Thank you to everyone!

Thank you to all those wonderful people that I met, reconnected with, had dinner with, caught a baseball game with, gave rides to, and/or crashed their couch/spare bed.  You made this such a unique vacation experience.

Shauna and JT; Richie & Magaret; Hector & Susan; Katie-lynn; Howard & Joy w/ Eliad and Ariel; Ian & Heather; Johnnie; Jim my chess opponent; Emily & Mike, and Megan; Chris & Jana; Sarah and Nicholas; Leah, Ellie and Chris; Shannon & Scott w/ Meghan, Logan and Finnegan; Tony; Anna-marie, Carolyn, Jimmy, Trevor, and Guillaum; Andy the Brewmaster and Erica, Martina and Mike; Alex, Tim and Jason of Springwagon; Samantha and Katie; Olaf; Eric & Nadine; Matt, Mike and Ryan; Anna and Weldon;  Blainory, Steve, Stacie, Nicole, Monica, Jenn, James, Danny and Legend; Jon & Stacy.

Home At Last

I arrived home safely Sunday July 4th in the early afternoon.  My motorcycle looks like it was an entrant in a paintball match.  I look like a tanning mutant - that is one with nice olive brown arms and face but a white chin strap, white raccoon eyes, pink lower knuckles (from wrapping my hands around the bars keeping them out of the sun) and everything else pastey white.

Washed the bike once today just to make it somewhat presentable.  I will need to really go at it after work tomorrow.

One More Stop

Not much can be said for PA other than there are many dead deer on the highways.  I opted for the northern rural route 6 instead of the multi-lane highway route 80.  Big mistake...kind of.  The road through the mountains along the Allegheny River was fascinating, but the industrial trucking parade that followed it was unbelievable!  I just don't understand why they would all want to take a twisty two lane road instead of two major parallel highways within 20 miles (Rt 90 to the north and Rt 80 to the south).  As soon as I passed one logging truck, I was behind a giant dump truck.  And there were not many options for passing.

The first order of business after reaching my brother's house in NJ was to head to his office, which is conveniently located above a bar, and meet many of his coworkers. The second order of business while visiting...is to mount the baseboard in his new house. Motorcycling carpentry may be my new vocation!

Close to home

I know I'm getting close to home when: there are more than 3 FM radio stations, and they aren't all playing country music; I actually have to lean the bike around any type of corner; my GPS shows more than a single line in 20 miles indicating any other road whatsoever; I can hit five states in one leg of my trip instead of five nights in one state.  Too much riding today so no pictures - my theory was the more miles today, the less I have tomorrow for my trip across PA.

Long day

I left Chicago a bit later than I should have.  And I forgot about the time zone change.  And I took a route not recommended by Mr. GPS.  So at 9:00pm after having driving 500 miles, I wind up in western Pennsyltucky with no hotels in sight, the sun has gone down, it's now about 55F and I'm freezing and hungry.  I stop at the first 'major' town, and my GPS lied about one motel and the second one had no lights on or people/cars nearby.  I flip on the fog lights and tail another car into the wilderness - at Yellowstone I was straining my neck to see wildlife; now I'm praying I don't see any (cross the road in front of my bike).  GPS will tell me of any motels nearby...except out here where there aren't any.  I figure the more East I keep riding, the closer I'll be to tomorrow night's destination and hopefully I'll find anything.   Luckily I wind upon Warren, PA and find a nice Holiday Inn.  It was just about 10pm and I've just ridden 530 miles.  I still haven't figured out how to make 1,000 miles in 24 hours.

