Sunday August 10, 2014 Montana, Idaho and Wyoming

Left Great Falls heading down Interstate 15.  Part of this retraced my drive up from Alpine, but I kept going south into southern Idaho but took some other roads to avoid going into Utah (too far west).  I don't remember exactly where I took the pictures but I was obviously still in the Rockies.  I do remember that once I got off the Interstate I found a valley that looked almost perfect.  There were wheat fields on both sides of the road and a few houses here and there.  Further in it wasn't quite so perfect with at least one abandoned hotel and a somewhat cheesy water park before I found my hotel.

Tuesday August 5, 2014 Cheyenne to Alpine, Wyoming

Started the day in Cheyenne and made it up to Alpine, but it wasn’t easy.  No problem getting on the interstate.  It turns out the exit was at the intersection of I80 and I25.  However, not long after I got on I80 my side narrowed down to one lane due to construction.  In fact, about the first 50 miles was intermittent construction.  I was looking at the time and wondering if I was going to have to add some hours to my estimate.  That did clear up, as well as the clouds.  There were basically two parts to today’s travels.  The first part (about 250 miles) was straight down I80; the second part (about 200 miles total) on a two lane US highway.

I decided to get gas around lunchtime to make sure I had enough gas to make It to Alpine.  This was still on I80 a good 30 minutes or so before the move the two-lane road.  It turned out I didn’t need to worry.  The shift to the US highway occurs at a fairly significant town/city and there were plenty of services there.

After lunch I got back on the road.  Although there had been some hills, the scenery was mainly scrubland with some wonderful clouds stacking up toward the horizon.  There also seemed to be the threat of rain on the horizon.

I did see something rather unique as we headed into the hills.  Along the road at one point there seemed to be a pointless arch across the road.  However, as I got closer I realized that the upper surface of the arch as more grassland.  The arch was intended to allow cows to cross the road without getting hit.  I didn’t get a picture of the first arch, but had my camera ready when a second arch appeared.

As the road headed into the hills, the clouds got closer and closer.  Finally, it started to rain.  However, the first rain started has the road went over a hill, first as a light rain but climaxing with enough water that I had to turn on my lights and make sure I knew how far away the car in front of me really was.  However, the rain stopped immediately after hitting the summit.  The rain got much more intense as I got into the actual mountain pass.   The speed limit went down from 75 to 65 and even lower in some sections.  The rain varied in intensity and stopped at one point just as I crested the summit.  There were also several stretches with no way to pass anyone.  Fortunately, there wasn’t that much traffic.

The scenery by this point was lush pine forest.  A river was flowing right next to the road at several points.  The clouds were so thick that the headlights were necessary.  At one point I wasn’t sure I was going to see any sun at all until I hit Montana tomorrow.
Needless to say I did make it to my hotel without incident.  While it did rain once I got there, it was a very light rain that caused no problems.

Monday August 4, 2014 Amarillo to Cheyenne

Today’s travels would take me through four states.  I started out at Amarillo, Texas with a goal of reaching Denver, Colorado by the end of the day.  After having breakfast I headed out.  Even though I got up earlier, I only made it on the road at about 9:45 AM.  Most of the travel was on US highways and not the Interstates, although I ended up on I25 toward the end.
The scenery was still fairly green, but getting drier as the day progressed.  Although mostly flat, there was a mountain pass going through Trinidad, Colorado (I think).  Although many of the roads were divided highways, there was one state road that was just two lanes with just the yellow dotted line between them.  This being Texas, the speed limit was 75 mph.
Long story short, I did make it to Denver.  I was in good enough shape that I decided to press on to Cheyenne, Wyoming (about and additional 100 miles).  The I25 goes right through Denver and in late afternoon traffic was pretty bad.  Shortly after deciding to continue, traffic slowed to a crawl.  It turns out that a car had stalled in the middle of one of the lanes.  Shortly after that another stalled car was off the side of the road, again causing a slowdown.  It ate up about 30 miles to get clear of the Denver traffic.  The rest of the way was uneventful and I made it to the I25/I80 intersection and pulled off to look for a hotel.  Since I didn’t have any reservations this turned out to be harder than I expected.  The first was only taking reserved guests.  The second that I tried only had suites available.  Even though I tried for something different, I ended up with Motel 6 as usual.  After I was in a room, I heard in the news that bikers were all over the area because of the rally in Sturges, ND which started today.  Hilarious.