Cardwell, MT to Boseman, MT - Happiness is a campsite with a view.
6/20/26 – 50 miles 4.5 hours seat time.
Relatively early start his morning after forgetting my glasses. HWY 2 regains a reasonable shoulder after the entrance to the Lewis and Clark Cavern State Park, and traffic is really light on a Saturday morning. It was nice to see a couple of monuments and stopping places named for the person who actually made Lewis and Clark's expedition a moderate success. I think it should be made a little more obvious that two white dudes probably wouldn't have made it to the West Coast if not for the assistance/guidance/diplomacy of a first nations woman. Sacagawea.
I suppose there's some symbolism in there for me. I wouldn't be making my way to the East Coast but for the assistance of Bunny.
The headwinds continued today. The bike had a minor mechanical issue in that one of the elbow braces on my aero bars cracked. I stopped in 3 forks to take the bars apart and adjust the elbow braces so that I wouldn't be flexing them so much while tucked in. My legs still felt weak this morning and I still felt nauseous. I was probably still dehydrated, so I was trying to take it easy.
The heavy overcast was a welcome change from the last couple days. I made it into Manhattan, MT and my stomach was feeling better so I stopped at the Auto Inn Pizza Parlor on the main strip in town. The pizza ovens didn't start up until 2pm, so I had some 'scrambled eggs on toast' which was actually a nicely folded cheese omelet on some locally baked rustic sour dough. Add some avocado and I couldn't get much more hipster unless I rode up on a fixie. The vibe of the place was such that I wish I'd shown up later. They had a big bar and games like....literally indoor cornhole. Based on the eggs on toast, I'm betting the pizza is kickass. Quick research said that Bozeman was 20 miles away. While searching for a place to pick up some bike parts (I'd like to change the way I carry the spares and get the Camelback....off my back). I discovered that there was Costco in Bozeman.....so you know I had to.
Post lunch and parts acquisition, a serious bit of planning needed to happen. It may not be apparent from the blog posts, but we don't really know where we are staying from night to night. The criteria for camping is at least a pit toilet, even though we have a cassette toilet in the van. But we always try to hit a nicer campground/RV park every three days to get filled up on water and Bunny can have a shower. I don't mind showering out the back of the van, and Bunny says she will too.....when the ambient temp is over 80F.
Lewis and Clark caverns was shower stop so the hunt was on for cheap camping. We started out with the lowest 'rent free' options, but Winco/Walmart were not accepting overnight camping, and Costco didn't have 24-hour toilet access. So, we started searching iOverlander for camping and found a couple of places near Livingston, but that was a 40-minute drive and that would make running into town to do laundry and other tasks....tedious.
On the fly, while starting the drive to Livingston, I found a cluster of camping a short distance North of Boseman. We altered course and drove to Battle Ridge campground. The drive along 86 was filled with huge gentleman farms and a couple of massive horse estates. Picturesque is an understatement.
Having found close in camping we settled in and enjoyed the view while planning our 'zero day'.
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