Iron Butt Ride

K is off this weekend for an Iron Butt ride from Couer d'Alene, ID to Missoula, MT - the long way (1048 miles). They will be leaving at 5am Saturday & hopefully get into Missoula around 8 or 9 p.m. that night. He is raising money & awareness for the Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency that he has. I am excited for him but figured that the 6,000 miles on the Victory Vision this spring/summer was enough Iron Butt for me!

Keep him in your prayers - the weather is supposed to be beautiful - I'm sure he'll be exhausted when he gets home on Sunday afternoon.

Unfortunately we've missed several rides & events this summer because of our move to Colfax, Washington. But again, the 6,000 miles on the bike this spring/summer sort of made up for the misses. We'll hit them again next year unless we ride to Texas like we've talked about. More on that later!

Return Trip Day 6: Home Sweet Home

We made it! We actually rode our motorcycle nearly 6,000 miles. I can tell you now that we both had our doubts but we leaned on each other to get through this wonderful adventure. We met dozens of people at gas stations, rest areas, and motels who asked us about our bike & almost coast-to-coast trip. These were bikers, truckers, RVers, rest area attendent, parents, kids, young, old, middle-aged, from all walks of life. I have to admit that this - not the scenery - was the best part of the trip. Talking to the American people - the very backbone of our great country - was the true high point of our travels. While our dd & her graduation/wedding were the purpose once we arrived in NH - the traveling there & back was our true adventure. Our country is going to be just fine - people are not depressed, are working, are planting fields & raising livestock, are buying local produce, are rebuilding our roads, and are not complaining but are simply doing their part to get us back on our feet. If the Wall Street types had the moxy and ethics of these everyday folks, this county wouldn't be in the fix it is currently facing.

Our last day on the road started early as neither of us could sleep much past 6 a.m. so we got on the road before the rest of Billings even opened their eyes. The severe thunderstorm had raged for quite a while last night but all the rain had cleared the air and everything seemed refreshed. As we left town heading for Bozeman, the sky was blue with hardly a cloud in the sky! We were glad we were on our final leg of this remarkable trip. We chatted over our bluetooth microphones and the time just flew by. Bozeman was visible as we wound down the mountainside. As we started into Bozeman proper, Ken began passing a Jeep Cherokee. The Jeep began slowing down although all Ken knew was the vehicle had no brake lights and had nearly stopped. He came around the Jeep at about 65 mph and he suddenly saw the issue - 6 or 7 small deer were running across the freeway (I-90). He braked hard - very hard - and I held on not knowing exactly what was transpiring. Ken successfully missed all of the deer although they were so small that if we had hit one, it would have lost. Anyway, we were very glad that we didn't have to feel bad about killing a small deer.

We stopped in Bozeman to eat breakfast and take our morning rest period. The breakfast was not spectacular but it was edible and the company was enjoyable. We walked out of the restaurant to find the sky had been filled with black and very ugly clouds. We knew it would probably get us wet if we didn't get out of town soon. A little ways outside of Bozeman, we did run into a little sprinkling of rain - just enough to get the roads wet. There were horrible t-storm clouds to the south so we were thrilled to see that we were heading north/northwest!

The photo above is just one of the beautiful scenery along our trek. It is in Montana and it was obviously the scene of a wildfire some years ago. It was a dramatic contrast to the other scenery; however, it exemplifies how I see this country - we can take the disasters and still come back stronger than ever.

So the rest of our trip was pretty straightforward - we ran into a few little rain storms but they would last a few miles and then stop - so we weren't getting wet at all. We stopped several times and at one of these stops we met a Victory rider from Minnesota. We were in Coeur d'Alene so he was the one far from home. He was amazed (I think mostly b/c we were older than him) that we drove all those miles. He drove a beautiful Cory Ness Jackpot.

Anyway, one more stop before getting home was at the rest area near Potlatch on Hwy 95. We had chatted with a trike rider & his wife for several minutes, got an ice cold water from the vending machine, and used the facilities. We were fixin' to leave when a gentleman & his family drove in. He had several questions that Ken answered including where were we going to & coming from. He told us that he was behind us by a piece, and they had had t-storm w/torrential downpour and hail - we had missed that by just a few hours. If we would have stayed in bed any longer this morning we may have hit that nasty storm. There is usually a reason for everything!!

