June 2012

I will be blogging here once again beginning on June 3, 2012 as we start our next multi-state adventure. We are off to Austin, Texas to see our oldest grandson, Ryan, graduate from high school! I cannot believe I am saying those words but it is true. We will also get to visit our two daughters that live there as well (including 6 other grandchildren that we haven't seen for a couple of years!). So if you are interested, follow us on our next journey and see some of the pictures that I hope to capture. We are expecting to take some scenic routes so expect some spectacular photos! Thanks for your support and we'll see you in June.

Riding Update

I can't believe that July is nearly half over. The summer riding has been pretty sparse since we've had pretty crappy weather. Ken was able to go for a weekend jaunt with the local Victory group in April. They went north to Sandpoint - over to Montana - south to Missoula and the next day they went from Missoula to Lewiston, ID via Lolo Pass. There was still snow on the pass - thankfully not on the roads. I stayed home so missed out on all the fun.

We've ridden the bike to Mass a few times and down to Lewiston this week. But no long rides so far. We're planning to ride with the Victory group to La Grande, OR next month & go to the Bronze Bike Rally in Joseph. Hopefully the weather will cooperate. We were going to take the bike last weekend to Cottonwood, ID - we went to St. Gertrude's for a very restful retreat. However, between the unsettled weather AND the seal coating AND bridge work between Lewiston & Cottonwood - we opted for the truck instead. It was much more relaxing but the bike would've been fine too.

Next year (2012), we are planning a trip in early June to Austin, TX. Our oldest grandson, Ryan, will be graduating from high school and we're going to take a couple of weeks off to go down and back. It should be a great trip and not quite as long as the NH trip was (nearly 1,000 miles shorter). I will be blogging on that ride and uploading pictures to here and probably facebook. I am really looking forward to that trip.

Until the next update, God bless and never drive faster than your angel can fly!

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.