Rambling thru life

LoriAnn isn't getting a free ride on this trip! She is a vital and integral working part of the machine that keeps us moving. Often, while flying down the road i will say into the Sena intercom "Talk to me Goose". In the movie Top Gun, Maverick and Goose were one team while flying. That is the type of relationship LoriAnn and I have developed on this trip. Her many roles include: copilot, steward, photo journalist, and chaplain. As a copilot she watches for traffic, keeps me informed of wild life, provides me local eye on the sky weather reports, and ensures that I am flight ready.  Whats flight ready? Sometimes I need a break or I should be done for the night and I don't know it.  She will encourage the stop. In larger towns where a cell tower signal exists she has helped navigate thru town or to a point of interest. As the steward she provides my snacks while in flight. She carries in the pockets of her jacket (in baggies) life saver mints a

Otis the camel may have tipped the balance in our travel relationship. We left Rapid City and barreled down I 90 towards Wall SD. Many of us grew up knowing about Wall Drug advertised  along the road through SD. If you somehow missed learning about Wall Drug, google it. Having been to Wall Drug before, we just passed through town. From Wall we headed through the South Dakota Badlands. We took this side trip to break up the monotony of the highway. Each of us had been through there at least once, and were glad we did again. The views, and scenery through this 'bad' land is inspiring.  Toward the East end, a rain cloud opened up on us. Knowing it was a short burst, we road thru it.  We dried out on flying down the road Somewhere between Wall and Mitchell, is South Dakota's original  1880 Town . A feature at the town is Otis the Camel.  Now LoriAnn saw that Otis the Camel was there and she suggested we see him.  We had already blasted past the 1880 Town so that woul

We've known all along that the trip would have to end.  But it sucks to be ahead of schedule, and running out of fun. Tomorrow we start the trek across the flat lands toward home. Some of our scheduled route had been planned to be aggresive.  But we also had a few days were we just over achieved because we could. Such as it was, we have found ourselves a day ahead of schedule. So we added stops at Devils Tower and Mount Rushmore to the agenda. This was LoriAnn's first trip to Devils Tower so I encouraged her to join me on the walk around the tower. The walk is only 1.3 miles, on a asphalt paved path, circling the tower. A circle has 360 degrees to it. As fascinating as the tower is, a person could easily take 360 photos of it on the walk. We saw 2 different sets of climbers going up. Thats a sport for a younger person than me!  Its always a fun to stop and see Mount Rushmore. But the scenic route to it is also pleasure run on a motorcycle. LoriAnn had seen the

Not many people can say they drove on top of the world! We left Cooke City on the  Beartooth Highway  heading for Red Lodge, WY.  We crossed over the Beartooth Pass. The Beartooth Pass is one of the highest and most rugged areas in the lower 48 states, with 20 peaks reaching over 12,000 feet in elevation. In the surrounding mountains, glaciers are found on the north flank of nearly every mountain peak over 11,500 feet high. The Road itself is the highest elevation highway in Wyoming (10,947 feet) and Montana (10,350 feet), and is the highest elevation highway in the Northern Rockies. At Red Lodge we turned east, heading southwest back into Wyoming. This region was suppose to get rain and it began to develop west of us as we left Red Lodge, and it chased us east across Wyoming. While constantly watching over our shoulders, we headed uphill into the Big Horn National Forest, and went through another pass. Throughout this journey, our Sena Bluetooth he

Have you ever wondered where UPS will deliver too? Oddly, where ever I head to, on a motorcycle, a UPS truck will impede my journey.  We found this UPS in a remote northern part of the Yellowstone park. We left Jackson and headed north toward Yellowstone. To our west was the Teton Mountain range. As we got closer to the Yellowstone gate, the ski was darkening so we pulled over and suited up for rain. Just as we got back onto the road the ski opened up. When the bike is moving we are not affected, as much, by the rain. So when we got to the gate and had to sit in line for 10 minutes, we got drenched. To make matters worse, it hailed upon us. Traffic thru the park sucked! If you plan to go anywhere fast, dont! We got wet. About 15 minutes from Old Faithful, the rain stopped.  We visited a scenic overlook and then pulled into the Old Faithful parking lot. There were tons of cars, lots of traffic, and numerous people. Since we had a wait for the eruption, we bought some souven