I'm signing off now - our long trip is done. I will be using this site to add trips that we take & other motorcycle related news. Enjoy your summer & God bless!

Return Trip Day 5: Billings, MT

Happy 4th of July - Happy Birthday America! Our 4th started out gray, misty, and foggy in Murdo, SD but ended beautifully in Billings, Montana under partly cloudy skad of mies and 86 degrees. But I am getting ahead of myself...let's start back in South Dakota.

Just a few miles west of Murdo is a very cool place called 1880 Town, It professes to be the first town of South Dakota but it also has a herd of registered Texas Longhorns! We observed the herd from the highway and they are beautiful animals. If you are ever in the vicinity, check it out. The other attractions that we would like to come back to see are Mt. Rushmore, the Badlands, as well as the 1880 Town.

We left the interstate just after Sturgis onto U.S. 84. towards the little town of Belle Fourche - population about 4,500. This is a pretty cool town - rural, cowboy, and sort of old fashioned - which we would have found very endearing if we hadn't gotten caught in their 4th of July parade (the picture in this post)...for an hour or more....because we took a route that shortened our trip by 70 miles! Once we finally get through this picturesque town and turn left onto U.S. 212, we see yet another road construction sign and pretty much say "not again".

A few miles later we are stopped yet again, this time by a flag person and a huge line of semis, cars, and even a couple of motorcycles. We only have to wait in this line about 15 or 20 minutes but interestingly enough the person who pulled up behind us was from Coeur d'Alene (definitely a very small world). After this second delay in our progress, we are finally back on the road heading towards Montana.

Along the way, I did see prairie dogs, antelopes, deer, and a ton of black cows. I wasn't able to get photos of any of them; however, so you'll just have to take me at my word. Today was a very fun day - not nearly as long as normal (intentional to get us off the roads early) - and just purely an enjoyable time together.

When we arrived in Billings it was partly cloudy & 86 degrees. Currently we are under a t-storm warning and the storm is raging outside. We are snug in our room and will deal with a wet bike seat tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow I will be filing our final post for this trip. I will; however, write future blogs regarding other trips we may take. So stay tuned for more adventures of these Victory bikers.

Return Trip Day 4: Murdo, SD

Once again we started our day off with gray and dismal sky. We woke up in Waterloo, IA with the gray sky but it was already warming up. By the time we reached Murdo, SD several hours later, it was grayer and rained on us for about half of our ride. But on the bright side, we were not as wet after being rained on nearly half the day as we were in the one downpour on day 1 in Albany, NY.

We rode through Iowa, Minnesota, and most of South Dakota. We talked with many other bikers today and met alot of really great people. While we were getting gas in Iowa this morning, we saw a bunch of old cars pull in. Today's picture is one of those. We saw a whole buch more travelling south on I35 today...destination unknown.

On a nearly deserted stretch of I90 we saw a giant bull head sculpure. I didn't have time to take a picture but did a quick search on the Internet at the hotel and found this link if you are interested...it' pretty strange.

The largest sculpture in the park is a 60 foot tall bull head. This sculpture took three years to build, weighs 25 tons, and is equal in size to the heads of Mt. Rushmore.

We are still 2 days from home so you never know what we might see. Stay tuned and we'll talk tomorrow when we come to you from Billings, MT - have a happy & safe 4th of July--God bless America.

Return Trip Day 3: Waterloo, IA

Today started out gray and cool with zero blue sky. However, we were confident that we would see sunshine and at least some blue sky before the end of the day. We were right and it was 78 degrees too! We did not get wet today and we got about 560 miles closer to home.

I did learn that the state of Illinois doesn't know what constitutes a BUMP. We hit a multitude of "bumps" that were actually small mountains! They were either frost heaves or just patches gone bad. But regardless, these huge bumps caused extreme discomfort (as well as huge headaches) for us and the bike. So some distance down the road, during one round of road construction or another, a bright orange sign was seen on the side of the road with BUMP written on it. we heeded this warning since we were still nursing a headache from the last bump we had encountered, we braced for the Illinois-sized "bump". You can only imagine our surprise when the advertised BUMP turned out to be nothing more than a slightly over-sized anthill. I nearly fell off the bike laughing..at least until we hit the next unadvertised version of BUMP!