Ohiology

Can someone explain this?  I pulled into a rest area on the Ohio turnpike this afternoon.  The signage was poor, and it wasn't clear if the spot I went to was "auto fuel" or "auto food".  About 100 other cars had the same concern, and now everyone was driving back a one way route to park for food or to get gas.  Once inside, it was not marked Men's Room unless you walked past a concrete divider - I just guessed at where it would be.  There were ton's of snacks here, but you could only pay for them at the Cinnabun register - so if you wanted a water, you would have had to have gotten it before you got in line for the cinnamon roll (which I did not).  There was impossible traffic flow inside the rest stop, and everything seemed out of place - like the seating area which was separated from the food area by a little opening.  Upon exiting, there were only a few gas pumps, and two of them were out of service.  Most of them had a card reader at the tank...except mine.  So I had to prepay with the debit card, but the door to the little island store opened up into a concrete pillar that held the roof up.  Two people could barely fit inside, but the door wouldn't open far enough to let two people pass at the same time.  Very weird this state!

Skydivers

This was a first for me.  I rode underneath a large shadow and thought it was just a plane flying overhead.  It was two skydivers landing about 60 feet from the road, and they were less than a few hundred feet over my head.  They were coming down a few miles north of Chicago.

Chicago Foundry

Right in town is a metal foundry.  They have blast furnaces, giant cranes, molten steel, carbon rods the size of trees that get electrically introduced under high voltage into the steel.  Eric is a welder journeyman, so the two of us stopped off at the foundry after the game.  We stood in the doorway in awe.  It felt like being in Pittsburgh during the steel revolution, except for the lack of people - many things now are robotic.  We spent almost a half hour just watching molten steel in hoppers being poured into small ceramic molds and tested for chemical content ratios, listening to the industrial sounds of arcing and smelling ozone.  You could feel the heat coming from the kettles, and some of the hopper cars (used to carry kettles across the street to be annealed) were still warm.  Sometimes they let the public walk around inside, but I guess not tonight.  They were going to pour a kettle in three hours - a sight I'm told is well worth watching: sparks fly everywhere - but we weren't going to stick around that long :)  I was utterly fascinated; Eric could really appreciate the inner-workings.

Chicago

It was a long drive from Minneapolis. I left around 8am and was riding for about eight hours. The final 45 minutes of the ride was just the traffic into Chi-town. I lined up with a friend, whom I haven't seen since high school, and his coworker. The three of us went to see a Cubs game in Wrigley Field. There's something different about old parks that makes them unique and enjoyable. The crowd sounds different bouncing off steel beams instead of concrete. You may have to peek around an obstructed view post. You wait for the manual scoreboard to be updated. It feels like you are watching the game in 1928 or something. We never made it to our ticketed seats, though; we just kept bouncing around trying new locations and views. Chicago's wind did not let us down in upper right field.

Yes, Eric and I had the only Red Sox gear on at a Cubs game

Minnesota

Last night I think I got food poisoning from a local chain restaurant.  I couldn't sleep very well, and I woke up very sick.  That didn't help the riding much.  And all I've eaten today was half a sandwich. No stadium dog at the new Twins park, Target Field, even though it was Dollar Dog night.  No beer either :( 

The Twins played the Tigers and gave up 4 in the first.  They just couldn't come back after that.  Jim Thome hit a triple, his first in 6 years!  He's just a slow runner (and he lucked out on the way the ball hit the outfield wall and took a crazy direction away from the right fielder.)

Target Field makes my 28th stadium, but I've only seen 26 home teams because they keep rebuilding.  I may never catch up :)  Pretty good seats today -  two sections behind home plate.

Some jerk spilled beer on my shirt and arm...he was 7.  It looked like he was going around collecting half drunken cups of beer.  When I asked him what he was up to he froze.  Then jumping over seats he tripped and slopped all over me.  Now he's really in shock.  I couldn't tell if he was really after the beer or collectors cups.

ND

That's short for "nothin' doin'".  I was surprised by western ND with the Grasslands and Badlands *not quite the same as South Dakota, but something to look at.  I pressed on the extra 100 miles today so that tomorrow wouldn't be so terrible, but the remainder of the state was pretty flat.  Another 100 miles and I reach that famous movie, oh dontcha' know.  OK, you betcha.

