Wrap Up 4

Well, as you may have noticed I'm not one to put my thoughts on paper but I'm going to try and tell you about our trip because it was a trip that every one should experience and one I'll never forget.

Everyone has pretty much said it all as far as the points of interest (Tom is a great tour guide) and the interesting people we met (mainly because Maryann is so good at breaking the ice.) but for me it was the fact that here I was on this motorcycle riding across this beautiful country of ours seeing the beautiful countryside and the wildlife that goes with it. I was in awe of the differences there were along the way from rolling hills to lots of corn fields that were so perfectly planted that it was like a big wave rolling along I started getting dizzy watching, oh and the Badlands and Devils Tower what about Mount Rushmore and oh! oh! and oh! too many more to put down but all wonderful to see. I had the camera in my hand most of the time while we were on the bike and I've been known to fall asleep on the bike sometimes so doing this kept me alert not that on this trip I would have fallen asleep and I really tried to take as many pictures as I could that would show how I saw things but that was Impossible because for one it's hard to focus on things when your traveling at 60 mph and a picture just doesn't give you that feeling of the wide open spaces you experience when traveling on a motorcycle.

The wildlife that we encountered was a big plus for me since I love animals. From the silly little prairie dogs to the big herd of buffalo that traveled in front of us and behind us on the road (missed the best of these pictures because I was toooo excited). Oh ya! there was this cat in the campground in Deadwood that we camped in that Maryanne started calling Evil Knevil because when we first saw it was on the other side of a very wide creek and as we watched him he crouched down and got his little feet going as cats do before they jump and over the creek he came we were all amazed because it was a very very wide space he jumped over. We saw wild donkeys and mountain goats and lots of deer and horses and cows. So along with all the other wonderful things that were already mentioned I want to say that the best part was being able to travel with two of my closest friends and my wonderful husband who was the one that finally convinced me that I had to go on this fantastic adventure.

Thanks you guys, I can't wait till our neeeext adventure!

Sandy

P.S. That could not have been me because I heard it to and besides I don’t snore.

Wrap up 3

Wow what a ride!

The ride was made even more special having Sandy along. Up until about two weeks before leaving she wasn’t going with us.

Experiencing this beautiful county on a motorcycle is incredible experience. Cruising along with the road whizzing by under your feet, wind blowing on your cheeks, and all those smells. Riding with the best of friends makes the ride all the more special.

Traveling off the interstates we saw so many forgotten towns that were bypassed by the big interstates. Just like the movie “Cars”. Cody, Nebraska comes to mind with an older mechanic working under the hood of a 1956 Ford in front of the garage, with a rack of tires, and old bicycle outside Sandhills Automotive Center. This little town of 177 appeared to have been stuck in the 50’s or 60’s (Check out the pictures on Day 6).

There were so many highlights such as the Badlands, which are as awesome as I remember from my family’s trip to Idaho in 1979. The ride through the Needles, Devils Tower, Spearfish Canyon, Custer National Park with the buffalo, and of coarse Mt. Rushmore. How about the ride to Huelett, WY via Montana and having two fighter jets doing a fly-by over the highway on the way to their bike week. Getting the free barbeque pork sandwich, baked beans with hot peppers, and nacho chips. Bikes doing a burnout in Rochford. Stugis seeing all the bikes lined up on the streets, and all the t-shirts. Deadwood was one of my favorite places, just to hang out, seeing all the bikes and watch the people. Not only the downtown but the hill, the ride up the hill to the campground. Catching up with Tom’s cousins in Saloon 10 and swapping stories.

How many people asked about our beaded seats? How do you like them? Where did you get them? Yes they are great, they really work, 5141 miles and no “monkey butt”. I think we should get a commission on these things.

We have some great ideas for future rides, a couple to add could be, a ride along the coast maybe to the Outer Banks, a trip through The Smokey’s, take a trip down the Dragon, or as Tom said a adventure through some of the back roads of New England.

Of course this ride will be a hard trip to out do.

Wrap up 2

For those of you who ride, I think I can speak for all of us that you should consider doing a trip like this. Do not be intimidated by the distance. If you choose the right roads and have enough time to do it, it will truly be a rewarding journey. Comfort? Sure, our legs got antsy, but we stretched plenty when we stopped for gas, which was quite often. And no, my butt is not sore. My seat is really comfortable.

