Medora, ND to Roundup, MT

On Buffalo Gap Road en route to old highway 10.

It was overcast and cool in the  morning when we headed south on a gravel from Buffalo Gap Lodge to old highway 10. The guys weren’t thrilled with the coarse rocky roadbed, but the scenery made up for it.

Water is a commodity here. No crops, just grazing land. They pipe in water in 6 inch PVC pipe from a lake several miles away. The system is called Rural Water and subscribers can hook into it. The owner of the lodge was installing a 6,000 gallon water tank to store the piped in water so that he could supply enough for the showers. He has a 1500 foot well but the water is not potable.

There were scattered showers throughout the day so the big sky was once again fun to watch.

We had lunch in Miles City and deliberated as to where to stay the night. Towns of any size are so far apart that we need to plan ahead. We learned the hard way that just because a town has large letters on the gazetteer doesn’t mean that it has services. We ate lunch at a wifi hotspot to find available rooms ahead. Today we had to decide between stopping at 3pm or going on another 100 miles. We wanted to get to Helena on Sunday so we decided to forge on to the town of Roundup, MT. We opted to take 40 miles of freeway to help shorten the drive. Linda remembers being nervous because of all the semi’s. I remember being bored for lack of scenery. The rest of the drive was enjoyable in spite of having to be alert because of all the deer as it got dark.

I asked Merv, still at the wheel after a long day of driving, how he was enjoying the trip. He grinned wide and said “I like my car.”

Merv on the A’s exhaust system repair:

The repair wasn’t a complete success but it introduced some low frequency sounds. Now, instead of making an irritating clacking sound it sounds like the chuff of a high speed steam engine so its not unpleasant.  The road we are on follows an old abandoned railroad bed. Its nice to think that we have returned the sound of a steam engine to these hills. We’ll attempt a more thorough repair sometime later.