2025 Montana Trip

In September of 2025 I went on a 2 week long motorcycle trip, most of it with my best friend. We rode a huge loop up through Wyoming, Montana, and coming back down to Texas through Utah and Arizona. We crisscrossed the Rockies, covered ~5k miles in 9 days on sport bikes.

Backstory

My best friend’s name is J-. We’ve been friends for around 15 years now. We met working in a call center - my first real memory of him is him sitting on the front steps of an overly-nice office building, eating vegetables and reading “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance”. It took a while for us to actually become friends after that, and eventually I learned that he rode motorcycles, and that he learned to ride in India. This sounded magical and romantic to me, but I’m a pretty risk averse guy (so much so that I’m even Professionally Risk Averse! ) and so I never took him up on his offers to ride his bikes.

During the tail end of Covid lockdown I took my partner L- to Fredricksburg to get out of our house. On highway 290 we got behind two motorcyclists clearly having the time of their lives, ALSO going to Fredricksburg. Over the course of an hour I watched them weave, safely, in their lane, keeping a staggered line, playing on the road. They’d eventually come to a stoplight, and whoever was trailing would zoom up to the same position as the leader, feet touching down at near the same moment, and start to holler-chat.

I saw a small glimpse of my future, then, and I imagined how adventurous the roadtrip experience could be. Six months later I’d booked my MSF (in August (do not do that)), passed it, and started looking for bikes. I eventually settled on a small Ninja 300. This is a “sport bike” by branding, but really it’s more of a standard bike with sport bike camouflage.

Learning to ride

J- helped me with basically every aspect of learning to ride, from afar. There are Good Books and Bad Books about motorcycling. Some of the good books are:

• Proficient Motorcycling
• The Upper Half of the Motorcycle
• And even, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance (no, really!)

J- and I don’t live in the same state, so a bunch of this help was in the form of long talks with post-reading or post-practice discussion.

Preparing for the trip

This was my first trip of this length. We made some practice runs over the past two years, riding out alone to meet 500 miles into the Texas desert and camping out past Marfa, or in Fort Davis (where we rode through TWO tornados, and I got hit in the dick while riding at speed by a fairly substantial piece of hail - ATGAT!). I’d even done a trip out to see him in AZ, which is about 1k miles one way. This trip, however, was to be the first of substantial length, and the first either of us had done with a buddy. J- is an old hand at long tours; he’s ridden across America, Mexico to Canada, and has even gone up to Alaska and back to central TX, when he lived here, but he’s always ridden solo.

One of the things he stressed to me was bringing less than you think you needed. I believed I took this guidance to heart, and yet still brought more than I needed! Here’s a packing list he once showed me:

Travelog

These notes are taken from my journal, written originally on the day recorded. They weren’t composed so much as jotted down, then lightly edited much later. There’s no particular consistency to my notes; sometimes it’s paragraph writing, sometimes it’s just lists of things that happened.

Day 1, Austin -> Sweet Water TX

Left a day early so I could have a gentle start to the trip. Felt good to be alone.

Day 2, Sweet Water -> Roswell NM

Took a break in Plains TX. Tired and it felt good to stretch my aching back. I was excited to get to Roswell, though I worried I would be too exhausted to be properly, Up? To see J-.

In Roswell I met an interesting character. I forgot his name. He was sitting at the bar with me with a huge notebook and we got to talking. He was a graffiti artist. His tag was Zinc. He talked about all the places he’d been, how he grew up in Roswell but left for school, and came back after he realized all the guys he was tagging with in another city were mostly about dealing drugs and not the art. He gave me some stickers. Eventually, J- made it. We drank at the bar for hours before leaving for mexican food, then setup camp outside of town, in Bottomless Lakes State Park. I was so tired that I crawled into bed around 9, I think.

Day 3, Roswell -> Pagosa Springs CO.

I did not sleep well and the day was hard. We started late, took us longer to clean up camp. Then we headed to town for breakfast and gear we forgot at walmart. I think we only got on the road, for real, after 11 AM. We rode through the NM and CO mountains, beautiful terrain. I started to ease up on the bike and get more comfortable until it started to rain.

The rain turned into a storm, and the temperature dropped like a stone. We were cold and wet for the rest of the day. Every stitch I owned was wet due to improper packing decisions. When we hit the CO state line the storm had paused, and there was a literal golden beam of light illuminating the “Welcome to Colorado!” sign. It felt like such an Omen. Despite my omen, the final two hours of the trip were just as miserable as the last. Our hands were numb on the controls and we kept behind a truck going 10 under, with no way to pass on the tiny mountain roads anyway.

