July 9, 2021 - Pioneer Scenic Highway near Butte MT

We rode about 150 miles today on the trike. Left Rocker, MT (near Butte) at 8 a.m. this morning. It was 57 degrees! When they tell you to watch for rocks and stock in the roads in Montana, they really mean it! Very scenic ride. We liked it so much when we reached the southern point, we turned around and retraced our route back to the coach. The Big Hole river followed the road for a while. There were also lots of high elevation meadows. Even had a ski resort on the route.

Southwest Montana's Pioneer Range is separated into the East and West Pioneer Ranges by the Wise River and the Big Hole River along the Pioneer Scenic Byway.

You need to be alert for range cattle along the route. These guys were telling me "You're not getting anything for your Trike", You have too many miles on it. I think they got that quote from George Dunn!

Some other neighbors we ran into during our trip. 

Our trike is nearing 30,000 miles.

A sign near the South entrance to the byway. 

The route bottoms out on the Southern end of the 47 mile ride. 

Some great photos of the Wise and Big Hole Rivers.

Kathy photographs our route on her cell phone before we depart the coach.  She is always prepared. 

The cattle did look like they were all healthy.  

I tried to ask them how I looked on the trike. They only stared at me.  All in all a very nice ride.  Weather was extremely nice throughout the day.  

July 5, 2021 - Flathead, Swan, Salmon and Seeley Lakes

On July 5th, we decided to head north on 93 out of Missoula up to Bigfork. We took 35 on the east side of Flathead Lake when we reached Polson. Then we headed further east and picked up 83 south which was also beautiful. 83 runs alongside Swan Lake, Salmon Lake and Seeley Lake all of which were gorgeous. 

Still seeing some snow on the mountains. By the way, Glacier National Park's west entrance was only a few miles further north. We have already visited Glacier on another trip so elected to avoid the crowds this time.

Flathead Lake is the largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi in the lower 48 states, with over 200 square miles of water and 185 miles of shoreline.  We did see some very nice homes along our ride North. 

Some photos of other lakes on our return route on 83 South.

Overall a very nice trike ride.  We traveled 236 miles.