Day 7
Williston, ND to Malta, Montana
   Miles today = 240
Total miles = 1385		  
     
   
     
     
   
 
   
A rainy, foggy morning overlooking the Missouri River.
  Sooooooo...when the shit hits the fan.… Wait. It wasn't quite that bad. It started to rain at about 2 am and not for one second has it stopped today. Knowing that I was in for a cold day I hung around at the Lewis & Clark State Park, where I ended up last night, and took a long hot shower. I did my usual routine of trying to pack it all back into the five bags and then strap it all back on. Meanwhile, it is of course raining and quite windy so, of course, the logistics of getting it all back on while trying to keep everything as dry as possible meant that everything took longer. Which meant I didn’t leave until around noon and then some.
It was a beautiful state park with an incredible view of the Missouri River. The tent sites were right on the edge of the bluffs overlooking the river. With the rain came the realization that I was going to be spending the coming night in a motel to get everything dried and back in order. I was prepared for a light rain but not a long drawn out all day rain. I wasn’t going to let rain stop me from putting in the miles and it wasn’t like there was going to be an overpass to sit out a rainstorm for what turned about to be about 500 miles anyway
Yeahhhhh—so optimistic.
Got to Wolf Creek, Montana (Wolf something or other anyway) and I was already sizing up the motels since my hand was frozen into a throttle gripping shape. Which was probably only an hour or two after setting out. I stopped at the gas station and a man approached me about some road construction coming up before Glasgow that he said was really bad. Essentially telling me to shack up for the day and wait for the rain to end and for the construction crews to lay down some gravel in the mud.
Being that it was only two in the afternoon it was hard to justify stopping after just a short distance, if even, and figuring if I was going to be wet, I might as well push on and see how bad it was before making any hard and fast decision. If anything I could always turn around. Has anyone ever known me to turn around? Yes, it was still cold, yes it was blowing like hell and pushing me around as if I was on a rocking horse and yes the road wasn't even as good as the county highways in North Dakota so of course I went. Think of it as a growth experience, or well the end of one.
I got to the signal guy at the start of the stretch and he starts in on how bad it is. I was first in line to wait for the lead car leading the line of cars one direction at a time. He began telling me about potholes and ruts and mud and how the other day 4 riders dropped their bikes while traversing it. Then another construction guy pulls up in his pick-up and lays in on how bad it is. We discussed the options and we all pretty much agreed that going around would add up to extra hours and it was worth a try to go through the construction zone.
I let the other vehicles that had pulled up behind me go ahead and I followed. Which worked for about 2 miles and then they easily pulled away while I did my best to mimic championship motocross racers and miss as many of the rim bending potholes as possible while staying out of the slippery muddy ruts that had ideas of their own as to the path for me to follow. Never in my life have I seen any type of surface that had those conditions to drive on. No shoulder, no consistent path for longer than a hundred yards, and all in driving rain, a horrible cross wind, and breathing in more water than a drowning victim. The potholes appeared to be laid out in a grid and the size of buckets and in various sections was standing water of six feet or greater in diameter that hid whatever obstructions they held beneath their surface. My assumption was that the potholes were to simplify the removal of the roadbed surface. Why they did both lanes, shoulders ands then some is beyond me.
But, of course, I made it. I think I owe it to the weather keeping most people inside, and they only let one direction go at a time which pretty much left me on my own to navigate the minefield instead of feeling the pressure of other drivers to stick with a direction, run at a certain speed, and basically act all cool and shit. 		 

I hit a whole slew of potholes, became completely soaked because I didn't have speed on my side to cut down on some of the rain by hiding behind the fairing and getting to the other side was very inconsequential. There should have been at least some big burly Montana rancher giving me a small nod acknowledging my heroics against all odds by neither having to stop or tip over.
So now my gloves are completely soaked, boots now too after splashing through so much water, and I got a continual fog on the inside of my helmet shield every time I exhaled because I was so heated up from the physical ordeal of keeping my motorbike upright.
I got to Glasgow on the other side, stopped at a gas station, looked at a map, and oddly enough it was enough time to get feeling back in my hands and feet and in my best imitation of throwing good money after bad, set out for Malta. And yeah, I arrived and now I've eaten a whole pizza, two Cokes with a couple of shots, and I’m sit here updating pictures, sweating because the heat is cranked up to dry everything out, and a bit of TV. Sure it is still raining but sprinkling is more like it. Temp is still in the 40's from the high of the lower to mid 50's that I woke up to.
Everything is pretty much scattered around the room and the only thing left to dry are my boots and winter gloves. I’ve got my tent hanging in the bathroom to drip dry, alternating items on the heater. Which is odd since I started out so hot because of the layers I was wearing topped off with the vinyl rain suit—which is still in tact for the most part, nothing that a few strips of duct tape can’t fix.
I’ll have to chalk up today as a high achievement in my riding skills. So many things could have gone wrong but after riding for so many days now with horrible cross winds I've gotten to a point that I don't even have to think about leaning one way or the other. Unless of course I pass between two banks where a hill was cut to allow a more level roadway and then the crosswind would be from the complete opposite direction and I would be blown to the right side hell bent on seeing me looking up from a horizontal position wondering what happened.
And what do I get after all this? A dry room and closer to somewhere else. Tomorrow is supposed to be dry and in the low 60's which is obviously positive. The TV I could do without since the whole room puts me in a completely different state of mind than say standing around a campfire with two folks from Colorado and their collie chasing sparks on the upper banks of the Missouri.
What I got was an indifferent teen making me a pizza, no USA Today, and no swimsuit that I jettisoned for space, so therefore no use of the pool. Who knew they would have a pool anyway when I pulled up? But things are close to dry, I'm sweating while typing and Anne Heche is trying to save a sinking new TV show.
But tomorrow will be dry so that is what I get.

Route: Highway 1804 to West Highway 2, to Malta.
 
Standing on the upper, eroded edge of the Missouri River in Lewis and Clark State Park at twilight.
 
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