Montana to North Dakota

I left Billings, MT for a planned 400 mile leg.  When I got to Bismarck I didnt see much worth stopping for.  And with the time zone change it had already become 5:30.  The next "town" was 100 miles away, and I wasn't hungry or tired so I pressed on.  Total trip today was 537 miles - my new personal longest day.  How those guys in the Iron Butt Association can do 1,000 miles in 24 hours amazes me.  I pulled into Jamestown, ND and poked around for a hotel near a grill, but first came upon the "largest buffalo in America".  Someday I'm going to build larger versions of all these silly attractions just to usurp the local's only namesake (largest ball of twine, largest pheasant, largest buffalo, largest blah-ba-d-blah).

Bear Tooth Highway

Figures I didnt get a picture of the actual tooth, but there's a sharp mountain feature that looks vaguely like a bear's tooth (perhaps if you are an Indian high on peace pipe).  This was a 10,000 foot climb through some nasty switchbacks and 48F degrees.  There was a couple feet of snow up top, but the last snowfall was about three weeks ago so the roads were fine.  Even though some of the road was under construcion and loose gravel, this windy road made a good transition to my upcoming straight & boring adventure.

If you enlarge this picture and then squint, you will see a tiny speck in the middle.  There were two skiers who must have been dropped off at the top and then ski down into the valley.  It looked really fun.

Yellowstone II

I did see some Buffalo and another herd of Elk. But like the sign says, which everyone else ignored, "Caution, Do not approach the animals." I'll heed their warning so I don't get gored in the stomach (every year a few people do). I went North up the Western side of the park (the roads form roughly a figure-8). Tomorrow I will go back in and hit parts of the Eastern side. Good thing I chose this route because most of the cars were headng the other direction. I also counted 49 cars behind a slow RV.

Old Faithful

I [completely unplanned but luckily] showed up about 15 minutes earlier than the predicted time...so I took a nap [as did others]. Turns out she was five minutes late today anyways. I thought it was every hour on the hour, but it can be 45 to 120 minutes or so depending on when the last one blew. Hundreds of people were sitting around saying, "oh look. there's a dribble...it's about to blow any second!" And of course it didn't. Then it looked like a garden hose shot water straight up. I was not impressed, and left before the rest of the crowd did.

Yellowstone

Today, a rather big disappointment. The first forty miles were dead trees that had fallen over with some 7-10 year old pines growing up to take their place. God forbid you pulled over to look at something, because the next 60 cars behind you would also slam on the brakes in hopes of seeing anything. And pay attention to the 60 cars in front of you for the same reason. After seeing a few cars around me one lady leaned out her window, "What are you looking at?" When I said "my map", she frowned and said, "are you sure there's nothing out here?" Turns out there was a family of Elk which I did not see, but I was legit looking at my map to find where to stay tonight.

Grand Tetons

I knew this would be a favorite spot. I already had it planned out for my next photo album cover; I just needed to find the right spot for the right photo. I went for a 2.5 mile hike around Jenny Lake to find Hidden Waterfalls and Inspiration Point. As soon as I hopped off my bike this morning I was feeling really bad shin splints in my right tibia. This made hiking extremely painful, but I toughed it out. It started to sprinkle so I took the water ferry back to home base. I made it to the waterfall, but didnt climb the remaining 1/2 mile up steep terrain to find the point of inspiration. Besides, I already found a few of my own.

Jackson II

Every night at Snake River Brewing you can play Shake-a-Day Yahtzee. Get all the same five die and you win the pot - the last one was $3700. I rolled three of a kind and got a free beer for that.