For those of you that don’t ride, a trip like this could as easily be done in a car as well. It wouldn’t be quite the same, as bikers tend to readily talk to each other whenever there is an encounter. When traveling by car we don’t typically see this type of camaraderie.
One of the best parts of this experience for me was meeting the people we met and listening to their tales of where they had been and what they had seen. For me, it gave me a glimpse of the possibilities in the years ahead for other adventures. This truly was an adventure. Everyday we got on the bikes I would wonder, where will we go today? Who will we meet and what will we see?

An adventure like this is not a passive activity. You really must make an effort to reach out to your fellow travelers and to those whose towns you are passing through in order to take away something valuable from the encounter. Sometimes this is easier said then done. For those of you who know Tom, you would be quite impressed with how often he does this. I was!

So, grab your good friends and plan something for next year. It is well worth it and I look forward to you taking us along!

Wrap up

“It’s not the destination, it’s the ride”

A few years back, Harley Davidson used this slogan in some of their advertising. I think this one sentence sums up what motorcycling and traveling in general is all about. Yes, our goal was Sturgis but that didn’t turn out to be the highlight of the trip. Whether the actual destination is Sturgis, Myrtle Beach, Milwaukee or Meat Cove, Nova Scotia it is mainly the things you see and the people you meet along the way that make the trip memorable.

Heading out of Sturgis and all the way back to Albany, NY on I-90 we passed hundreds of cars, trucks and motorhomes heading home with bikes packed into trailers or strapped into the back of pickup beds. I’m sure they got home quicker than us and had a more comfortable ride with their soft seats and air conditioning but I feel sorry for them because they missed out on the challenge and sense of adventure we got from riding.

When we get together over a beer or two and talk about the trip to Sturgis, we won’t be talking about all the bikes we saw in the Black Hills or how great the bars or vendors or pretty girls were on Main Street. It will be the small things we saw and experienced that we will remember and laugh about: the “free” campground in Ohio and the early morning fog when we left; riding across the Mississippi for the first time and how tired we were when we got there; all the beautiful, well kept farms of Iowa (no, we never did got bored looking at all that corn); pie for breakfast with Judy the cranky waitress and the missing statue in Kimballton; the too talkative Lewis and Clark tour guide; Crofton, Nebraska with its beautiful Argo Hotel, the bar with two old-timers, the worlds least knowledgeable bartender (“We don’t have any DARK beer and what’s in a Jack and ginger????”), its 6 legged pig and paddlefish; the double decker bridge over the Missouri in Yanton, SD and the lone American flag sitting way out in the corn field. We’ll wonder what is happening in Monowi-maybe a new family will move in some day to take over for Elsie when she is ready to retire or maybe the state will just have to take the sign down when nobody is left to run the tavern. We’ll remember the long stretches of range land with herds of cattle gathered around old weather-beaten windmills. Desolate, lonely and beautiful. We’ll laugh about our short trip down the washboard dirt road in Sparks, Nebraska and our swim in the Niobrara River later (is the cracked helmet still hanging in Scott’s garage?). The dream catchers we bought from the young Sioux woman at Wounded Knee will remind us of our short visit to the Pine Ridge Reservation and the huge fields of sunflowers in full bloom. I’m sure we’ll even be laughing about the day we got lost in the Badlands and the $20 “donation” I made to the Deadwood PD.

It even seems that many of the highlights of Sturgis itself didn’t take place in Sturgis. Getting out into the smaller towns in and around the Black Hills helped us meet some different people and see some great scenery. Places like Nemo, Rochford and Huelett are not to be missed. The smaller bars and restaurants like Wild Bills, the Boars Nest, Moonshine Gulch Saloon and Saloon No. 10 have just as much character as the bigger well known places in Sturgis.

The only question is where do we go next? It’s tempting to go back to some of the places we’ve already been to. Nova Scotia was so nice that we want to go back with our wives. But there are too many places we haven’t seen yet. Maybe we’ll try West Virginia’s mountains and explore the Ohio River. The Kentucky bluegrass and horse country is a possibility or a loop around the Great Lakes. There are even a lot of back roads and small towns closer to home in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine we haven’t ridden yet. The southwest and even Ireland are places we want to see sometime in the future. Any other suggestions?

I hope you all take the time to explore in your travels too. Take a little extra time on your next trip and get off the interstates to explore all that small town America has to offer. Instead of McDonalds or Applebees or the other chain restaurants take a ride into town and look for the local diner or café. There are bound to be a few interesting people to chat with and some excellent regional specialties to try. Look for that offbeat local festival or oddball attraction and see where it might lead you and who you might meet in the process. Remember it’s not always about the destination – you’ll get there soon enough. It’s really all about the ride.

