The next morning started again with the sun burning onto my tent.

Before a small cereal breakfast I spent a few minutes looking the bike over, fixing a few things here and there and lubricating the chain.

Today’s leg of the trip would first lead me further south and finally east towards Yellowstone.

The land had become flat again making the wind really pick up. Any barrier like a few trees here and there was a welcomed relieve.

I passed two old towns which perfectly preserved the historic feeling of the old west and still looked like they did over a hundred years ago. These places never cease to amaze me. Especially considering that these were no movie sets but the real thing and this was the real west. It is easy to assume the street and the cars away and imagine the train arriving at the busy station a century ago with Claudia Cardinale stepping off.

The only alterations made on the buildings are the white lines of cement that mow insulate the old warped logs.

I strolled through the town which admittedly didn’t look as exciting from the inside as from the outside (main street).

Some buildings though were fitted with furniture and items from their times. The time periods varied but all the buildings were really small.

I left the town continuing south. Ever so often I took a little break to recover from the exhausting wind.

Soon the terrain was getting rockier and hills turned into mountains as I was approaching Yellowstone National Park. I passed a lake which had been the epicenter of one of the biggest earth quakes in North America in the previous century. Luckily it wasn’t in a densely populated area because it was powerful enough to lift the bottom of a lake many meters up, significantly changing the landscape (tilted lake) and causing huge landslides.

For a change I found a camp site before sunset. Since the sun was still up the camp host was still available and I could get some firewood from him before choosing a spot.

Again all around the camp site there were bears warning signs.

Travelling solo I had made it a habit on this trip to always carry my bear spray, knife and bear bell with me in the woods. I figured it would be pretty neat not have to regret anything.

 

I didn’t have much food left so after setting up my tent I drove to the next town which was a hour away where I stocked up my food supplies for the next couple of days. Among others I got a juicy steak I was going to roast on the fire. Back at the camp it was already dark but this time it didn’t take long until I got the fire going.

Lighter fluid did help.

A cut through the middle of the first half of the steak confirmed that it was done. I must admit I wasn’t sure this would be so successful. It was delicious.

After this feast I cleaned the dishes as best as I could (=not well) and stowed them away in my airtight panniers. It didn’t take long for me to fall asleep after crawling into my tent. Next stop: Yellowstone National Park.

As Winston Churchill said: This is not the end this is not even the beginning of the end but perhaps the end of the beginning.

The next morning the sun was warming up my tent quickly, turning it into a green house which made getting up early very easy.

After a quick wash and cleaning the my dishes from the previous day …

.. I took some time to transferred the photos and videos I had made so far onto my external hard drive. With a cable I had made for my last trip I could charge my electronics on the bike and never needed to rely on finding a power outlet let alone stay at a hotel.

It was now over 30 degrees and the tent was baking inside and outside. I took it down and was soon on the next leg of the trip.

I had seen a hand water pump on the previous day where I wanted to stock up my water supplies for the day but I wasn’t entirely convinced that this was drinking water.

I probably could have gotten cleaner water from the pond right next to it. It looked kind of prehistoric to me. Almost as if dinosaurs could be coming here any time to get water.

A few hours later as I was heading south again I saw a sign next to the road that there would be a ghost town at the next turn. I wasn’t expecting an hour long deserted gravel road up a mountain but it was a ghost town after all.

In some areas the road was actually a nice challenge as lose gravel is a motorcycles worst enemy. So it didn’t feel like a complete waste of time when the ghost town itself turned out to be a little underwhelming. I’m not sure what I was expecting since ghost town merely means a town which is not occupied anymore. But there really wasn’t anything interesting about this one. It was too old to relate to but not old enough to be drawn into it’s history and contrast to our way of living and wonder about it’s previous occupants life. It was actually from after WW2. Honestly it felt more like a dumpyard for buildings. Some even had lots of trash inside.

I only spent a few minutes there after mistakenly haven paid an entry fee which was actually for a campsite somewhere in the area.

To get back to civilization I had the choice to either go back the way I came (which is never really an option) or keep following the road. Eventually the path split and I wasn’t sure which way to go. I was inspecting both ways when a guy on an ATV appeared. He explained he was a volunteer taking care of the town and he suggested to go back the way I came because the other two paths wouldn’t be exactly touristy smooth. I asked him if he thought I would make it with the bike which he didn’t deny so I knew where I was going. The right hand one would be more steep than rocky so I chose that one so as to not strain my tortured suspension unnecessarily.

The path indeed was very steep (which the fisheye GoPro Camera once again doesn’t show) and also had a steep falloff to one side. I had to be careful not to run over a few rabbits and chipmunks and arrived at the foot of the mountain an hour later.

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Back on the freeway it was getting dark and I still had a considerable amount of distance to cover before I would reach the camp site I had picked on the map earlier. Of course clouds started to appear soon. Since I was the only one on the flat road and I could use some extra time I tested the bike to it’s speed limit for the first time and found out that 135km/h was the maximum on a straight flat road with no wind. A total of almost 500 kilos take their toll. Of course by going say 20km faster for 10min you don’t really save any time. the only thing you are doing is increasing your stopping distance….

Finding a place to camp became a bit of an ordeal. I did reach the point where I suspected the camp site in time. The only problem was that the last stretch of road wasn’t a road. The the GPS just marked a path straight up a mountain. I followed that path for a little while hoping it’d turn into a road but it didn’t.

After ten minutes I reached a fence with a locked gate. For a moment I was considering putting up my tent right there but since there was a ranch in within viewing range and I decided against it. Luckily though I noticed that there was another road to the campsite on the map approaching it from the back side. Since i didn’t have much of a choice and I thought that somehow there had to be access to it (if it existed at all) I decided to give this route a try.

I was so glad I had installed the auxiliary lights the other day as I would have had to drive much slower and much more carefully without the additional bright flood lights illuminating every pebble.

The road kept climbing and turned from gravel to a small dirt path with tree branches hanging onto it. After what felt like an eternity I reached a roughly 50 square meters wide space where a camper truck parked. A posted sign explained that from here only non-motorized vehicles were allowed to continue up the mountain and that this spot was indeed a campsite.

I had wanted to make a fire to grill food and hadn’t he truck been there I would have done that but when the lights went on inside I decided that it would not be a great idea to make a fire right next to the truck in the middle of the night. So I turned around and went down the way I came.

At the foot of the mountain once again I took a look at the map. There was another camp site a few kilometers away which I decided to go for.  If that one didn’t work out I’d just take the first available spot I’d see – anywhere. Of course by the time I arrived the camp site was full. So I backtracked my way and until I found a place where I could set up a tent.

I wasn’t going to make a fire there so I resorted to my backup ration which I carried for these cases. A can of ravioli, some bread and cheese crackers.

You eat with your eyes but I didn’t because I could not see my food after taking this picture looking directly into the flash.

Like the previous day sitting there in the darkness I noticed that there was no sound at all. No wind, no birds, insects, people or cars. Just complete silence. The temperature was just right too. The air was clear and the stars were all shining brightly. In case you were wondering you can see about 5000 stars from Earth. You are welcome. After I finished my meal I just sat there resting against the bike looking up for another half hour. I wanted to fall asleep right there which would have been easy after this long day but I still had to take care of my garbage so I wouldn’t wake up next to a – well so I wouldn’t not wake up.

Exhausted but happy I climbed into my tent at two in the morning.