West Yellowstone to Butte
We woke up outside of West Yellowstone thankful that the dramatic clouds and strong winds at the beginning of the night had passed with no rainfall. A hurried breakfast followed after retrieving our supplies from the bear-proof boxes at our state park campsite. The boxes served as a tangible reminder of just how far we were from home, and how close we were to our syrup loving neighbors to the north.
We rode back into town on the eerily straight dirt path, surrounded densely wooded terrain and, of course, loads of mosquitoes. We were greeted in town by the overtly western themed restaurants and kitschy gift shops. I found it interesting to see the contrast between the “authentic” small towns along the trip that had a genuine, unmanufactured charm and the ones like West Yellowstone that were clearly playing it up for what seemed to be a very international tourist crowd.
Our hope was to find a barbershop where Matthew and I could get our hair cut into Mullets. Why mullets you may be asking? I’ll explain more for the next day, when we actually found a place to cut our hair.
Surprisingly, all of the places that cut hair in West Yellowstone were booked solid for the morning, so we decided to sojourn into Idaho and then Montana again towards Butte.
This day ended up being our last day of dirt riding and we certainly went out with a bang. The slim stretch of Idaho and then southwestern Montana delivered some of our very best scenery of the trip. We rode for miles and miles through forgotten meadow valleys and past isolated cabins. A theme of the trip for me is to ride past these places that are so far out in the middle of nowhere and think to myself “who in the world lives out here?”
We stopped for lunch at what had to be one of the prettiest views we had all trip: dramatic mountains in the distance with high planes and green rolling hills in the valley. We could see it all from our dirt road, perched at the top of a steep incline. Matt and I feasted on the last of our ramen (shrimp flavor was a mistake) as everyone else ate peanut butter and honey sandwiches.
After lunch we made it through Lima, MT quickly and then were on pavement the rest of the way to Butte. Later we stopped in what looked like a normal gas station but also happened to double as a liquor store and gun store. We joked that at least in Texas, a store would advertise the fact that they carried those products. But in Montana, it must just be expected from the locals. Matt, of course, reminded us that Steinbeck describes Montana as how a six year old would expect Texas to be if he heard Texans describe it.
After a harrowing section of interstate riding (sorry mom), and successfully outrunning a rainstorm, we stopped at a DQ for some well earned dip cones. Unfortunately, we celebrated for a bit too long and the storm caught up with us outside of the beautiful city of Dillon (go panthers). We waited out the storm inside a huge farm equipment storage facility that happened to be on the side of the road. Upon closer inspection we found that it was potato-farming equipment, and we hoped that Blake predicting in an earlier post that Brian might have to fight off a “band of irritable Montanan potato farmers” wouldn’t come true.
After the rain passed, we rode the rest of the way into Butte through more stunning scenery. There was one section going through a wheat field with mountains in the background that looked like it was straight out of a Coors Light commercial.
We arrived in Butte hungry and ready to take advantage of the fact that Matthew’s kind mother offered to pay for our food expenses that day because it was his birthday.
Our experience at the Buffalo Wild Wings in Butte very well might deserve a blog post all its own, but to but it briefly, it was one of my favorite moments of the whole trip. It came up when we were deciding were to go for dinner that BWW has a hot wing challenge, the kind of thing that I am very much drawn to. When our server was describing the challenge, she said that she only made it through two of the six wings and warned me that the six-minute time limit kept a lot of people from finishing. I cut her off and said, “That won’t a problem, I guarantee it”.
A few minutes later, the manager brought out my hell coated wings with the official timer. I asked him what the fastest time he’d seen it completed was, so I would have a goal to shoot for. He told me that not many had completed the challenge and he’d never seen anything under five minutes. Four minutes and eighteen seconds later I claimed my free t-shirt and title as fastest to complete the BWW hot wings challenge in Butte, MT. This is a title I will cherish for the rest of my life. The manager loved our motorcycle story and Brain’s ever present charm, so he decided to give us another shirt. One for Matthew’s birthday present and one for me.
We rode to a KOA campground and I spent an uncomfortable night regretting how quickly I ingested the ghost-pepper ridden fire sauce on those wings. They were genuinely the hottest thing I’d ever eaten by a wide margin. I have never felt such intestinal pain.
Butte to Lincoln
In the morning at the KOA and were accosted by KOA’s thuggish, Mafioso business tactics. They told us, despite our group price being specifically quoted to us in the evening, that we would have to pay an extra fee for having five people at a campground. They knew at the time that we had five people, and we were told it was a certain price at night, and then in the morning, after they had our card info, they tried to fine us. We negotiated the fee down, but I still consider it the most bush-league moment of the trip. Don’t give KOA your business.
We left KOA and rode across town so Matthew and I could have our hair cut into mullets.
The thought process behind the Mullets was simple, and similar to why we grew our hair out in the first place. We are never going to be able to do this again. Soon we will disappear into the masses of responsible, productive members of society. For the rest of our lives, we will wear slacks, khakis, light blue or white starched dress shirts, be clean-shaven, and have good haircuts. But for this week, we wanted to put that all aside. We had just come from the wedding in San Antonio where we certainly could not have sported the classic 80s look out of respect for the ceremony, and we were about to be groomsmen in a wedding when we got back from Canada. Despite our sweet-talking of the bride and the groom, they were insistent that the hairstyles at the wedding be business in both the front and the back. So we had a one-week window maximize the potential of the woolen canvasses on our heads and turn them into masterpieces.