The Ride Home (cont.)

Shippsewanna, Indiana to WINDSOR, Mass 781 miles

Indiana (cont): Nice sunrise, we were on the road before it came up.

Ohio: They have the nicest rest areas. Big, clean, modern. Lots of truck parking, which looks really cool at dawn with all the trucks lined up with thier running lights on.

Pennsylvania: We just ran a short stretch thru PA along Lake Erie but long enough to run into a grumpy old guy at the gas station. He yelled at us to move the bikes away from the pumps while we were grabbing some food when there wasn't another customer in sight and there were 4 other open pumps. Of course that was all the encouragment we needed to slooowwwly get ready, paaaaaack up our fooooooood, put on our helmets, waaaaalk around the bike, kiiiiiiick the tires on the trailer and then honk the horn and wave as we rode off. It was a nice welcome home from the the friendly folks of the Northeast.

New York: No time to stop in Buffalo for wings, next trip..., northeast drivers are worse than Illinois drivers.

Mass: We finally made it home, it was a long ride but worth every minute. Total distance travelled was 5141 miles!

Wrap up to come-stay tuned.

The Ride Home

Deadwood to Blue Earth, Minnesota 530 miles

South Dakota: HOT, HOT, HOT. Lunch at Al's Oasis.
Minnesota: Green, green, green! Saw only 1 of the 10,000 lakes, felt cheated. Town of Blue Earth made up for it- FREE camping at the county fairgrounds AND a 60 ft tall statue of the Jolly Green Giant.

Blue Earth to Shippsewana, Indiana 580 miles

Wisconsin: Boring, ugly interstates (sorry Willie G.), lots of bad Illinois drivers.
Illinois: Chicago BITES! 57 miles in 2 hours. Bad traffic and real hot.
Indiana: Nice sunset.

Tomorrow: Home??? We'll see...

One more for the road...

Day 13; 200 miles +/-

Today was our last day in the Black Hills. We had a great time revisiting some roads we really enjoyed and seeing some new sights. We headed north to Belle Fourche (pronounced Bell Foush; I think). This was a big livestock sales town, back in its day. Today it was full of bikers even early in the morning. We took 212 west and stuck our toes into Montana. We got off and walked around, just to make it official. We stopped at the state line and took the obligatory picture of the “Welcome to Montana” sign. While there, Tom noticed the state line bound. I went over to check it out and noticed that there was a state highway bound laying on the ground that was never set. It had a brass disk on the top; a very nice 6”x6” bound that was all of 6 feet long. I asked if we could take it home as a souvenir. Well, it is still laying on the state line if anyone else is interested.

This ride took us through some really “Big Sky” country. There are definitely more bikes on the road now. We did see some stupid people doing stupid things, cars included. When the terrain is right, you can see lines of bikes all over the place. But, it definitely is not bumper to bumper traffic. Each place we stop we hear stories of arrests and other mishaps. Thankfully, we haven’t witnessed anything.

We ended up at Hulett, for the second time this week. However, today it was quite different. The place was packed as it was “No Panties Wednesday”. Boy, did we see some sights. We also got a free lunch which included the best roast pork sandwich we’ve had in a long time. They were giving the lunches away! While waiting in the long line in the blazing sun, we were treated to a motorcycle jumping show. That was really exciting. Three guys jumped some 45 feet into the air on their bikes and landed on a ramp 75 feet away from the jump. While up in the air they did all sorts of crazy things like twisted with the bikes, held on with one hand, one guy completely came off of the bike with no hands on it and for a finally, one guy did a 360 flip with the bike (head over tail). That was really cool.

We left there and headed back to Spearfish Canyon and rode that beautiful stretch again. We then took Scott down the 14 mile road to Rochford, which he had missed on Monday. There were all sorts of burnouts going on there and very interesting people watching. We then went back to Deadwood hoping for a meal but the all you can eat buffet we heard about wasn’t what we thought it would be. So, we hung around for a bit and watched the bikes (again!!). It was really crowded.

Back at the campground after a great burger at Wild Bills and we are freezing. It is just like a summer nite in Windsor. We start the long trek home tomorrow morning. We figure that this leg of the journey will be really boring without much to write about. We will be travelling on Route 90 from here all the way home; how boring is that? So, we probably won’t be doing any more entries until we return home on either Saturday or Sunday. So see ya until then.