Jackson, Wy

For a town that's pretty much younger than my grandfather, it's still pretty cool.  Hundreds of tourists hit this spot on the way to the major national parks to the north.  I rolled into town just about 6pm and heard gunshots, but found out it was a show put on every night between the cowboys and indians.  I pulled over quickly, but the show was already dispersing.  I naturally found the brewery right away, and their Hefeweizen was the best.  The motel owner was from Georgetown, MA.  And I met two guys; one from Dedham and one from Braintree.  You can't get away from a Red Sox fan.  I also had a cool talk with Olaf.  He spends 9-10 months here either herding 600 head of cattle, or welding, and then 2-3 months over the winter kayaking rivers in New Zealand that no one has ever been on before.  He'll charter a helicopter to the head of a river! And he's in his 60's with a foot long beard.  The guy from Dedham was amazed with Olaf's accomplishments and deeply in awe.

The next shot is at the Snake River Brewing Company with two of the bartenders

Idaho Falls

I was just passing through this town - it was a good place to stop half way from Craters to my destination for today.  Right in the center of town is a river with a waterfall running parallel to the river, such that it's hundreds of feet long.  Some of it is channeled to a small park that kids can play in, and some sent to a trout hatchery.

Craters of the Moon National Monument

After the cow incident, I was heading towards something called Craters of the Moon.  My map isn't real detailed and I had no idea what it actually was.  As I was approaching, I saw huge piles of what looked like exploded soil bombs, or freshly tilled rows of dirt.  They were randomly scattered, yet still seemed to be logically layed out.  It actually looked like WWII when the morters went off and blew up sand dunes.  Turns out it is a huge lava field from 2500 years ago.  Much like Hawaii, magma escaped the mantle at various locations and formed lave tubes, caves, cinder cones, flows, and Aa and Pahoehoe *Hawaiin words for "sharp rocky piles of lava," and "smooth flows of lava".  The park had all sorts of features and I spent quite a bit of time there (getting quite burnt in the sun, even with five applications of SPF30 sunscreen that day).

Why did the cow cross the road?

I was cruising along at a good clip, and this guy on the side of the road starts flagging us down to slow down.  I naively yelled out "it's a 65MPH zone"...then I saw 300 head of cattle jogging up the left hand side of the road.  Apparently they were moving from one ranch to the next or something.  But four cars got held up on the road as a bunch of cattle had to cross the street.  And we all had to drive through giant piles of cow crap.

Bird is the word

Yesterday morning I hit a bird for the second time ever.  The first time was in South Dakota last year after leaving the Badlands.  He flew low, hit my front tire or something and then rolled out like a limp ball to the breakdown lane.  Yesterday was far worse.  There were birds flying low and rampant like bats out of a cave at dusk.  I was certain one would fly into me at some point.  They came so close I thought one would fly between me and my windshield - about 20".  But one bird, judging by his neighbors I'll guess it was a Western Tanager - and I only saw him about 3/10th of a second - flew low and must have got sucked up into my tire.  Have you ever seen the cartoons where a bird flies into a fan and only feathers come out?  That's what happened.  A big plume of small feathers shot up my fairing underneath the handlebars.  It was so comical I was laughing out loud for a few miles - even though I was sad he didnt make it.

Idaho, Part II

This was my longest day so far, and my second longest day ever.  Today was 465 miles, but it was all sunny and mostly warm - that's why I had to just keep going.  Tomorrow I will find Craters of the Moon State Park in Southern Idaho.

Idaho

Montana was very scenic, though I pictured it being much more cowboy and hilly.  The roads were pretty straight and flat...then you could tell you were approaching the border of Idaho.  The highway started curving a lot more, the temp dropped at least five degrees, a winding river appreared, and hills started popping up all over the place.  I had left earlier [than usual] today, around 9am, and just got into my riding mode.  What seemed like an hour was already 180 miles - then 300.  Then after baking in the sun, even with repeated sun block application, I came to a dinky town of Challis, ID.  I had planned on staying here anyways, but didn't see too much.  I whipped out the real map and found Ketchum, but did the math wrong and thought it was only 60 miles or so.  The next sign came and told me it was 117 more miles - this would be my longest day yet.  But I had daylight on my side and went for the home stretch.  Routes 93 and 75 through Idaho were absolutely stunning and fun to ride.  The latter one was through Saw Tooth National Park with elevations in the 7000's and snow still on top.  Ketchum is a seasonal town, and I am definitely out of season - it seems like only 50 people are here! (Population is 6,000 - I'm told they all go out to bars after 10pm)

