Caverns & Cowboys (7/4/23 Tue)

Rained overnight but stopped early in the morning. The tent was wet and my bike was low on fuel. I was up about 1.5 hours before I needed to be at the Lewis and Clark Caverns infoormation center, so the store was open. That made coffee easier than making my own from my yet to be openned bag of coffee (purchased last night at the same store). I also had a breakfast sandwich with my coffee.

At only a few miles from the Caverns I wasn't worried about gas. And with the option of going to the Ennis rodeo 45 minutes away, I thought a second night would make sense. So I didn't have to pack up the wet tent.

I was the first to arrive at the info center. By the time they opened at 0900 there were a few others for them to tell that we needed to go to the cave to purchase tickets. So we all traveled the few miles up into the hills of the park to buy our tickets. Oddly I think the cave tour area opens at 0830. After I had my ticket I sent a text to the campground about my extra night.

The Cavern tour has a long and short version. The long version is a couple of miles of hiking and 600+ stairs. The Paradise tour is much shorter and with very few steps. I chose the long tour, and they squezed me into the 1000 tour (2nd tour of the day).

The cavern history and beauty was very intersting. There are a lot of low and tight areas we all needed to squeeze through. They probably didn't stress the difficulty enough for some of those on the tour. But we managed to get a group of around 25 single file through stretches of cave and amass into a tight group for our educational sessions. I think the pictures will show a lot of intersting cave formations. I loved the hand carved stairs, as you will see in the pictures. Some of the photos will be hard to determine the scale. Some very tight areas might seem large because if you had to bend over the railing was placed lower. Many photos have poeple in them to help with scale.

Not only was the cave tour great but the winding road up to the mouth was great fun on the bike and offered nice views. I captured a number of those views on my way out.

By mid-afternoon I was back at the campground to pay up and have an Ice Cream. I headed down to Ennis after asking what route and where I should eat. The suggested restaurant was closed. The one accross the streat opened a few minutes later but was only takeout. The Gelato at that second restaurant was open and two customers there used to ride a BWM adventure bike and told me to go to the Sportsman's Lodge Restaurant in Ennis. And to get to the rodeo early and park near the exit. Took them and hour to get out last night.

Perhaps my favorite part of the rodeo was the parking. They had girls on horseback directing the incoming line of traffic where to park. I held back a bit from the truck before me so they could consider a good spot for a motorcycle. She thought for a moment and told me to park between the motorhomes on the left edge of the entrance/exit road. I pulled in head first and hated it. She asked if I wanted to turn around and I said yes, can I ride behind these motorhomes. She replied she didn't know how I needed to turn around. My loop behind the motorhomes put me in an excellent exit point.

The rodeo was pretty good, the announcer and clown interactions where very entertaining. The people watching was pretty good as well. Lots of cowboys and cowgirls dressed up for the show. The pictures I took before my battery ran out show the nice mountain backdrop. I arrived early and stayed until the end. Getting out was a traffic jam, but as soon as I lit up the bike a truck waved me out. I almost didn't have to put a foot down from there to pavement. It was about 2300 when I was riding home.

In Big Sky country you see a lot of fireworks on the 4th. As I rode the 50 minutes home I would see them near each town. The traffic was pretty intack for the first half hour, then I split off on my own for the end of the dark ride home past the wildlife crossing coridor. The only wildlife I saw was a racoon displaying a low set of eyes from left to right on the road ahead of me. Before long I was back and my tent and quickly drifting off to dreamland.