We left Great Falls late - we seem to be in an area where check in at motels is 3 or 4pm and we had an hour and a half to kill when we arrived at Great Falls. Check-in at Bozeman was 3pm, so we planned our exit so wouldn't have to kill time wandering around in our riding gear like chumps.
So we had a nice sleep in, watched TV and generally slobbed around. We only had about 240km to cover which would only take about 3 hours at the most, so there really wasn't any rush to go anywhere in a hurry.
Around 10:30, we loaded up the bikes, fueled up, and took the scenic highway out of town towards Bozeman.
We road through wide open grasslands for 40 or so km before turning off onto the "Lewis and Clarke Highway" which (not surprisingly) wound it's way through the Lewis and Clarke National Park. We rode through heavily wooded forests, past historic markers for various Lewis and Clarke sites, and followed the river for long time. It was a great ride, very relaxing, and there were some great hills corners, and straightaways. It was a really nice mix of riding, and I really enjoyed myself. There was always something to look at and 200km seemed to pass by very quickly.
Pretty soon the the national park ended, and we were back riding through Hay fields and flat open plains once more. Farmers were out in force again, making hay while the sun shined.
Just before Bozeman we turned off the main highway again and wound our way through the last 40km through another Forested area, and we treated to passing some beautiful log homes and lovely scenery. we decided afterwards, that this must have been the rich part of town, some of the log homes were massive, with multi car garages and lots of toys parked around the place. Again, the favorites seemed to be Polaris Side by Sides. Everyone seemed to have a few acres, with some houses right on the edge of the river with great decks that had the water lapping their supports.
We hit Bozeman right on check-in time, and my first order of business was to find more fireworks! It was the 4th of July, and there was no way I was going to miss out on letting off some of Americas finest.
We'd past a fireworks stand on the edge of town on the ride in, so I back-tracked out there and bought some things that had never been available in Australia. I also got a few run of the mill things, but the thing I was most proud of, was a 12 shot set of mortars. These were a dozen star-shell type fireworks that you slid into the provided 'mortar' tube and lit the fuse. A lifting charge then blows the shell into the air, at the same time lighting the star-shell fuse, before it explodes in a 'star burst' patter... Ok this is probably too much detail... and... probably betrays how much I love fireworks.
It seem to take ages for it to get dark, or maybe that was just me watching the clock and pacing :)
About 9:30 we wandered down to near the Fair grounds where the fireworks display would happen later on, and picked a spot on the edge of a public street across the road from a vacant field.
I was a bit worried about setting off the fireworks on public property - that was until I saw EVERYONE else doing it. People were just lighting stuff on the street while cars withe waited, or just swerved around the fountains of flames or shells rocketing skyward and exploding.
There were kids running around lighting firework after firework, and a guy next to us who was just lazily lighting Bunger after Bunger and tossing them away like a finished cigarette.
I quickly joined in and threw a few Bungers around, including one (by accident) in front of a police car that turned out from the corner behind me. They never even slowed down, and just swerved around the dead fireworks littering the road.
Gradually as it got darker, I fished out a few more of the prize ones from my bag and loosed them into the night. As the level of darkness grew, more and more of the 'top shelf' stuff made it out of peoples stashes, including some that we confused for the actual display they were so large. There were shells exploding all around us, and there was always something to see. People were lighting stuff in the street in front of us and in the car park behind us, and in the carpark to the left of us. It must have been the normal, because no one gave a single fuck about it, including the cops, who made a few passes up and down our street, but didn't mind in the slightest that people were shooting stuff off all over the place.
No-one got hurt at all, there was one moment, when a larger one fell over and fired into the fence along side of us, I quickly made Megan 'take cover' behind a nearby truck. luckily I had seen it fall over just after the guy lit it. It harmlessly hit the fence between the two families who it belonged to, and everyone had a good laugh about it. It sounds much worse than it actually was. In any case I am no stranger to ducking fireworks, true -it was a long time ago, and usually it happened while I was reloading to fire one back.
When it was 'proper' dark I grabbed my mortar sets and crossed the drainage ditch into the abandoned field in front of us to set if off. I had no idea how big/dangerous this would be, and didn't really want to spend any time in a US prison on some sort of negligence charge.
I un-wound the fuse and dropped the golf-ball sized shell into the mortar tube, and lit the fuse.
It burnt far faster than I was expecting, and I could only get about 8 steps away before it went off.
There was a huge bang from the lifting charge, and then a second or so later, the shell exploded in a very satisfying pattern. The absolute best part was that I had 11 more of them to go. I fired the rest off one after the other, and was really chuffed with the whole thing. They were the best fireworks I had ever had.
Next time I will just buy mortars and nothing else. And the giant ones to boot.
My stash exhausted, we waited patiently for the Bozeman fireworks which were great, but not as exciting as letting my own stuff off.
We walked back to the motel and hit the hay, tomorrow we would have a really short ride to West Yellowstone.
