Part 1
May 26 - 31
We depart our families and fly out to San Diego to Places on the left side of the US.
Looking for Something...
Can't find what you are looking for, email us and if we don't have it, I'm sure we can point you in the right direction.
Part 2, June 1-8
John and Howard's part 2 on the road
Part 2, June 1-8, 2021
June 1,
Day 6 of 22, 382/1376 mile, 8 hours drive time.
“Big wheels keep on rolling”, thank you Janice Joplin for that bouncing around my brain for the day. Today was our Iron butt day, (a long day in the saddle). North grand canyon, I'm up at 5:15, and Howard is packed and ready to go. He generously saves me some hot water for coffee, and I quickly break camp, excited to hit the road today at 6:17, I needed a second cup of coffee. Leaving Grand Canyon, we stop to watch some deer. It is a cool and clear morning. Stopping for gas, we are able to chat with a retired UPS dude, headed to his friend in Oregon, who lives off the grid?? Hmm.. Nice guy and some great bits of advice. Leaving we are expecting hot temps heading near four corners. The ride turns out to be not so hot, except for a few bits. Stopping for lunch at the blue coffee pot, is great, well, except for the moment of total panic, as I thought I lost my wallet (and my mind). I had put it back in the same pocket, but a zip closer to the back of my ginormous riding vest, and Howard finds it, all is saved. I'm thinking what do I do, no cc, no license, oiiiii. I am more careful now. Onward we travel, and it is cooler than anticipated, very nice. We stop for gas two more times and a couple of breaks to stretch and water. Our goal... Monument Valley, but the lookout it closed and open only to people staying at the hotel and is guarded. I had noticed at the Blue Coffee Pot, masks are required. While paying at the counter previous to losing my wallet, I tell a guy, hey maskup, he says “aren't we all vaccinated?” I want to say, it’s not about you, but those that might not be vaccinated. Cashier pipes in that most of the tribal Indians have not been vaccinated. The guy puts his mask on and all is good. Back to the dusty trail, we pass many rivers, like the San Juan, and amazing rolling plains, Mexican Hat is really cool and one that looks like a lady sitting and pondering why anyone would be out on these dusty plains. We both agree the conditions are better than we anticipated. It is hot, but not unbearable. We stop for water at a tiny run-down place, and find only the beer is cold, water bottles are cool, and all other drinks are kept at the day’s temp, today was about 85-90… So is the bottled water. Continuing we arrive at Mesa Verde National park and are quickly amazed at the quality of the park. High altitude, it is wonderful with cool air you can almost drink in. The first sign driving in and second we see are, "marijuana is illegal in national parks", welcome to colorado. With that said, we get a great campsite at MoreField campground, next to the laundry and free showers. I think they must have smelled me and made it free. After a refreshing shower (best all week) and now washing clothes at 8:30pm and is still light out. Do we stay another day, or continue?? Stay tuned, you are curious, as are we!
June 2, Day 7 of 22
34 miles out of 1410 total, I suspect we had a few more, but mostly spent exploring
At Mesa Verde, Colorado, truly another amazing place for anyone to visit. Historic buildings built into the cliffs then abandoned most likely due to changing climate conditions. The area is now very hot and I can't imaging it supporting farming, water is not found in the valley floors while we visited.
Let’s back it up a bit, as I’m now sitting in the very warm laundry facility at camp, drinking a local "Pagan Porter", from a local microbrewery, Mancosbrewingcompany.com, a nice beer, that satisfies my pallet. I have a second in case the first doesn't cool me off adequately. The morning started with blue skies and a breakfast burrito at the local food place. It works and thank god they include salsa and more hot coffee. Life is groovy! Off we go to drive the park, amazing views of the area as we are way up at about 8, thousand feet. So air is cool and thin. We meet a couple from Arizona, both on Harley's. Lady has put 80k miles in two years, and both are off to different parts of the east coast, very cool people. It is very different than Hawaii, hot in the sun, cold in the shade, I guess we can blame that on low humidity. Howard and I put in several miles of walking checking out the structures in the cliffs. Pictures do not do it justice, but I have several to see regardless. I'm hanging out at a laundry facility for the internet. The Internet is slow... Aghhhhhh, a couple of microbrews help, but I'm about to give up. On the flip side, I'm sorta glad that national parks don't have a ton of internet, as people would be looking at phones, not scenery... It is now 6:20 pm, we are off to Durango -=> Montrose -=> Black canyon of the Gunnison national park in the am. Rock on!