The above picture shows the beautiful tile art at the Davenport, IA rest area...it is the prettiest rest area I've seen so far!


We are hoping to be home Sunday. We will be stopping in Murdo, SD and Billings, MT the next two nites. Have a safe 4th of July and we'll talk tomorrow. God bless.

Return Trip Day 2: Fremont, OH

Today was not quite as wet and we rode more miles. We rode through at least 3 cloudbursts and 3 states. That is why I don't have many photos today!

We figured out a great bypass for Cleveland, OH. We went through Cleveland right around 5pm and we lived through it. So here we are - Fremont, OH - waiting for a major rainstorm - hopefully it will pass before morning. We will be taking a slightly different route tomorrow - we are going to stay on I80 to Iowa City and then take 380 to Waterloo, IA. The fourth day we will continue on to I90 and then pretty much the same route home from there. Tired - think maybe a hot bath is in order...have a great evening.

Return trip Day 1: Albany, NY

We left New Hampshire mid-morning this gray dismal day. It had rained during the night but had stopped before we were ready to leave. We took a slightly different route that Amanda suggested and it was a much better road but a bit slower speed limit. We went thru Concord (pronounced con-curd; not con-cord) and eventually ended up in the "moose town" - Bennington, VT - that we had observed on the way to NH. The picture I've added is one of those moose in this town.

Unfortunately, it began raining on us here so we decided to scoot on down the road in hopes of getting thru the storm pretty quickly. It rained on us - off & on - for nearly 30 miles. We had almost gotten to Troy, NY when the thunder & lightening started. We found a small diner fairly quickly & decided it was time for our dinner. We found there were severe t-storms throughout the area once inside. We ate a slow meal - enjoying the food and each other.

The rain & wind had died down by the time we were done but we decided to find a motel to hold up for the night to let this thing blow itself out. By the time we arrived in Albany it was a virtual downpour and we were getting wet due to the slow moving traffic (now rush hour). We took a wrong turn and ended up in a not so hot neighborhood. We did stumble upon a Hilton but decided we needed to be a little more frugal than that so we could afford another night or two of hotels before we arrive home.

It took us several miles - heading straight for the lightening at times - and lots of traffic to finally find a Super 8. We only racked up just under 200 miles - so we're going to try to make up some time over the next few days. Wish us luck & keep us in your prayers.

Return Trip

We are leaving the very rainy state of New Hampshire in the morning. I will blog each night after we stop to let you know how our day was and how far we travelled that day. We are not making reservations clear across so we don't have to get to a certain location each night. That definitely takes the pressure off - especially with all of the road construction we ran into along the way. And it allows us to stop a bit more and really absorb some of the local ambiance.

Keep us in your prayers and thoughts and in return we promise not to drive faster than our guardian angels can fly. Our love to everyone!

Day 5: Rochester, NH

We have arrived! What an amazing trip out here. We had nearly perfect weather until we crossed into New Hampshire - it then proceeded to rain like there was no tomorrow! We eventually got a bit wet after driving thru the rain for an hour or more. But it wasn't like we are made of sugar or anything.

We had the most amazing day of the trip today. We decided to trust the GPS unit and it toojk us off the beaten path. We ended up on U.S 7 from Albany, NY thru Vermont. I can't easily explain how phenomenal the route was. It took over mountains and thru towns that we would never had driven thru otherwise. Old houses with a ton of character, old schoolhouses still in use, and scenery off of postcards. I had written this blog in my head as we drove thru the area and of course, I cannot think of a handful of sentences I used to describe it at the time. I wish I could do it justice. The picutre here doesn't do this part of the country justice either.

So this is probably the last blog entry until we start back around the first. I may post another entry between now & then but no promises. God bless!

Day 4: Batavia, NY

I am not able to upload photo today but will add it when I get a decent internet connection.

We drove over 700 miles today through Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and into New York. We spent We had another beautiful - although a bit too humid for my liking - day. The temp hovered around 90 degrees with the humidity between 70 and 80 percent (guessing).

