Date: 9/5/2019 (Uploaded: 9/7 – No GoPro photos yet)
Miles: 270
Today was a spectacular day (NOTE: as of 9/7, I have not yet uploaded GoPro photos). We left Gillette, Wyoming and headed towards Cody. On the way we saw antelope or pronghorn, or whatever they really are. That was really cool because I’ve never seen one in person. Christian noticed a buffalo. I’m pretty jealous because I missed it haha.
We were traveling west on route 14 for the first couple of hours. We hit TONS of grasshoppers that were on the road. If you’ve never ridden a motorcycle on the road you may not understand, but they hurt! At 70mph, hitting one of them little suckers, you feel it! After several hours of hitting them we arrived in Sheridan for fuel and a snack. We looked over the bikes to find they were covered in grasshoppers!
From Sheridan we headed towards Bighorn National Forest. Every time we use navigation we have it set to avoid highways. So, out here, some of the roads are dirt. Gabe’s navigation said to turn. So we did! We rode down a dirt road through the hillside for about 12 miles or so until we reached Dayton, Wyoming. This is the eastern foothills of Bighorn. On the first road I happened to catch a nice Mule deer with a good rack on him. That was nice to see!
From Dayton, we went up and over Bighorn National Forest. The turns were amazing! It was the best road so far on this trip! I was having a blast! At the bottom, the elevation was approximately 4,500ft and at the top it was about 8,000ft. The temperature went from about 90° to 70°. For those of you that don’t know, every 1,000ft you climb, the temperature drops about 5°.
Once we reached the top we stopped for a snack and a beer. We then rode down the other side, where we took tons of photos. The mountainside and the colors of the rock were amazing! Near the bottom, we stopped at Shell Creek. Gabe and Christian dipped their feet in the water. It was rather funny to watch Gabe. The water was very cold and he was trying to withstand it. I didn’t dip my feet in. Well not intentionally – I was trying to take photos and slipped and stepped in the water which got my boot wet.
From there we continued until we hit Cody. There was nothing too special to see, especially after Bighorn. It was really hot though. I think Gabe or Christian said it reached 93° which is hot, especially in a riding jacket! Once we arrive in Cody, we got a little cabin. They had a bike wash area which was great! We were finally able to clean all of the funk off of the chains! Afterwards, Christian was craving a nice Wyoming steak, so we went to Cody Steak House. The steak was delicious!
Adventures of Matty Q 