June 3, Day 8 of 22
203/1613 (corrected to 1773 miles total via odometer) 5 hours and 30 minutes of travel.
Odometer check, we started at 115,535 in San Diego and are now at 117,308, or 1773 miles total in one week
Wow, is the word of the day. Howard says, "Million Dollar Highway (MDH), best ride yet! It's going to be hard to beat. Awsome views". Up early about 5 am, we leave around 6:15, expecting cooler weather. Heading to Durango, about 35 minutes away it is pleasantly warm. Nice roads and an easy ride. Arriving at Durango, we get gas and search for the internet, bonus we find c0ffee123 (that’s the password, don’t tell anyone) and internet at Joes Coffee. Spending about 40 minutes with fast internet, my google photo dump lets me dump pictures to the google cloud to at least Monday. Catching up at work, life is good on the home front as well. Leaving Durango, we hit the best ride yet, MDH, super fantastic ride, cool air, trees, snow, great road, and not a lot of cars. Truly a great ride. I joked if we should go back and do it again today. Continuing on the 550 we head to Montrose and stop for lunch at Apple Annies. Nice, a/c, steak sandwich, two iced teas, it is hot. Only 90's, but must be humidity or something. Howard finds that the lower 50 heading east is closed for road construction, so we decide to hit the North entrance to Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Wow, long hot drive, and off the beaten path. Howard's magic luck finds us the best campsite, next to the ledge, and bathrooms, we have set up tents and are now contemplating a hike once I put the laptop down. Back in a few!
Well, the hike was easy, except for the heights that look straight down, which makes one’s knees buckle. We hang out and talk story, then go back at sunset for another view. Doing so we meet five students from North Caroline that just graduated. They had hiked down and back up. It looks like a very hard hike as I'm pretty sure I couldn't do it. View with sunset is epic and talking with this group that is about to start life, is refreshing. They have these tents that flip open on top of their cars, a toyota land cruiser, and a subaru. Looks like a great idea, maybe I can rent one if Janet and I make it to Glacier Park in August or September. It is now 9:30 and I'm up for sunrise in the morning. Tomorrow could be a long day of driving as we might make a push for Jill’s sisters just past Boulder, Colorado. It looks like we are going to skip Glacier National Park and are hoping we can do grand Tetons, and Yellowstone, before heading back for shipping of bikes on the 17th by 4 pm. The map shows slow roads to Jamestown, 308 miles, but over six hours of driving. If we leave at 6:30, with fuel and hydration breaks, we could make it by maybe 6 pm. Let’s see what June 4th does for us.
June 4, Day 9 of 22
287/1900 miles
We made it to Jill’s sisters, Jennifer's in Jamestown, CO. We are greeted with "Aloha H & J" on the door. A quick shower in the coolest shower I have ever seen. Suddenly clean, hydrated, and internet, life is good. Ohh and an amazing Avery brewing co. beer "Warden Whiskey Barrel-aged stout", ono-licious for sure. I may not be upright much longer, or coherent in my words of wisdom. Sitting outside on the deck next to a babbling stream, it is magical with the sunlight on the river water and trees dancing in the light, evening.
