A Taste Of Winter

Winter payed us a visit this week. We had 20 degree tempuratures and 30-40 MPH winds most of the weekend. Due to the wind whatever snow fell here was likely in Idaho within an hour. This shot is from the pass going towards Bannack looking back towards the Beaverhead Valley. I've driven this 50 mile stretch of road round trip every day since May. Yellowstone Park is just over the horizon from there.

We had a nice big drift outside on Saturday morning. The storm really hit hard on Saturday night. The wind was really howling when this photo was taken. We will head for Billings this weekend for a week or so. I am flying out to Las Vegas next week to inspect our next project and then we will head for Lake Mead the following week. It will be nice to be down in good motorcycling weather again. We are planning a few trips for the winter months. The side car interior has been redone and I will pick up the pieces next week. I also received my new (old) mufflers and a back up steering damper assembly. I'll install the new parts next week when I have time. I need to retorque the cylinder heads on the bike before the side car is reinstalled. We'll be living at Lake Mead for all of November so we'll reattach the hack for the time we're there to get in a bit of riding time.

This is the Hotel Mead (brick building) at Bannack MT. Bannack was the Montana Territorial Capital back in the 1800's. The ghost town is now a State Park and is pretty neat to explore. The town was still occupied by a hardy few in the 50's and everyone left by 1970, I beleive. You can walk through all the buildings . Many parts of the town are pretty much gone now but there is still 50-60 buildings standing. Most of the buildings are in pretty good shape as the state maintains them. I imagine the roof maintenance and keeping them weather tight is a full time project. You can almost hear the pasts' traffic and hustle and bustle of the old main street of Bannack. Thousands of people once lived here. It was the largest city in Montana for many years.

This is the old Masonic Hall right across the street from the Mead Hotel. The town was established when gold mining was prosperous in the area. Virginia City took over as territorial capital when gold was discovered there. Then finally, Helena was capital until Mt. became a state. There are numerous ghost towns in the area from the 1800's mining days.