We saw elk and deer on the side of the road. J- knew hand signals but I didn’t. I thought he was telling me to look up :(. Glad I didn’t hit the dumb things.

We arrived at the riverwalk inn, where I had a sense of relief, of unclenching, that is hard to describe. I had done something dangerous, I wasn’t prepared, and I came out the other end. I swore up and down I was going to spend 2 hours warming up in the inn’s hot tub. We ate dinner. I was so tired I struggled to finish my second beer, and both of us frigidly walked back to the inn and collapsed, skipping the hot tub. This was a theme; hot tubs were available at like 6 stops, but I was too tired to ever use one!!

Day 4, Pagosa Springs -> Walden

We awoke at the asscrack of dawn (5:30). We lingered over hot chocolate (J-) and coffee (me), both made in the tiny Mr. Coffee in our room. I stretched.

We rode through a small sprinkle on the first jaunt in the morning, but nothing bad. Down the mountainside was beautiful, curves and low traffic, tunnels where the sound screams back at you and the sun dazzles you on the exit. Once, just entering a dell, we were warm and pleased, but in the distance we saw a foreboding storm wall. Eventually, we hit that storm wall. The first thing I felt was the temperature drop, then a MASSIVE wind force pushing me straight back. My throttle was all the way open and I couldn’t top 63 mph. Gusts from the side blew me left and right, but I managed to at least stay in my lane, even if I couldn’t keep a line.

The light dimmed heavily as we rode and I began to feel concerned. I did not know what was going to happen. I was entirely focused on keeping the bike upright and in a line. I kept J- in my view and trusted that as long as he was on the road, I could be on the road. This is of course a fallacy, but not one I felt in the moment.

We got soaked. All our gear got soaked. We left the dell and started back up in the mountains where we found obscuring rain sheets and switchbacks. J- and I both shed a ton of speed; for the first time I was pleased with my ability on the bike. J- was much better than me, but I felt like I wasn’t being left behind.

We made it to a tiny town on the other side of the rainstorm and pulled over. Neither of us were willing to ride more like that. We ate lunch, and picked up over-raingear at the combination Grocery and Hardware store. We rode for a while before we put them on, after feeling the first 2 drops of rain. It never ended up raining again, that day, but the temperature was in the low 50s and we didn’t mind the extra warmth.

There’s so much more that happened and I was too tired to write!

• J-’s MC pants’ zipper broke, he had to pull them up with pliers!
• We finally made it to Walden, and the lady behind the counter of the only restaurant in town told us that they are closing in 10 minutes, but the bar sometimes has food. The bar did NOT have food, but heated up a microwave pizza for us.

It’s a wonderful thing to be hungry after a long day, to feel like you earned every bite of whatever is in front of you. L-’s dad had a saying, “Hunger is the best sauce,”.

Day 5, Walden -> Devils Tower, Wyoming.

We did not make good time the first 4 days, and on day 5 we either had to knuckle down or change our itinerary. We did some research and believed we’d be able to push through, but I was demoralized. The rain had been killer, the temps had been low. I didn’t think we had another day like that in us. I anticipated that, if we were to make it, we’d end up getting hotels a lot more than planned just to save time.

• Had an insane dream.
• Hotel coffee looked gross
• My rainsuit ripped when throwing a leg over my bike, had to fix Professionally

Oh, and now something funny. I have what are called “Bark busters” on my bike. These are pockets that envelope the controls and act as a wind break. This has helped me a lot. J- called me a dork repeatedly for how my bike looks, but the weather on this trip being so bad forced him to re-evaluate his position. So, after a HEAVY breakfast, we set about crafting some wind breaks for J- in a town that is much too small to actually sell any. We made it out of a rubbermaid trashcan and zipties.

• I loved the place we stayed here, and I would come back.
• Later on we stopped in Laramie. This town was a shit hole. I wasn’t feeling well.
• We made several stops I didn’t document. We ate very little and it affected my mood.
• We stopped in Sundance Wyoming and booked a KAO (seriously, I’m so mad they spell it like that) that is right under Devils Tower.
• We camped, my mood was much improved. The grounds were gorgeous, and made me want to try many more KAOs.

We made steak as best we could with no real implements. Delicious.

Day 6, Devils Tower to Bozeman Montana

We woke up around 5:45. It was cold out, but no animals bothered us during the night. I slept beneath a tree whose leaves shook in the wind and sounded like a rain shower. We made hot chocolate and coffee and a pile of dirty clothes, and then started laundry at the KAO facilities. This is the first time we got a chance to ACTUALLY CLEAN our clothes and I was thrilled.