Today we drove from the northside of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison national park. Howard is up early, before 5 and soon I start to move, the night was relatively warm, and the morning is pretty nice. Breaking camp, some coffee, we head out. Gravel roads show several rabbits bidding us farewell. The road out seems quicker than when we headed in, washboard road and dirt, the hills are lighting up as the sun peaks over the ridges. The ride out is super twisty and with minimal traffic. With the cool rocky mountain air and snowy peaks, we are now able to share some great music heading to Jamestown with our intercoms. We take a detour at red rock, and somehow my navigation has us back at where we started. Nice Canyon drives tho. Passing thru Boulder turns out to be hot with some (lots) of road work taking place. A beautiful college town, as we can enjoy it, red light to red light. Driving up to Jill's sisters is a blast and good news, in that we are near the top of the canyon. As tomorrow we continue up and over to ride part of the "Peak to Peak". Beautiful home, that Chris and Jennifer designed and built. Talking story over perfect steaks it is suddenly 9:30 and we need to leave tomorrow by 7am to avoid the crowds. Thus far, we will head up the canyon and turn right heading to Estes Park, Maybe Grand lake for a coffee and onto SteamBoat then on to Grand Tetons, about 555 miles may make it a two-day trip.
2415 miles over 14 days is 172 miles per day....
June 5, Day 10 of 22
I need to check the odometer....I flipped 118,000 miles and, per the map, we did 601 miles in 12 hours, our iron but day, but not a bad ride. My GPS is not being kind, so the tracking that it was doing is on hold. But we are now just outside of the Grand Tetons at a little place called Big Sandy Campground, next to Haystack Butte. But let’s take it from the start.
Up early as Father and Son head off to classes, Conall is an up-and-coming fire crew trainee, taking a myriad of classes, both online and with Chainsaws, I’m not sure how he juggles it all. His father is the local fire chief and an amazingly talented person. They roll out the door, and Jennifer, Howard, and I talk story around the breakfast table. Ohhh Bacon... Still full from eating the entire cow (giant perfect steak) the night before. We slowly put our riding clothes on and try to get out the door by 7 am. Giant hugs all the way around and tons of “Aloha” & “Mahalos”, we roll up the street in a cloud of dust and continue up the canyon, as it connects to the Peak to Peak highway. Heading to the park we pass Estes and continue to Grand Lake lodge. Getting there is a blast as we pass over the Colorado Rockies and thru snow berms and even watch a couple of cute little animals (Meramouts) near the top. Once over the top, we pass the continental divide and quickly leave the snow behind for Grand Lake Lodge. Arriving, we are greeted with coffee and a muffin, most kind. The place is cute, and different from what I expected. The view is amazing of a large lake. You can almost imagine the large sailing vessels that raced the lake many years ago. We leave heading to the town of Steamboat. Seems sorta the Waikiki of the midwest full of people and red lights with cars. It is packed full of people as we roll from one red light to the next, we skip it and roll on. Who needs water and gas.... We must be putting the miles on as we stop for gas yet again, a quick bite and drink gets us rolling on down the highway. My google program has us turn just before Browns park national refuge onto a very dirty road. If it wasn’t for a couple of Harley-Davidson's coming from the road, we would have gone another way. Thinking it will be 95 miles of gravel, we enter with an air of caution. It is pretty cool and you can almost imagine with the steep canyon walls on either side of us, the bandits attacking and cutting off our escape! But we roll on thru maybe 15 miles of packed gravel before rolling onto blacktop again. We don't see a lot of cars, so we just stop on the road to hydrate, stretch and relax before continuing on. After 175 miles from our last fill-up, we get to Rock springs. It is a mining town and kinda funky. At this point, my cell phone/calendar/social media/email and... gps navigation program is on the fritz. The gps gets lost and stops working. We roam around rock springs, and finally using just the map, we navigate to a chevron and next door for some burgers. It is now 7:30 and we are miles from our potential campsite, but we continue on arriving at camp by 9 pm after a long day of riding. It is breezy but we are rewarded with an amazing sunset, and eventually, the winds calm leaving us and the wild horses to enjoy the campground. Tomorrow we roll thru Jackson hole and the town of Teton, and up into Yellowstone. Cross your fingers for a camping spot, nothing is available on the site and many campsites are closed for the season.
Sweat dreams!
Jc
Ok a little later on June 6, Day 11 of 22
118194-118332 or 138 miles. Seems longer than that...
We have made it to the foothills of Yellowstone and are in Jacksonholel Wyoming. More later!