It's late and we are pretty tired so I'm cutting this short. We arrive in New Hampshire tomorrow so I'll try to blog when we arrive but no promises. Enjoy.

Day 3: Rockford, IL

A little over 700 miles today - about 12 hrs on the bike. We are hold up in a hotel w/a pizza being delivered and a jacuzzi in the rm. So forgive me if I don't write a short novel tonite. Very tired and a bit sore but the weather has been beautiful for us so far - blue sky, sunshine and only a few high clouds.

Today we finished up South Dakota, blew thru Minnesota (including the county some of my grandmother's family came from), and Wisconsin. We are about 13 miles inside of Illinois. The smartest thing we did was to buy an ez-pass for the toll roads....awesome just blowing thru the toll plazas!

We saw miles and miles of family farms and dairies and more dairies! There were a few pig farms also...didn't see them...didn't have to...PU!! It is beautiful, green, and busy. This is the heart of America...didn't hear anything political just nice, interesting people talking with us about our bike. No whining and no evidence so far of these poor economic times. We are so thankful that we live in this awesome country.

BTW, the photo was a silo in Wisconsin w/a pumpkin/jack o'lantern on top. it was cool.

Enjoy and we'll talk again tomorrow.

Day 2: Murdo, SD

Wow...850 miles and tons of road construction but we made it to Murdo, SD as planned. We saw the fabulous continental divide at about 5600 ft. and such a spectacular view of God's handiwork. But if you've never gone over the divide (or any mountain range for that matter) on a bike you have really missed out. The sights are so close you can touch them and the smells--oh my! They are out of this world!

We saw, smelled, and interacted with so much....mountains, plains, hills, cattle (yep, we even saw a herd of Longhorns along the way), sheep, buffalo, and some assorted deer. We also smelled the occassional skunk, noxious weed, and feedlot!

This trip is turning out to be far more than I imagined. I am so thankful to be able to go on this journey with my best friend - my husband.

Day 1: Photos

Day 1: Missoula, MT

We left early this morning and arrived in Missoula around 2:00 pm local time. We had an awesome, enjoyable journey over 4th of July pass - a bit on the cool side but no problem for us. We met up with Deakin, Randi, and kids for a couple of hours. They are wonderful and looking forward to the arrival of Brenton in September. Not much else to say...keep us in your prayers and we'll talk tomorrow.

Tomorrow

It's finally time.....we're fixin' to start our adventure in the morning. We spent most of the evening packing the bike and taking care of the last minute stuff around here. We're going to be washing clothes several times while we're away but you can't overpack on a bike! More tomorrow night - after only a few hundred miles. Later....

10 days & counting

We are just 10 days from actually leaving on our trip to the East Coast. Wow...it is down to the wire. Yesterday, our parish priest blessed our motorcycle (picture on left) - so all we have left to do now is get new tires & an oil change, send a box of clothes back east, and pack our clothes for the trip. Doesn't sound like much! LOL...

At least we know that God will be watching over us & we promise not to drive faster than our Guardian Angel can fly!

Keep us in your prayers & watch for updates beginning on Day 1.

Until then.....remember, love is that important!

Tentative Itinerary

Day 1: home to Missoula, MT (approximately 240 miles) - afternoon/evening only
Day 2: Missoula to Murdo, SD (794 miles) - hardest day
Day 3: Murdo to Rockford, IL (701 miles) - not so bad (promised a hot tub!!)
Day 4: Rockford to Batavia, NY (approximately 700 miles)
Day 5: Batavia to Rochester, NH (488 miles) - easy day

I will be posting updates and photos while we are on the road so watch for those. When we have a return trip itinerary, I'll post it here. Keep us in your prayers.

Testing Our Blog

Welcome! We are getting more & more excited every day. Our trip is getting closer all the time. We're going to be leaving Idaho and traveling across our great nation to New Hampshire. Our wonderful, youngest, daughter is graduating from college so we thought this was a good excuse to ride our 2009 Victory Vision from here to there & back again.

We're hoping to have our Iron Butt certification by the end of the first day. We'll try to do a little over 1,000 miles within 24 hours. Wish us luck on that!

We'll be sending email updates and adding photos as we make our journey. Follow along & leave us comments. We might even stop in your hometown!

God bless & keep us in your prayers!