The Great White North Liberation Army Launches Attack

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The Jesus Wagon was heading to heaven while Ray and I are heading the opposite direction. Too damn funny!!
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Day 6 - CBA Certification Ride

The Great White North Liberation Army decided to dig in at Red Lodge and fortify our defences for the counteroffensive from the Yankee Hordes that were about to descend on our location. I also needed to get a little work done on my smuggler that was about to self-eject since the rear mounting bar that locks the smuggler down had pulled out the pop rivets that attached it to the smuggler.

I rode into town to a custom bike shop and within the hour we were all fixed up while I went up the street to Honey's for breakfast. We had launched our final assault on Red Lodge a day earlier that originally planned mostly due to the fact that Ray had used a metric calendar and we used only five days instead of six days that I told Ray that we would have. I think Ray plans were thrown into chaos when I told day we were going to have to leave the Great White North a day later than originally scheduled. What was originally seven days would now be six but somehow in the metric conversion of the plan got moved to five.

With the Yankee Hordes about to storm the gates I went for a recon ride over the Beartooth Pass to Cooke City for a burger and then return. First stop was near the summit at the pullout to scan the roads for FJR's....

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Here I am at our advanced lookout position....

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With no Yankee Hordes spotted I decided to moved further up the pass....

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There were a few pirates on the move but they ran away....

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and there were even some German farm implements known to most of you as BMW GS's trying to plow they way up over the pass....

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Being from the Great White North we all have one of these parked in our driveway....

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For those who don't handle the concept of snow this is referred to as a ski groomer. Unfortunately I didn't stop but there were a few lads later on that were pulling out snowboards to hike up into a small snow field to get in a few turns. They were not going to get many turns in at the ski run however...

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I descended down the other side of the pass stopping in at the Bistro in Cooke City just outside the northeast entrance to Yellowstone. I stopped for what was supposed to be a quick meal but the staff seemed a little disorganized and lunch took a long time for just a burger and a coke. In the meantime the Yankee Hordes were assembling in town for a run up the pass from the south side. I mounted up and gave chase but unfortunately the GoPro ran out of battery just as I was leaving Cooke City so I cannot show proof of exactly how I dominated the pass. I was cutting lines like Rossi, really. Who you going to believe, me or that former darksider Ray.

Ray and Jeff had finally gotten out of bed and only made it as far as a few turns past the pullout when I returned from my full run of the Beartooth over and back. Ray was doing recon of a different sort...

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We also captured our first prisoner, Yosemiterich...

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When we returned to Red Lodge, a number of the Yankee Hordes were milling about. We decided to mingle and steal their beer.

- to be continued -

 
Keep it coming Billy! Awesome adventure. Enjoying every bit of it. Are you still sporting the JB Weld on that steed of yours? If so, it appears to be holding up well.

 
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There are also German Troop Transports in this photo. They must be plotting an invasion of their own. (Haven't seen a VW camper in a very long time.)

Great report, monsieur/sir!

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I've always wanted a vanagon. Have you looked to see how much they go for used? OMG! VW needs to import them again.

 
If you look in that picture, the furthest microbus has a redhead from California, with a dog companion. She is Billy's new girlfriend, and we met her 2 days ago and have crossed paths with her at least 3 times. Billy should be very afraid..... she wants him.

We're pretending to blend in with the natives, and have sampled several Red Lodge beers...... it's definitely not your typical 'Merican swill..... Billy's JB Weld is holding up just fine.

 
Day 7 - The ride over to Cody & Back

The Great White North Liberation Army suffered its first casualty of the campaign from the night before.....

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One dead soldier was laid to waste by Thirsty John. AJ had heard that Ray was quite the scofflaw so he tagged along with us to see for himself as the headed up over the Beartooth. We did one quick stop at the pullout near the summit so AJ could take a selfie and we continued down the other side and then took the turn onto the Chief Joseph Highway. We took a number of stops for photo ops along the way...