Again we weren’t sure we could follow our existing plan. We eventually decided to continue, because at this point, unless we backtrack over the same roads, there WASN’T a faster route. We stopped several times, but nothing notable. We filled up both bikes with oil, and we started lubing J-’s chain twice a day instead of once, which helped with some of the performance problems he had with his bike.

We skipped lunch again. We rode rode rode. We made it to Bozeman. I was fucking exhausted. We had dinner on campus and closed down the bar, which closed at NINE PM. What. I liked Bozeman and would go back, there seems like so much to explore there.

Day 7, Bozeman to Salt Lake City, UT.

Fucking tired. Not recovered enough. Today was slated to be the longest day of the rides, and regrettably also the coldest and wettest. We repeat our talisman to ourselves, “Next time we will not plan for > 4 hour riding days”.

We rode through Big Sky Montana. Gorgeous. I could spend eternity here. I composed poems in my helmet about the landscape. The few photos I have do not do it justice. It started to rain harder and I started to feel worse. We stopped in a town in Yellowstone (I had no idea there were TOWNS in the park? Cool.). I was getting better at dressing/undressing from that rain gear. I only knew this because I got sick, and spent an hour in a gas station toilet. J- sat outside on the curb, and required a second pair of hands to get dressed / undressed. After leaving, we started riding through Yellowstone when I realized I’d missed a strap on my saddlebag and it was flapping behind me. I sped up, passed J-, and motioned to pull over so I could fix it. We pull over in the rain and J- jumped off the bike and hurriedly dug through his stuff to give me his Emergency Shit Kit - thankfully, I only needed to fix the strap!!

On the other side of Yellowstone we lost elevation and the sun came out. It was Idaho (Idaho Falls, I think). 80 degrees. Yellowstone, the rain, my sickness, the cold, it all felt impossible then, “It was too good now for it to have been that bad.” We eventually made it to SLC. I remember being struck by the purple haze in the sky, the smell in the air, the NUMBER OF GODDAMN BILL BOARDS. I didn’t realize until this trip, but Austin has almost no billboards compared to other cities.

SLC is cyberpunk with the purple backgrounds.

We stayed at the Little America hotel at J-’s insistence. I believe he thought it would be more Americana, less Lux. It was very Lux. I didn’t mind. The help DEFINITELY minded. We walked up, crusty and gross from the road, and the bellhops literally walked away!

We ate at a karaoke bar on campus, as it a) served beer b) was still open. Mormons ;;

Day 8, SLC -> Page AZ.

We originally planned to leave to go to Kanab, but for time reasons we aimed straight for Page. Ate breakfast at the hotel, incredibly fancy. I needed to take my sister there, she’d love it.

• Stopped in Orem, basically the same city as SLC, the metroplex had not yet ended.
• Stopped again, twice. Now in Filmore. A guy clearly working on the jobsite clearly had a prank played on him, and just as clearly he had not yet noticed.
• We made a lot of stops today. My mental state degraded a bit. We did finally make it to Page.

Day 9, Page to Mesa AZ.

Had a rough sleep. Sneezing fit in the night woke me up. But, overall, kept in good spirits. I looked forward to Mesa and not needing to ride the bike for a few days.

It’s interesting how much my mood and state changes from exhaustion. I was in a much worse mood last night, even while relaxing. Not like, grumpy, but not my normal existence. I will strive to be more aware of this aspect of my nature.

Day 9 marked the end of the trip for J-, though only a break for me. When we finally arrived in Mesa, E- had peanutbutter cookies waiting for us. Delicious. They’d done up the room I usually stay in, painted avocado green. E- had also been remodelling what they used to call the Tiki Room; it was now more like “E-’s Study”, filled with photos of her friends and adventures. I was pleased to be well represented.

Day ended at the Talking Stick resort and casino for a show. This was a deeply weird show. The bands were all pretty dated, though famous for the time. The amount of pandering to the millennial audience is, I think, quite offensive. People should be ashamed to a: give those statements, and b: fall for it? Who cheers for “remember when you used to be a kid” tripe? Jesus. I had a good time anyway. We all ate some gummies. Stoned, watching old folk fans have a good time WAS a good time.

2 day break in Mesa

I slept in, we lazed around.

