We were able to save $ 5.00 last night over the Holiday Inn by staying at this place.

Not the cleanest place we've stayed. Dave E. chose to put towels on the floor to avoid actually stepping on the carpet (looks like he slept in the bed though)..

Moose's room was even worse.

We started the day in good spirits, but, after coffee and checking the bikes, we had to break out the duct tape for our first field repair of the trip.

As we were pulling into town for our breakfast stop, we had to address our second field repair of the trip. It turns out that duct tape doesn't work in all situations. We actually had to purchase a very special hammer to complete this repair (it has lights that blink when you hit something).

After only 50 miles and two field repairs, we were too exhausted to continue until after breakfast. We must have taken a wrong turn because we ended up dining in Michigan. Our waitress, Rachel, took good care of us. We were all well fed and then she agreed to a farewell photo and wished us a safe trip.

In an effort to avoid further field repairs, good juju was purchased in the form of Gremlin Bells at the Minot, ND Harley Davidson dealer. Gary, Bill and Mike should now be immune from gremlins and hopefully there will be no more stops at the Harley shop.

Bob, in an effort to further his career, took matters into his own hands after lunch. In spite of being grossly under qualified, he insisted on submitting applications at almost every business that we passed.

His persistence having yet to pay off, Bob must moonlight as the driver of the chase car for our trip. Try as we might, we just can't seem to shake him, and he always shows up in our rearview mirror.

We were lucky to have Dave E. with us on the trip (turns out he is an amateur naturalist and wildlife expert). Dave assisted us in identifying a field full of tumble weeds (see picture below). In addition to seeing lots of indigenous vegetation, we also saw many varieties of Moose.  With Dave's expert help, we can now correctly identify and distinguish between the North Dakota Moose and the Montana Moose (they sure looked like Wisconsin cows to us).

Dave E. decided to share some of his special powers with Mike via a special ceremony at one of our fuel stops. We hope it takes, but so far Mike is not showing any signs of improvement.

At that same fuel stop, we met a family traveling on motorcycles from Toronto to the west coast. We quickly became friends and took advantage of the opportunity to snap a quick picture before we hit the road.

In spite of our very thorough planning, we somehow found ourselves needing fuel in Nashua, MT. Just our luck, the only gas station in town was already closed for the day. Thankfully, our new friend Ray happened to have a few gallons to spare. Apparently, the price of gasoline in Nashua is a partial bag of homemade chocolate chip cookies (thanks for saving us Betsy). Dave, are you going to share some of that gas with anyone else?

Thanks Ray!

Back on the road in Montana, looking for an open gas station.

No gas in this town either.

Objects in the mirror may indeed be closer than they appear, but Mike is really just pushing us on to our next stop

The tallest buildings in all these small towns are the local grain elevators.

We keep pushing onward, never knowing what might be just beyond the next bend.

We arrived in Havre, MT at exactly 9:00 PM Mountain Time, tired, sweaty and hungry. Dinner tonight was at Uncle Joes, known for their great steaks and cracker jack wait staff. Thanks Renelle and Christina, if you survived serving our dinner and drinks, the rest of your lives will seem tame.

Tomorrow ... through Glacier National Park, across the Canadian border and finally to Banff.