Day 5 – Rest and Rock ‘n Roll!

We got to sleep in today and just hang out at the Broken Spur Motel in Three Forks, MT.  It was nice after 4 days of riding.

I was able to work on the bikes a little and slow the gas leak on both bikes.  Still not great, but it should enable us to finish the trip.

Around 7pm we left for the “Rock’in the River” concert.  We wanted to see Molly Hatchet, Kansas and “No Quarter,” a Led Zeppelin tribute band.  They expected 5,000 people to be there.  The place had 1300 camping spots!

We got lost trying to find the place and drove about 30 miles more than we needed to.  We wound up missing Molly Hatchet.  Kansas was fantastic.  Pretty cool to seek those old farts still rock out.  They played all the standard favorites like Dust in the Wind, Carry On Wayward Son, and my personal favorite, Song for America.

Sorry about the poor quality, but I used my cell phone.  They didn’t allow cameras and I didn’t want to risk it.

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The best was the girl that ran across the stage topless.  Ludi commented that many of the people there weren’t even born when Kansas was playing in the ’70s and ’80s!

Made it back at 1:30am and we plan on being on the road before 9am tomorrow on the way to Yellowstone.

Day 4 Gillette, WY to Three Forks, MT

No pictures, because well, there’s not much to see on the highway!

Today started off a little late because of, what else, hockey problems….

But we did get underway eventually.

We decided to stick to the interstate because it was a long , so the whole day was spent on I90.

Of course it couldn’t be that uneventful, could it?

First, Ludi’s bike ran out of gas about 1/4 mile from the gas station.  Why?  We encountered such a headwind that the gas mileage went from about 40mpg to 30mpg!  I didn’t realize he pulled over until I hit the exit.  Luckily, we had the 2-way radios so I could figure out where he was.  I filled up my bike and took the frontage road back to where he was with the bike.  I made the ultimate sacrifice and emptied out the last 3 ounces of my liter Dew to use to fill up with gas to pour into the tank.  Of course someone with an ounce of brains would have filled up the bottle at the gas station instead of filling up the bottle from the gas line of my bike.  Duh!

So Ludi was able to fill up and we kept going.  It could have been much worse.  Like 40 miles further away from the gas station worse.

But that wouldn’t have cut it for mishaps.

A few hours later, I started smelling gasoline.  Turns out I had developed a gas leak from where the line connects to the carb.  Not even the line I used to fill up the Dew bottle!   Ugh!  The clamp was a spring-type, so I couldn’t even tighten it.

We made it to Boseman, MT and got to Checker Auto Parts about 15 minutes after they closed.  The manager was nice enough to get me some clamps, but the gas smell hasn’t dissipated.

We made it to Three Forks without any other incidents and can get some decent rest.  We’ll go to the Kansas, Molly Hatchet and “No Quarter” concert tomorrow and then head south through Yellowstone Park on Saturday.

1271 miles down!

Day 3 – Mt Rushmore, Custer, Crazy Horse, Devil’s Tower, Gillette WY

An absolute perfect day!  No problems, no gotchas!  Fantastic weather!

We started off with a nice ride through the Black Hills and hit Mt Rushmore.  Pretty cool looking in person even when you’ve seen it in pictures.

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Rode on through Custer Park and saw some cool buffalo.  It was even funnier when some boneheads got too close to one and it’s baby and the buffalo started to charge them.  Then we got stopped in the road from a pack of mules and then a half-dozen buffalo running across a road.

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and stopped at Crazy Horse monument for some lunch.  That’s going to be one fantastic monument when it’s done!

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We also rode through some burned-out forrest that is regenerating.  Pretty amazing to see.

A lot of “twisty” riding, but an outrageous amount of bikers and other traffic.  Tons of cops in Wyoming (I guess they gotta make some money somehow) but they didn’t get anything out of us.

The last part of the day was spent going past Devil’s Tower on the way to Gillette, Wy.

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864 miles down!

Day 2 – a day to forget… almost

The day started off well.  Left Gettysburg, SD on time and made great time as well.

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Sunflower, corn and fields as far as the eye can see.   It was interesting to see that as soon as we hit the Indian Reservation, we saw a ton of horses.

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Then it happened.  My tail bag fell right off the bike.  The wind was pretty bad, and the constant blowing must have loosened the strap.  Good thing Ludi was following a ways behind so he didn’t get hit by it.  It was laying a good 30 feet from the edge of the road!  The bag looks pretty decent for taking a fall at 75-80 mph.

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We made Sturgis in pretty good time.  Of course traffic caused a problem to appear that I hadn’t noticed out on the open road.  The radiator fan wasn’t working.  So as I’m leaking antifreeze all over the place, I pull into a parking lot.  Had to run to a NAPA and get some parts to rig up the electrical for the fan.  It’s pretty pathetic, but works great.  No more overheating.  It was cool to see that a few people came up and asked if I needed help, or offered some assistance.

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We did some riding down main street in Sturgis.  BIKES,BIKES,BIKES,BIKES,BIKES.  Did I mention WALL2WALL BIKES?  Even saw some sport bikes.

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After leaving Sturgis, it started pouring just as we got into the Deadwood and the Black Hills National Forrest.  VERY nice twisty roads for riding, but with 3 billion bikers, it wasn’t as fast & fun as we both would have liked.

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We stopped at a roadside burger joint for a beer, a burger and a brat.  It was pretty cool and the ducks loved it!  We even got “lai-ed”!!!

Got in to Hill City at about 8pm tonight.  We’re 25 miles from Mt Rushmore or so.  That will be our first destination tomorrow.

 Oh, yeah, while Minnesota is the Land of 10,000 lakes, South Dakota is the land of 10,000 dead skunks in the road! 

Day 1

We got off about 9:45.  Only 45 minutes later than planned.  We rode out US212 most all the way.  Flat.  Lots of crops.  It rained a little but not bad.  And it was warm.  It felt more like Florida!!!

It’s totally different riding with someone instead of by yourself.  It’s a lot of fun.  We have 2-way communication sets (bike to bike) that are sort of working.  More frustrating than anything, but at least you can communicate that you need to stop or whatever.

The only eventful things were me hitting a bird of some sort.  Either a quail or a phesant.   Then there was that thing about a left turn that Ludi almost missed because my jacket was blocking the rear turn signal!  At this rest stop where the pictures you see below were taken, I almost lost Ludi because I ditched in at the last second.  Kinda funny!

We made it to Gettysburg, SD at 8:30pm.  About 2 hours later than planned because we started later than planned and had to take a 40 mile detour.

 A couple of fun pictures to start off….

     

 Tomorrow we should get on the road at 9am (standard start time) and get to Sturgis around noon.  We will stay in Hill City tomorrow night.

Welcome to my Blog.

We leave on Monday, August 6th for a 2 week trip out West.   It will take us through 9 states and 3700 miles.  Some of the highlights include: Sturgis; Mt. Rushmore; Devil’s Tower; a Kansas concert in Three Forks, MT; Yellowstone; Moab, UT; Monument Valley, AZ; and some fantastic rated motorcycle roads.

We’ll be riding 1984 Honda 1100’s, one a Sabre, the other a Magna.

The weather looks good for the first part of the trip (fingers crossed).

I think I learned quite a few lessons from my 2006 trip which took me 6700 miles in 2 weeks.