And it was glorious. I have never in my life felt more American than the moment I walked out of the barber shop in army boots, tactical pants, a sweat stained shirt and with a mullet that would make Brian Bosworth jealous. I felt like a real American.
We rode from Butte north towards Lincoln through the outskirts of Helena. The rest of the day went smoothly, and Montana continued to provide some of the very best scenery of the trip. I really underestimated Montana.
We got into Lincoln and pitched our camp at a local city park that also had spaces for tents. We watched the fire grow dimmer while we drank Ranier and matt took pictures. It was beginning to sink in that we were going to make it to the border, and our moods reflected it.
Lincoln to Eureka
The last day. Ten months of dreaming, six months of planning, three weeks of riding had come down to one day. 211 miles separated us from proving almost everyone wrong. We all woke up with a sense of anticipation that had not been matched since we packed our things for the first time in Tucson three weeks before.
We set off relatively early, eager for a full day of riding, and eager to cross the finish line. The miles ticked away quickly, but we weren’t going to have our last day without a bit of controversy. I was of the opinion that we should try to finish the day with as much dirt riding as possible, to keep to the spirit of the trip. Others were of the opinion that we should just try to get across the border without our bikes falling apart. We decided to give the dirt one last try and see how it went. After about an hour of riding, several chains falling off, and a complete dead end due to a forest road being closed until mid-July, I was thoroughly proven wrong. Chagrinned, I led the pack as we turned around and had to go all the way back to where the dirt started. Thankfully dirt is always faster the second time, and we were back on the pavement in about half an hour, after two more chains fell off. Looking back now, it is almost comical how wrong I was about riding dirt on our last day, and how right the guys were who thought it would be smart to stick to pavement.
We rode north towards Eureka just west of Glacier National Park (now the most beautiful park I’ve ever been to) and enjoyed our final push north. We were now consistently seeing cars with Alberta or British Colombia license plates.
We got into Eureka at around five or six in the afternoon. Eureka looked like the countless other western towns we had ridden through, but now it felt different. We stopped for gas and briefly reflected on how far we had come, and how close we were. Eureka is about five miles south of the border.
So with “Cowboys Like Us” by George Strait blaring in my headphones, we rode north for the last time. Misty hills on our right and open plains on our left escorted us towards the border station. And just like that, there it was.
I had a fear in the back of my head for the whole trip that the border itself would be underwhelming. Like that it would look like the entrance to a park or some other gated area of land, with a dinky sign that just unceremoniously said “Canada”. But to be honest, I was presently surprised.
We jumped off our bikes at the massive CANADA UNITED STATES BOUNDARY sign to take pictures. Immediately our helmets were off and we were all hugging and laughing, overwhelmed with joy and a sense of accomplishment. So many people had doubted us that even a few miles earlier in Eureka, it felt just a little bit like we might not make it. But to really be there, to see the sign and the border station, felt sublime. I finally breathed a sigh of relief in acknowledgement that we actually got to the border.
Our celebrating and picture taking was cut short by one of the few villains of the trip, officer Flick. Or Moutnie Flick. We’re still not sure what the border officers’ titles are in Canada. He came over and sharply told us that the border was not for taking pictures and that we needed to move through the actual border station.
This threw a wrench into our plans because we had not planned to actually go through the border checkpoint. We were more than happy to take pictures with the sign, and step over the geographic border markers, about 50 yards before the physical checkpoint manned by Officer Flick. . None of us had our passports and Brian had a firearm with him (that he is licensed to concealed carry in Texas and all the states we rode through).
So as we discussed what to do, Matt went and asked if we could just turn around on the road we came in on and not go through the checkpoint. The officer sternly responded that we had entered an unmarked zone on either side of the border that can only be exited through the checkpoints. “And if you turn around you will have a whole lot of guns pointed at you, and deservedly so.”
Matt told him we didn’t have our passports, but that we just wanted to turn around as quickly as possible. He said that was fine as long as none of us had drugs or a gun. Welp.
We momentarily considered what Canadian jail would be like for all of us because of Brain’s gun. But we told the officer that Brian had a gun, and his concealed carry license. He was obviously displeased, but apparently even Canadians respect the fact that a Concealed Handgun License means you are not a felon, you have passed a firearms class, and submitted your fingerprints to the government. He told us to proceed one by one through the checkpoint.
I went first with little to report. We then all held our breath as Brian proceeded towards the checkpoint. They made him stop, put his hands up and tell the two officers where the gun was so they could get it and inspect it themselves. Then they asked him how many rounds of ammunition he had. Brian later told us he thought he was going to jail after he confidently told the officer he only had the rounds in the magazine, only to have the officer reveal a box of ammo he forgot. Thankfully this was forgiven and Brian was able to move forward.
Once we were all past the Canadian checkpoint, we had to turn around and go right back through the American checkpoint. The American entrance proved more difficult than expected thanks to an irate border officer. He took the time to personally belittle each of us with a joke about where we were from, or what we would be doing with our lives. When Blake told him proudly that he would be working for Southwest Airlines, the officer scoffed and said, “What are ya? A stewardess?” Blake came back with the stinging retort of “No, I’m a business data analyst at their headquarters.”
We finally all made it through and rode south for the first time. And all of a sudden it was over. Three countries in three weeks.
Mexico to Canada.
-JB
The Maple Fiesta 