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We had passed the Florida contingent earlier and 101stpathfinder and his buddy caught up to us at the lookout...

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From there we rode over to Hwy 120 and went a few miles south in Cody. We stopped for gas and then went to Granny's Diner for an excellent lunch. At lunch I asked AJ if he was on duty and had come across Ray making all those bogus passes would he pull Ray over, cut up his motorcycle licence, throw Ray in the back of the cruiser and taser the **** out of him. Aj said no, he would just pull up beside Ray with the cruiser and hit Ray with the taser from the cruiser. AJ also said he didn't carry enough tickets in one shift to write up all the infractions that the scofflaw Ray was pulling. Very naughty.

After lunch we are not sure why AJ did it but he decided to open the fuel cover on the gas tank after we had just fuelled up and the bike had been sitting in the sun while we had lunch. The resulting geyser of gasoline rivalled Old Faithful and drenched AJ in gasoline. Fortunately no open flames were present at the time. AJ had to go back in the restaurant to hose down and then we finally went a little further into town to the Buffalo Bill Center of the West....

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We strolled around the museum for a while but we did not really do it proper justice....

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We then went over to the other wing of the building for the firearms museum....

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It was very hot over in Cody so we didn't stay too long and then took the shortcut back along Hwy 120 up to Belfry than across 308 the Red Lodge. The winds had picked up considerably and we were having a hard time keeping our lines but everyone safely returned to Red Lodge. AJ has to head back home tomorrow to deal with some matters and I think I might take a day off the bike to get in some prep work for the next week coming up as we head for Glacier National Park, the Northern Cascades and Windy Ridge at Mount St Helens.

- to be continued -

 
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If any other Red Lodgians get down to Cody, check out the Proud Cut Saloon. When I was there a few years ago it had the best oysters that I've ever had
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It's a shame the GWNLA didn't get a chance to test out a real mountain delicacy

 
If any other Red Lodgians get down to Cody, check out the Proud Cut Saloon. When I was there a few years ago it had the best oysters that I've ever had
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It's a shame the GWNLA didn't get a chance to test out a real mountain delicacy
Bob, fer cryin' out loud, don't you know that Cody is nowhere near an ocean? FJRay informed me tonight the only way to eat seafood around here is to be within an hour of the west coast. From all the ranches we've seen, methinks they only got Prairie Oysters around these here parts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prairie_oyster

 
I forgot to post up the gps track from yesterday.....

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The main reason we did not just backtrack on the Chief Joseph & the Beartooth was due to high winds that picked up in the afternoon. The winds would be even worse up on the pass compared to staying in the valley. The flip side of that was that you had to deal with the high temperatures. While Hwy 120 was very boring, Hwy 308 was a nice ride and we will probably take a short ride today over to Bearcreek to take some photos of the old mining equipment there along with the saloon. Tonight steak dinner and beer!!!

- to be continued -

 
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This morning I figured I better wash the bike so that I don't mix the dead westbound bugs with the dead eastbound bugs....

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Ray & I then decided to have an impromptu tech day since my bike was running too rich. Ray had the required program on his laptop and we pulled a copy of my fuel map from the Power Commander 3 and compared it to a fuel map that Ray had used on his Gen II. We then modified my map to lean out the fuel in the lower mid range and then went and tested.

I took a short ride over to Bear Creek to check out the abandoned coal mine....

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The testing went well so I tehn returned to town to look for some lens cleaner for my windscreen and visor....

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I felt somewhat out of place plus all they had was chrome polish.

I then went and did some more testing with a run up the Beartooth as far as the lookout near the summit and returned to headquarters. A butterfly seemed to be attracted to Root Beer....

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FJRay, Patti and others are now just mellowing out before the steak and beer. John was left to fetch the kegs. Depending on the size of the kegs I may not be posting for the rest of the day.

- to be continued -

 
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