Back to today’s ride, we are both up early, Howard is now super quick to break camp having worked out loading his bike. I think I blink and his tent is loaded on his bike while waiting on me drinking a cup of coffee. I think it is magic. I’m curious how we both tend to get up early, well at least early for me, but I do love the morning. We take our time and leave at about 6:30 It is a nice cool morning and the winds are down. In and out of ravines, a few towns later and suddenly I'm low on fuel. Not good.. All bars on the gas gauge are gone, 20 miles later, the gas light comes on. I think, "Maybe I should have stopped at the last gas station", but noooo I radio Howard about my low fuel, but we carry on, only 10 miles to go, if there really is a gas station at the end of the magic map? Riding on fumes, we get gas with me putting in 4.25 gallons, I think I have a five-gallon tank, that has the drawtube on one side of a split tank. Hmm, let us not do that again. After gas, we continue to the town of Jackson Hole for coffee and the internet. With my fearless internet, we find a coffee shop on a hill, excitedly we turn around, head up the hill only to find a closed coffee processing company, buggers! We roll on to the town of Jackson Hole and tried cowboy coffee, always looking for a new treat, but alas, the line is to long. We meander to Starbucks, where they have a large bouncer Murph at the door. I'm thinking this is going to be spendy, especially after he says rent in the area is 7k/month, so he drives a lot, to and from work. We are finally admitted and find a covid friendly shop (tons of empty tables), Howard gets coffee and a bagel for us, as I post pics and produce more of my bad writing to the site. Quickly checking email, we roll on. Nice town, but too many people. Off we go to Grand Teton park. Yes, more people, many more but the ride is nice. Reminiscent of our family 2006 trip, no camp spots, but we find one that has a note, "we had to leave, enjoy", upon a bluff over the water. Fun memories of cross country with the fam, but that was 2006. We continue on, stopping for majestic pictures of the lake and mountains on the way to the south entrance of Yellowstone. More people, we finally get in, again with a hint about possible camping at Madison, we roll on with hope blooming. Howard has a backup plan and notes on camping just outside the park. We roll thru and stop for more pics (see photo dump week 2). We find Old Faithfull on the busy side, did I mention people, parking lots are like arriving at a Disney World or six flags, ten million parking spots, but we have bikes and park near the entrance, yeah.. bikes rock. Speaking of bikes, we notice not many in the park. Looking for food, we hit the store. Covid 6' spacing is not happening, lines all over, it is a zoo of people that have been couped up for over a year and just let out for good behavior. Pure insanity! We reconnect and head to the food queue, I feel like a football player trying to get to the end zone, or the start of the chow line. We arrive and follow the line of peeps to food, about 20 minutes, not so bad. A couple of chili dogs and I get a root beer float, oh yeah! We find some rocking chairs and I proceed to eat like a starving animal (picture a chili saturated hot dog) me trying to be elegant with fingers dripping chili and growling a little. I look at Howard, and he is cutting his into manageable pieces, I envy him, but continue downing the chili dog from hell! It is good and I am hungry. Finishing the chips, we roll to Old faithful, root beer float in hand. Thank god my mustache is white, the better to hide the ice cream and foam on my face, and I'm sure bits of chili dog. Arriving, we decide to forgo the tons of people and choose to head for camp maybe?? As in with all the people our chances are slim to none for a camping spot. We get to Madison and see a full campground sign. Not a good way to start looking for a camp spot. We park and stand in line and there are a lot of people. Finally, it is our turn and we carefully approach the counter, I suggest droopy eyes and a mournful demeanor... Alana asks, "reservations", we say "no" with our droopiest eyes, and are returned with Hmm, "full campground". She asks how we got there and we mention motorcycles, her eyes light up and suddenly we have hope! She goes to her supervisor, a meeting takes place and she comes back, "are you retired armed forces", we say no. She looks us over and relents with a camping spot. Yippy, we have a campground. Alana asks, "how many days?", I say two??, or if only one, we will take one. She pokes at a keyboard looks at us, talks to her supervisor and pokes at her keyboard again. Yes, we can do this! Steller! So here we are at G243 for two nights. Be sure to check out the time-lapse video of us setting our tents up! A ranger drives up and asks if we have any questions, (I think we look seedy), but she is totally cool. Well, it is evening, our beer run, has us with a giant box of wood, and only four beers, so I'm about to enjoy our last beer next to the fire. Until we meet again, rock on, be safe, and don't run over people...
