The clouds were heavy much of the way with the approaching storms.
We pulled off at turnouts often to marvel in wonderment. There was a lot of traffic on July 4th but nobody seemed to be in a rush. How could you be with so many sharp turns. Check out that curve.
The Beartooth All American road had 163,000 non resident travelers in 2012 based on a study done on the road that Charles Kuralt called America's best highway. They had an impact of 45 million dollars on the three little surrounding towns. Amazing considering it is closed most of the year. At times it seemed you would sail off into thin air.
Leon seemed a little nervous that I would drive with one hand while taking pictures with the other but I was just pointing and shooting. You really couldn't take a bad picture.
I haven't gotten nearly enough wildflower pictures because nobody seems to think they are important enough for a pulloff.
We stopped after we passed the summit and when I started to leave again I was shocked that the transmission did not sound right and there was an odd odor. What to do but keep going and soon I realized we had little power. As luck would have it, it was downhill all the way, so I just put it in neutral and coasted using the breaks as little as possible. We managed to make it into Red Lodge where we spent the night on the side of a street downtown amongst all the evening activity. We partook of some and watched the ground become covered with hail.
I first met Red Lodge when I passed through in 2001 and stopped to enjoy the Iron Horse Harley Rally they were having. It is a fun town with a small historic district in the middle of town. We fell asleep listening to the pops, not the orchestra, but the sound of fireworks all around town.
This morning the driving seemed fine so we detoured to Billings where i stopped at a shop and finally had the output speed sensor replaced that I didn't want to wait on before we left Hot Springs. All seems good to go.
No comments:
Post a Comment