Day 14: Bozeman, MT to Big Timber, MT

Bozeman was a fun town and hard to leave. We finally made it on our way around 11:30 after a delicious breakfast at the Stockyard. The Stockyard is this hole in the wall old restaurant down a remote gravel road outside of Bozeman. Joe treated us to a farwell breakfast. Portions were generous and tasty.

After a few final glances at the map and packing everything back on the bikes, we were off to Big Timber, MT. It was a direct shot down I90 about a 60 miles or so. It was a beautiful sunny day and should have been a quick ride (so to speak.) There were supposed to be a few frontage roads we could take to avoid the highway. We found the first one out of Bozeman, but it put us back on the highway after a few short miles.

After a few more miles on the highway, I saw a turnoff for Trail Creek Rd. I remembered the road name from my route discussions with Joe and his friends, so I suggested we take that road. It was beautful winding road that lead into a tight valley with ranches and nice homes. After about 7 miles or so, it turned to gravel. Marc and I both looked at each other inquistively. He asked if I knew it would be gravel. I said that I could remember some talk about a stretch of gravel road. I was hoping it would be brief.

We cycled on enjoying the beautiful scenery. However, the road started to get progressively worse with potholes and ruts. It would have been fun on a mountain bike, but a bit to rocky for the road bikes. We were now about 10 miles down the road so we felt committed to riding it out.

I kept praying that it would turn back to a paved road and lead us back to the highway. After about 15 miles on the gravel, we came to a fork in the road. Marc pulled out the Garmin GPS to see if we could find out which way to go. I was starting to think that I took us on the wrong road.

As we were stopped, a pickup truck pulled up and asked us if we needed help. (The folks in Montana are super friendly!) Marc asked him "Which way to Livingston?".

The driver replied, "Up that hill and then a left. Do you want a ride to the top of the hill. We can throw the bikes in the back of the truck?"

It was awfully tempting at this point, but we declined and moved on up and over the hill. Riding on gravel roads is tough on a road bike. You definitely can not go as fast and it takes a lot more energy to keep the wheels rolling. After summitting the hill and rolling down into the valley, we finally made it to a paved road and discovered that we were in Paradise Valley - the valley that leads to Yellowstone. Appartanly I has mistaken the original directions to Yellowstone with the directions for our new route to Big Timber. Thus we ended up going about 15 miles out of the way!

I was eager by then to just get on the highway and stay. No more frontage road detours. So we left Livingston for Big Timber and rolled along on the wide shoulder of Interstate 90. The scenery today was quite breathtaking. We had tremendous views of several different mountain ranges.

Given our late start and our 15 mile detour, we rolled into Big Timber around 7:30 PM. We found the downtown area and a historic hotel right on the main road downtown. The Grand Hotel was built in 1890 and is now a Bed & Breakfast Hotel. The rooms were the cheapest in town, and they had an adjoining restaurant so we decided to take a room. Our room is quaint and small with a bathroom down the hall. But - the restaurant was open and served pie! I opted for a slice of cheesecake with a blueberry sauce. It wss definitely homemade and delicious!

We are still looking into our route for tomorrow, it looks like we will most likely take the highway again to Billings.