In 117 miles, I probably had only 8 cars on my side

The snow capped peaks were lurking behind the lush green ones most of the ride

There was snow at my elevation, but thankfully none on the road

Canada, Part II

While leaving Banff area I passed a herd of mountain goats, three deer and two black bears.  One goat hopped over a Jersey barrier, saw a semi fast approaching, and hopped back just in time.  I was riding behind the truck so I'm glad he didnt hop in front of me.  The deer were along side the road in the grass, and I honked my horn repeatedly to make them aware.  They still looked, however, like, um, deer in headlights.  I would have like to have gotten a bear photo - the first one came to view too quickly and I wasn' about to slam my brakes.  The second one was about 15' from the pull-off - had I stopped, I don't know how quickly he would have come to see what's for dinner.

Beautiful British Columbia

So says their license plates.  For those of you who have travelled across the United States, but not through Canada, I'll attempt to describe southern BC to you.  Driving east you would see to the south: alternating Nebraska wheat fields with Texas cattle farms but set on Kentucky rolling hills sitting in front of Washington Douglas Fir forests.  To the north you would see the Mississippi River flowing out of Nevada's Lake Tahoe set in front of South Dakota's Badlands with the Black Hills in the distance.  The whole time in front of you would be the Colorado Rockies.  Vancouver to Kamloops is pretty much the most beautiful roads I have ever travelled.  I apologize if every picture looks the same - fascinating snow-capped mountains behind rolling conifer forests set beside beautiful placid lakes.  The rivers up here have a different color - the silt deposits make them look grayish green.

I stopped today in Whitefish, Montana.  Finally getting some good timing I visited their Farmer's Market and tried some local food and checked out all the local vendors.  Afterwards I went to Great Northern Brewery and sampled their latest offerings.  Below is the Brewmaster Andy and one bartender Martina.

Banff

The ride to Banff was only slightly less stimulating that the ride to Kamloops.  Banff is a resort town in the pocket of three major snow-capped mountains.  Lots of shops, restaurants and over-priced hotels.  I found a hostel, and have met people from Germany, New Zealand, Australia, and of all places Maine.  I had dinner at a Canada chain called Boston Pizza.  The food and company were nice, but I've never heard of that one out East.  The bartender said they wanted a name that people have heard of, "like Boston Cream Pie, Boston Red Sox" and the like.  I thought about skipping town, and trying to make Calgary, but another 90 miles around dinner time along with the time zone change talked me out of it.

MPG

I may or may not be averaging 185 kilometers / deci-litre of petrol.  The exchange rate is .97USD = 1CD, and I'm on Pacific Standard Time, so I can't really tell.

Kamloops

Today I found the most exciting, picturesque, motorcycle-worthy road in North America.  Route 1, the TransCanadianHighway leaves from Vancouver and heads towards a fair-sized town called Kamloops.  At one point the highway has two options, and the sign says [roughly] "Canyon Edge Route" or "River Gorge Route".  Both sounded awesome, but I took the Gorge route because the other one was a main thruway.  Every other place I've been to I opted not to turn around if I missed "that one fantastic shot".  I would have taken six months to get here otherwise.  On this trip I had to turn around twice!  To complete the evening I went to The Keg Steakhouse, and had a top-three-ever prime rib.

Rather than stopping every 60 seconds, I tried to shoot a few while in motion.  That quickly ended, though, after a passing truck's vacuum nearly sucked the camera out of my hand.

Kamloops is a hub for freight trains, and this trestle carries a line that comes in from the north.