Family Mellmann

It's Joerg's last day of vacation before returning to Oregon to continue his business trip.  He decided to load up his bike with hiking boots and rain gear for a day of tertiary roads and hiking.  (We are not well versed in outhouse protocol and etiquette, but he was curious to discover that there were two seats in this old outhouse.  Was outhousing a social thing in the past? 😮😏) While Joerg was riding his motorcycle on dirt track, Patrick and I traded in our horsepower for...horses.  We drove down to the western corner of Yellowstone and met with our guide, Charlie.  We took two horses, Charlie and his horse, and a pack mule through *National Forest land, into *National Wilderness land and enjoyed a picnic lunch before bringing out the fishing gear.  We were truly in the middle of nowhere; no traffic noises, no voices, no cell service...no sounds other than the birds, bugs, wind, running waters of the creeks, and the sound of our horses ...

We're winding down our days in Livingston.   Katherine will enjoy a quiet day chillin' at home with her books, Patrick and I will take off shortly for our day of adventure, and Jörg is reuniting with his GS, after a week on the Royal Enfield, for a day of dirt roads.

This morning we took Christian to the airport and said our farewells even as we have already begun plans for our next motorcycle adventure.  For dinner we rallied the remaining troops and went to a local restaurant for a nice dinner.

Early on the morning of our last day of this loop Joerg loaded up the rented Royal Enfield 411 and headed out for Red Lodge to return the bike.  While he was battling the heat on his journey to Rocky Mountain Moto the rest of us enjoyed a slightly more relaxed start. Patrick found us a nice route that included a dirt road, but it turned out to be one dirt road too many.  Upon returning to the hard road I discovered a little...squish...in my back wheel.  As I was slowly driving trying to understand this strange feeling, Katherine was scolding me for not keeping up with Patrick and Christian.  I explained to her that I thought I had a problem with my back wheel so she leaned over and called out, "you have a flat tire!".  Mystery solved. We pulled over, parked the bike, and waited for the guys to realize that I wasn't behind them anymore.  They came back to find me with the flat.  Christian pumped up the tire in order to find the (quite sizable) hole ...

The scenery in this part of the country is an ever-changing display of color, texture, and height, and an array of temperatures and smells.  It is pretty fun to see our crew with such an amazing backdrop.

At a gas stop near Glacier National Park Katherine agreed to be in a picture with me.   Yes, agreed.  🙄

Jörg makes the rented bike look like a toy, but he still manages to keep us on the road at a cruise speed of about 70 when necessary.   This Royal Enfield Himalayan is slushy on the corners and loses speed up hill but it has allowed our road trip to continue while Patrick's bike takes a vacation in there he garage back in Livingston.

We eventually made it out of my folks' garage, but not with Patrick's motorcycle.  Unable to fix the problem, we rented a bike in Massoula so that we could continue our journey. Jörg took the car to Massoula to pick up the rental and the rest of us went as planned to Helena.  Jörg eventually joined us there. The plan had been to ride to Helena and take a boat ride to the Gates of the Mountains, but the last tour was at 2pm and we were too late.   Maybe we'll try again before returning to Livingston. As long as we were standing at the lake, we thought we'd catch a few pictures.

Our departure on Loop #2 into Glacier National Park was delayed by a couple of hours while Jörg, Christian, and Patrick tried to figure out why Patrick' motorcycle wouldn't start. We never solved the problem.