response I got back. We got our photo of the courthouse and then made our way to Broadus.

Broadus is approximately 120 miles from Hardin, so we gassed up in Crow. By this time the wind was starting to pick up but it wasn't too bad. Let me back up, it was around 9:30 by the time we left Billings to head to Hardin. We got into Hardin around 10:30 due to road construction.

We made it to Broadus at 12:10 pm. Took us a while because again of road construction and traffic. The semi traffic was pretty heavy on this day and we couldn't get around like we wanted. Found the courhouse in Broadus pretty easy and got our photo. Took a very short break to stretch our legs and also to look at the map and decided if we have enough time to make it to Baker. Unfortunately we didn't. You can't get to Baker from Broadus, you have to back track and make your way to Miles City, which was 80 miles and then Baker is 90 miles from Miles City. Keep in mind that Miles City is about 150 from Billings.

We decided to go to Miles City and eat lunch as we were both hungry at this time. We did go on a highway that neither one of us had been on. Needless to say this was a horrible time to head north on Highway 59. The wind was blowing very hard and for us it was a head wind. Now I know how a ball feels when a cat is playing with it. We were batted around like a little toy. Some of the gusts came up and almost blew us off the road, that is how strong the wind was. It was not fun to say the least. The wind gets underneath my helmet and it feels like it will tear off my head. We were so glad to get into Miles City just to get out of the wind for a bit.

Ate lunch and then we made our way back to Billings. It was about 2:30 when we left Miles City. The wind was blowing here but not as bad as it was earlier. This time we had the cross wind, but we got out of it when we reached Hysham.

We did arrive in Billings on time and reported in. Unfortunately we didn't have time to make Baker. Our team hit 21 courthouses off the list of 27. We didn't win, the other team had 23 courthouses. One of our team members didn't make it back to the meeting point and nobody knew where he went or if he even went on the ride to take his photos. He could have been the winning one.

Anyway we had a good time and we got a meal out of the deal. We all met up at a sports bar that served pizza. It was ok. The winning team all got beer glasses and the losing team all got these huge coffee mugs. The mugs and glasses have the HOG emblem on them. They are very nice.

Anyway this ride has given us an idea on our own to hit all 56 counties in the state. We already have two down. This will take us some time, but it will be fun to do. I was also able to highlight some more Montana highways on this trip. That is another goal we have on the bike, to travel on all the highways in Montana. Paved ones of course. We have Eastern Montana pretty much covered.