Did you ever play the game Oregon Trail? Today we left Mountain Home and traveled east on Hwy 20. Our route either ran on, crossed over or parralled the Oregon trail. The begining of todays journey took us up and over a minor mountain pass. After that, it was another very straight route. LoriAnn is beginning to wonder if I know where I'm going. I have gotten the states of Idaho and Utah mixed up numerous times. I had to go back and edit last nights post because I had Utah  in it numerous times.  We are not going to Utah, never have. My apologies to Idaho. Down the road we started to pass lava fields. One of our adventures today was Crators on the moon natioanl park.  Here we learned of the cauldron that existed from the middle of Idaho into Yellowstone. The Earth's core is close to the surface, which has resulted in Volcanos that created this land. The latest valcano in Utah erupted over 2000 years ago. Many of you know about Yellowstone being a very active region,

Wifi is bad tonight. The motel signal was non existent on our side of the building. Sprint signal was strong but bandwidth was horrible. We are safe in Mountain Home Idaho. We road 497 miles today. 300+ from Reno to Elko NV, then 2 lane road from Elko to Mountain Home.  We had one stretch of 40 miles very straight road. It would have been fun to open up the throttle, but the wind and trailer held me back. Idaho must use the same crap to patch the cracks in the road as Minnesota because the tar snakes were slippery than snot. We found a real cool canyon just south of the Idaho border. The creeks water was fron the Wild Horse Reservoir. The rock formations along the road were awesome.  With the bike loaded and me being at the end of the hot day, I took the curves conservatively. We had a miracle stop for gas and bathroom at Idaho border. We went through the town Owyhee and saw no place to stop. I was prepared to go into fuel conservation mode. Both of us were prepared to use the ro

Remeber the goals of this bucket list trip? Goals: I need to reach the states of Idaho, Washigton, Oregon, California and Nevada. I also need to reach the Pacific Ocean. After accomplishing these i can say that i have ridden in all 48 lower states and I have reached the Atlantic, Pacific, the Gulf and all five great lakes. Today, LoriAnn and I completed the last 2 of our objectives! Although we are happy to have accomplished this, we recognize the journey is not over. So, its too early to celebrate. We managed to check out of the motel early, to get on the road and try to avoid the heat.  We left Klamath Falls and heaed southeast to Reno.  A lot of the trip was through Modoc National Forest in California. We stopped for gas in Adin Ca. The owner of this store told us about the increase in cougars and wolves in the area.  She also told us how the local logging economy failed because of the spotted owl.  Across the road from the store was tower where the milling company us

I wish i new how many curves i went around today. We headed out of Reedsport on HWY 38 and traveled upstream along the Umpqua river.  About 50 miles later we turned on HWY 138 for another 100 miles. Thats 150 miles of curvy roads climbing to an altitude of 3000 feet.  What a climb, what a road to travel... this combination deserves ☆☆☆☆☆! The sign says it all for ~150 miles After following the Umpqua river to its start, we headed into Crater Lake National Park.  I had checked the route on Tuesday and knew the west rim road to the lake was open and that we would see snow. But LoriAnn was clueless that she would be in snow. I was surprised how much was left. Creater lake is the deepest lake in the United States with a depth of 1,949 feet. Before we got to the lake we had to go through road construction at the top of the mountain. We waited about 30 minutes for a pilot car to take us through it. The worst of it was about a mile long, On loose rock and sand we traveled on

Another goal met today: Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and now the Pacific Ocean. We are 4/6 done. We left the motel, topped off the tank and started West on I 84 into Portland. Just miles down the road we hit traffic. It was the stop and go variety. Nothing worse than sitting in traffic, pulling a trailer, not really sure where your going.  Downtown Portland has banked corner road surfaces, that we were stopped on. It's not good to be stopped, feet on the ground, on a banked road surface. Once moving again LoriAnn got onto the cell phone and guided me through all the turns. LoriAnn travels with her cell phone in a water proof pouch that has a lanyard wrapped around her neck. She also has the camera on a lanyard. This makes her a great co pilot, navigator, and photo journalist. We ran out of Portland on HWY 26 for about 30 minutes. Then we turned West on HWY 6. This was a excellent route thru the mountains and the Tillamook state  forest on winding roads. I highly reco

Sometimes all you can do is take the route your on, then sit back and see where you end up. I'm not sure what relevance the above sentence is to todays adventure, but i liked it so I'm leaving it in... LOL! Leaving the motel we stopped at the gas station, which was right next door, for fuel for the bike and air for the tires.  The left trailer tire has a slow leak, and needs to be filled every 2 days. The bike tires always need to be checked and topped off at 42 psi. This station charged me $1 for air. The trailer tire filled ok. However, the nozzle only let air out of my rear tire. Bummer!  We had to gently cruise to another station. This one worked, but here i had to pay $1.50. We left Ritzville and headed south to Kennewick. This road was a limited access highway that ran through flat plains. When i think of the state of Washington I envision lush green forests. These dry plains were more like Nebraska. South of Knnewick we picked up HWY 14.  14 runs along the Col