So we had a nice sleep in, watched TV and generally slobbed around. We only had about 240km to cover which would only take about 3 hours at the most, so there really wasn't any rush to go anywhere in a hurry.
Around 10:30, we loaded up the bikes, fueled up, and took the scenic highway out of town towards Bozeman.
We road through wide open grasslands for 40 or so km before turning off onto the "Lewis and Clarke Highway" which (not surprisingly) wound it's way through the Lewis and Clarke National Park. We rode through heavily wooded forests, past historic markers for various Lewis and Clarke sites, and followed the river for long time. It was a great ride, very relaxing, and there were some great hills corners, and straightaways. It was a really nice mix of riding, and I really enjoyed myself. There was always something to look at and 200km seemed to pass by very quickly.
Pretty soon the the national park ended, and we were back riding through Hay fields and flat open plains once more. Farmers were out in force again, making hay while the sun shined.
Just before Bozeman we turned off the main highway again and wound our way through the last 40km through another Forested area, and we treated to passing some beautiful log homes and lovely scenery. we decided afterwards, that this must have been the rich part of town, some of the log homes were massive, with multi car garages and lots of toys parked around the place. Again, the favorites seemed to be Polaris Side by Sides. Everyone seemed to have a few acres, with some houses right on the edge of the river with great decks that had the water lapping their supports.
We hit Bozeman right on check-in time, and my first order of business was to find more fireworks! It was the 4th of July, and there was no way I was going to miss out on letting off some of Americas finest.
We'd past a fireworks stand on the edge of town on the ride in, so I back-tracked out there and bought some things that had never been available in Australia. I also got a few run of the mill things, but the thing I was most proud of, was a 12 shot set of mortars. These were a dozen star-shell type fireworks that you slid into the provided 'mortar' tube and lit the fuse. A lifting charge then blows the shell into the air, at the same time lighting the star-shell fuse, before it explodes in a 'star burst' patter... Ok this is probably too much detail... and... probably betrays how much I love fireworks.
It seem to take ages for it to get dark, or maybe that was just me watching the clock and pacing :)
About 9:30 we wandered down to near the Fair grounds where the fireworks display would happen later on, and picked a spot on the edge of a public street across the road from a vacant field.
I was a bit worried about setting off the fireworks on public property - that was until I saw EVERYONE else doing it. People were just lighting stuff on the street while cars withe waited, or just swerved around the fountains of flames or shells rocketing skyward and exploding.
There were kids running around lighting firework after firework, and a guy next to us who was just lazily lighting Bunger after Bunger and tossing them away like a finished cigarette.
I quickly joined in and threw a few Bungers around, including one (by accident) in front of a police car that turned out from the corner behind me. They never even slowed down, and just swerved around the dead fireworks littering the road.
Gradually as it got darker, I fished out a few more of the prize ones from my bag and loosed them into the night. As the level of darkness grew, more and more of the 'top shelf' stuff made it out of peoples stashes, including some that we confused for the actual display they were so large. There were shells exploding all around us, and there was always something to see. People were lighting stuff in the street in front of us and in the car park behind us, and in the carpark to the left of us. It must have been the normal, because no one gave a single fuck about it, including the cops, who made a few passes up and down our street, but didn't mind in the slightest that people were shooting stuff off all over the place.
No-one got hurt at all, there was one moment, when a larger one fell over and fired into the fence along side of us, I quickly made Megan 'take cover' behind a nearby truck. luckily I had seen it fall over just after the guy lit it. It harmlessly hit the fence between the two families who it belonged to, and everyone had a good laugh about it. It sounds much worse than it actually was. In any case I am no stranger to ducking fireworks, true -it was a long time ago, and usually it happened while I was reloading to fire one back.
When it was 'proper' dark I grabbed my mortar sets and crossed the drainage ditch into the abandoned field in front of us to set if off. I had no idea how big/dangerous this would be, and didn't really want to spend any time in a US prison on some sort of negligence charge.
I un-wound the fuse and dropped the golf-ball sized shell into the mortar tube, and lit the fuse.
It burnt far faster than I was expecting, and I could only get about 8 steps away before it went off.
There was a huge bang from the lifting charge, and then a second or so later, the shell exploded in a very satisfying pattern. The absolute best part was that I had 11 more of them to go. I fired the rest off one after the other, and was really chuffed with the whole thing. They were the best fireworks I had ever had.
Next time I will just buy mortars and nothing else. And the giant ones to boot.
My stash exhausted, we waited patiently for the Bozeman fireworks which were great, but not as exciting as letting my own stuff off.
We walked back to the motel and hit the hay, tomorrow we would have a really short ride to West Yellowstone.
 |
| wide open fields and grass lands |
 |
| Riding next to the river |
 |
| The Stash! |
 |
| Mortar tube and shells up close! |
Damn, i would be very poor by now..
ReplyDeleteThats some damn fine work from you!!
ReplyDeleteSo lament the declined of 'cracker night'...we seriously need to bring in a firework regime at the GGC.
ReplyDelete