Shelby, Montana to Miles City, South Dakota

Leaving Shelby we travel south on Interstate 15 to Great Falls. What a great interstate - perfect road, no cars. From Great Falls we head east on Route 87. We now know why they are called the GREAT PLAINS - they go on and on and on and on and on and on... not a tree as far as you can see. Sometimes there is wheat planted, sometimes just grazing land for cattle and sometimes just nothing. The road is great and we meet a car every 20 minutes or so, but the wind is ROARING across the plains and it's getting HOT. The wind catches us in a sideways direction and Billy has never had wind like this - it's a continual struggle to keep the bike up. It's hot, windy, and more plains, hot, windy, and more plains. Did I mention that it was hot and windy??

On one of the photos below a kind lady at a convenience store offered to take our photo. We figured this was very appropriate as we made LOTS of stops at such stores - drinks, snacks, stretch legs, sometimes gasoline...

We roll into Miles City at 104 degrees (40 celsius). The heat feels just like Arizona - hot, dusty and dry, unusual weather the locals say. Also, like the desert where there are big differences between the low and high temperatures, the low temperature for the night is 62 degrees (17 celsius).