Red Lodge

We were already looking at a late dinner and were worried that Friday night in Red Lodge would mean long lines. And then we arrived in town to find ourselves in the midst of the Iron Horse Rodeo. Iron horses. Motorcycles, that is. Motorcycles and motorcyclers, that is, lining Main Street as far as we could see. We started wondering how long it would take us to drive to some fast food place up on I-94.

But we found a gap in the bikes big enough for the car, just down the street from the Red Lodge Cafe (yes, another one from Roadfood). And there wasn't a line. We had dinner while listening to bikers chat about other bikers going over guardrails and comparing the dangers of riding horses to riding bikes and comparing notes on the Beartooth Highway and other motorcycle rallies. But the largely middle-aged crowd was well behaved and though we saw a significant police presence on the way out of town, most of the bikers we saw seemed to be folks our age, with more tattoos, stuffed into leather chaps a couple of sizes too small. I suppose the younger crowd was probably just somewhere else.

The drive north out of town, back towards the Interstate, was spectacular with hills and curves and a great sunset. It would have been even better on a motorcycle!