The Pilgrimage: Day 9
I moved a little slower than usual getting out of Zortman, went a little too hard with the locals. Woops.
Had a nice little lunch at a place called the Hitching Post in Malta, before making my way to Fort Peck trying to out run this storm.
Sleeping Buffalo Rock, Montana
Stopped momentarily to touch the Sleeping Buffalo Rock for luck.
Got to Fort Peck Lake just in time to fight to put up my tent in the gusts of wind, before the rain pummeled me and my tent.
Flat Lake Recreation Area, Fort Peck Lake, Montana
That storm was incredible. I lost track of how many times the lightning struck and the thunder rumbled less than two seconds later. The wind was so bad I was literally holding up my tent for an hour and a half.
Highway 13, 3 miles away from Circle, MT where Lazarus went caput.
The Pilgrimage: Day 10
I scrambled and got my tent all packed up in the tiny gap between rain, and took shelter at the Interpetive Center next to the Fort Peck Dam.
Looked at some cool Dino bones before hitting the road again.
Got gas in Wolf Point and 40 miles later the bike just lost power and died on the side of the road.
3.8 miles from Circle.
Flagged down an old woman, who went into town to find me a tow truck.
(The wind was back at it’s really nasty thing agian. I drove by almost 40 telephone poles that were snapped in the middle and laying on the ground, from the storm that went over me at Fort Peck, the night before. )
The Sheriff pulled up, I thought ‘here it comes’. He asked if I was the girl broke down on the bike. I laughed and said yes. He looked pretty disappointed, and said they didn’t have a tow truck in town, the closest one was in Glendive almost 50 miles away. He asked me if a horse trailer would work. I nodded enthusiastically and mentioned that’s how I had brought her home when I first bought her four years ago. He nodded grimly and went all the way back to his ranch and picked up his horse trailer and came back.
He pulled into the ditch so the trailer was sloped to one side. It took the both of us to load it into the trailer. When he let go of the bike, to go get straps from the cab, the bike tumbled into the wall of the horse trailer. The impact crushed my mirror on the right hand side. I laughed, because by this point I was beyond done. What’s one more thing, can’t really make it any worse. The sheriff came back with the straps and helped me pick up the bike again. It took all of my weight pulling on the one side of the bike to keep it from falling, while he strapped it down.
He towed me straight into to town, me in the back of the stock trailer with Lazarus, wondering how many more times Lazarus and I were going to have to be towed on this trip. The sheriff took me straight to the hotel. Soo, I had to break one of my rules, because the the nice officer didn’t really give me an option.
The sheriff unloaded the bike, and escorted me into the office to get me a room. Luckily, Circle is a small town, with only one motel. The rooms were cheap, but the woman warned me I could only stay for two nights because there were so many power company people in town to fix the telephone poles.
The sheriff tried to give me some numbers of people who were decent mechanics in the area, but it was the weekend and nothing was open and no one was in town.
At this point I was pretty damn sure it was a combo of bad gas and fouled spark plugs…Couldn’t get spark plugs because everything was closed…
I was stranded at a motel in Circle with a dead bike until Monday.