THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE WONDERFUL

Started out great with a caramel machiatta for Susan and a Sencha tea for me from City Brew, around the corner from Karin’s house. It would be nice to have a City Brew Coffee shop near home as it really is delightful and is not Starbucks, same quality tea was less expensive and we had very happy and pleasant staff. Apparently City Brew shops are located only in Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming. At least for now ;’). I didn’t get a photo but they there was a great outdoor dining area and very nice indoor decor.

Next episode was not so charming. Driving along the interstate, Susan noticed the warning on the dashboard that a tire is getting low. We pulled off into the town of Deer Lodge, Montana and found a Les Schwab. They looked and and then worked to remove a nail from the tire (that we could not see) so we had a bit of a wait. That allowed me to do a little catch up on yesterday’s photos and stories and post those at my next chance. The tire pressure had gone to 40 from its normal 80 pounds. Had we driven much further, we would have gotten a totally flat tire.

Les Schwab does a tremendously good service to all as it does not charge anything to repair your tires whether you bought them from Schwab or not. We discuss that the next tires we get will be purchased from Les Schwab.

Continuing on, Susan, being aware that I am missing riding my bike, was contemplating a bike ride at some point and thought there might be a frontage road starting at a campground. We stopped there and discussed it but I did not think riding along the freeway on a frontage road would be very nice riding so we moved along and saw this cute group looking at us.

We got to Big Timber .. quiet western town that it is…

Two years ago we had attended a Pleasure Way Rally at Big Timber and I discovered this wonderful place in the middle of the quiet town.

I wanted to go there again. The owner that I had written in my blog about in 2021 is Nancy, and once we said a few words she remembered us. Not so surprising when you see how quiet this town is with not many tourists wandering about. We were here during 4th of July and the town was hopping then. We chatted with Nancy and our Rally leader Joan, who Nancy had called to report we were there, and sat in the courtyard to have a treat.

Nancy is the same sweet, smiling, energetic and openly welcoming person that I recall from our first meeting. I loved Thistle Creek back then and love it now. This was my highlight for this day.

Susan wanted to have a steak dinner while iN beef country of Montana so we stopped in the town of Columbus for that and saw it as a popular place for the ‘other’ bikers.

My blog posts come a little late because I do not always have enough wifi to post photos as well as the stories. I do that when we can almost seamlessly, find a place to stop that offers the wifi I need.