Glass Reunion Corvette Club

Cruz to Cooke City

7-26-15

The morning was bright & sunny, about 70 degrees at 8:15am when club members and their shinny clean Corvettes began assembling at 360 Office Solutions parking lot, a beautiful start to our cruz to Cooke City!

Greetings and Introductions were made and pleasant conversation which inevitably revolved around our beautiful machines ensued as usual!

At 8:45 following a short orientation meeting to talk about the day’s agenda the 8 Corvettes and their 16 pilots and copilots drove off in a row, merged on I-90 to Park City where we exited to drive the more interesting 2 lane frontage road to Columbus, dodging the road work at Rockvale. Then to avoid a reportedly bad stretch of road construction between Roscoe and Red Lodge we took Hwy 421 to Joliet then 212 to Red Lodge where we meet up with Dean & Terry Anderson, friends and guests from Cody in their C7 convertible, and a much needed break at Town Pump.

A couple of us removed and stowed the tops under hatch and at 10:30 we pulled out, paraded through Red Lodge and began the climb up and over the Beartooth Pass. It was a busy traffic day on the Beartooth and our planned stop at the overlook was aborted due to a full parking lot. As we climbed ever higher a dark cloud bank was forming over the mountains ahead. As we neared the east summit the temp dropped to low 50’s and it began to rain! We made a hasty stop at a small pullout to install our tops and continued through the on again off again rain showers toward Cooke.

At a fairly large and nicely deserted overlook/rest area just before we got to the intersection of hwy 296 (Chief Joseph Scenic Byway) we pulled in for a break and photo op. The sun had returned if only briefly so our timing was perfect and the view was awesome! While we were stopped there a few people driving by pulled in only to take a picture of our Corvettes!

After a short break and a group photo we resumed the drive into Cooke. As expected it was busy so we split up and were on our own to find available seating for lunch at several different eateries. While in the restaurants it rained hard for 30 minutes or so but had stopped by the time we gathered up for our return trip.

Our friends from Cody went on onto the park planning to go out the east entrance; Jim and Linda Markel went back over the Beatooth to take pictures along the way. The rest of us left in a group and took the Chief Joseph Scenic Byway.

The rain had stopped and the sun was shining again as we cruzed down to and over the Clarks Fork gorge then up and over Dead Indian Pass. The road had been recently paved and boy is it SMOOTH!! Light traffic allowed for a few stretches of spirited driving in the twisties which was quite enjoyable!

We stopped at Dead Indian Overlook for another short break and several strangers that were there took more pictures of our Vettes all grouped together, boy these cars get a lot of attention!

Then it was on to Hyw 120/72 to Belfry where we turned on 308 through Bearcreek and Red Lodge to Joliet than back to Columbus to once again avoid the roadwork and on home down I-90.

This rout totaled 335 miles of smiles!