• my rear tire, over the course of the last 4k miles, had become Quite Square and needed to be replaced.
• E-’s little Kia Soul had a cylinder misfire. We had a few other things to work on.
• wanted to cook some
• needed to fix my rack

We got to most of that. Swapped E-’s coil, that seemed to fix it. Bought and changed my tire, balanced it. I’d never done that before, that was extremely illuminating. So….primitive? “Hey put some weights on the wheel, then do it again, then again”. We shimmed my cush drive. We cooked steak and potatoes, this time not over a fire, got it seared properly. J- welded a support for my rack, and signed his work, which was a HUGE improvement over what I had, wow.

Day 10, Mesa -> Van Horn, TX.

Woke up several times during the night, eventually just Got Up at 4:30. Probably for the best, I guess. Let me have coffee and breakfast.

• J- went to work and I rode away at the same time. Got one last photo together.
• I stopped at 10:30, and I’d been on the road for ~4 hours. Tired, dog. Almost out of AZ though. The wind had been INSANE since Tucson.
• Stopped again at 2:42 local time. Another 50 miles to El Paso, then another 120 to Van Horn. I was disheartened to see that; I thought it was closer.
• Finally made it to Van Horn. Very very tired. Two tall boys of Coors Banquet, delivery hamburger.
• Found a cool bug

Day 11, Van Horn -> Austin

• A day in which I did nothing but bomb bomb bomb. Slept rougher than I like, but not terrible.
• Stopped in Balmorhea. One of my favorite tiny outposts in West Texas. I grew up passing through and stopping at the state park in town, it’s beautiful.
• Stopped in Fort Stockton, again in Ozona, again in Gibs. Stopped by my folks’ place in Leander and chatted with my dad while I waited for rush hour traffic to die down.
• Made it home where I said hello to L- and Buffy, took a bath, and got righteously stoned.

Thoughts and reflections

I loved this trip. I knew in advance that it would be hard, and more type II fun than fun in the moment. Despite that, I loved the hours spent in my helmet, alone. I felt, for the first time in a long time, very peaceful. On a bike it’s difficult to do anything else but ride. You can buy speakers that fit in a helmet, but they don’t work particularly well at highway speeds. I rode this trip without any audio stimulus and would do that again. Faced with 8-10 hours of riding a day you have no real choice but to think about things you may have been avoiding. I sat there, in between turns and switchbacks, waiting for my next fuel stop, and kept company with my emotions.

At first this was mostly things I was unhappy with. Stress at work about an upcoming audit. Fights with L-. Dissatisfaction with certain aspects of my life. The upcoming stress of moving. Eventually this got boring! It was a relief when, through no real intervention of my own, the unhappiness was replaced with experimentation, interesting hypotheticals, day dreams. I enjoyed the psychological difference.

Relatedly, this trip was the most time spent away from L- since COVID, and the distance was useful. I think I often don’t get enough time on my own WITHOUT something bigger requiring focus (work, family holidays). The time to be alone and in my own head made time spent with L- better after returning.

I learned to whistle through my teeth on this trip. I can’t convey in text alone how silly I must have looked practicing this whistle. I’m pleased with my new skill.

I planned to integrate some of the things I learned and internalized on this trip into more of my life. With a few months of distance, I can say I have only been partially successful here.

1. Ensure I have more quiet time.
2. Ensure I spend time Just Thinking.
3. Spend more time apart from L- for longer periods.
4. Stretch more.
5. Ride my bike more.
6. Be deliberately more positive. Spending time dwelling on the things I like has a real impact on me.
7. Spend more time with J-.
8. Learn more, smaller, things like the tooth whistle.

Since returning from this trip, I’ve:

• purchased a home that needs remodelling, some of which I’ve done myself
• flown back to Mesa to visit J- and E- for a party
• worked a few weeks of 12s in support of a work crunch.
• attended my brothers wedding
• caught strep

I have not made time to be quiet and just think. I’ve not stretched more, or ridden my motorcycle since returning (though, in fairness I knew I wasn’t going to want to for a few months after all that!). I have been successful in being deliberately more pleased with things. A remarkable effect.

This trip was a successful trial for longer journeys. J- and I have an explicit goal of going to Alaska together (where both of us will need much better gear). Until J- can put together the PTO for a trip of that length we’ve planned several smaller trips.

Tentatively, next year we will buy cruisers, take them offroad in the desert of New Mexico. There were small offroad components to this trip that we both LOVED, and we also both enjoy the concept of continuing to use the wrong tool for the job.

This trip met me where I was. I’m excited to see myself on the next trip, and see what IT feels like, and what I feel like after.