June 7, Day 12 of 22
118332-118472 or 140 miles in the park. Great day, watched geysers gyse, and buffalo roam. Well, Bison. No bears seen, but lots of ground squirrels, tons of majestic scenery. Breakfast is coffee and a breakfast burrito with a side of geysers. Pretty cool, we walk the area, and eventually head to the bikes for gas and go into “Explorer Dora” mode. We both agree on gas, but not realizing we are thinking of two different gas stations and no cell service makes for a panic separation moment. We finally reconnect and laugh not realizing there are two very different gas stations. With limited phone service, it feels like “Marco, Polo at the pool”, we finally reconnect. Finally, we headed to the East entrance, thru the middle of the park stopping at some of the hot pools along the way.. But found out road closure is east entrance to north entrance. On a recommendation, we headed for Yellowstone falls, from which the park is so aptly named. The falls are awesome, splitting the narrow yellow canyon in full awesomeness, so we check it out from a few different areas, highly recommended. With that, we headed back thru the middle of the park and then checked out the North entrance aka Mammoth hot springs. Great ride and unexpected scenery. We were treated to a couple of very large bison walking the road coming at us at a cool pace (see photo drop week 2 for the video). The best part later talking to the bus driver, he gives times in the park, with a plus bison on the road delay of a half-hour, LOL! Driving the park is wonderful, but as all good things must come to an end, it is time for us to head West and then south homeward tomorrow. We will pack up and leave early out the west entrance, down hwy 20, and maybe over to sawtooth national recreation area for the night. Then Idaho and maybe down 395 Lakeview and onto Lee Vinning’s back entrance to Yosemite. I worry the summer heat is approaching, although it feels wonderfully cool in Yellowstone. So questions, how did Yellowstone form, when will it re-form or go off again. Is the park just a blown-off volcano caldera from a zillion years ago?? Hmmm, so much to contemplate, but I suspect I'm in for a pre-nap before dinner. We walk to the river, where we watch a family of buffalo cruise past, the water is really nice, so Howard goes for a swim, I just get in knee-deep. Nice place. - On to our final week, week 3.
June 8, Day 13 of 22, end of week 2
Happy Birthday Nicholas, my middle son is 28 today!
118472-118795=323 miles
Up and away from Yellowstone park, we head west and find civilization, unfortunately not quite awake yet. What coffee shops don’t open at 7 am in this world! Crazy world, we circle like sharks looking for internet and coffee, finally with some shame, we end up at a McDonald’s (for the internet of course) and a mcgriddle, hash brown and a diet coke. I ask the nice lady, where to sit and eat (everything is grab and go, no sitting allowed). Reminds me of the soup Nazi... She suggests I just sit around the corner and no one will bother me. I sit where we are not allowed to sit, much to the chagrin of many others standing. Actually, I'm the only one with a laptop, cell phone, mcgriddle and assorted things sitting. Heck, not like anyone knows me, so I type and copy and then post catch-up notes and some pics. We finally leave and put in some miles as we are now at Smokey the bear campground in Idaho. Nice place, I went for a swim in very cold water, see the video. We meet Pearl, and her main pearl of wisdom, is that there is a bear in the area, but good news, it can't be that hungry as it tore thru a campers cooler already. Hmm, I guess I'm hiding my beef jerky sticks in Howard’s tent tonight... Pearl is super cool, a very spunky retired lady in her 2nd or 3rd season here who enjoys keeping the tags on her items she wears. Like a pair of sunglasses with the price tag dangling, fun! After catching up on the "Bear News", she offers us firewood and tears off in her cool little golf cart to get it. Tents are set, dinner is alla-something-freeze-dried. It might be paired with a fine glass of iced tea or Gatorade. Drive was really nice today. Going thru the last town, I thought I pulled up next to a bunch of 3 wheel harles with riders ready to tear us apart, oh shit, we are doomed. We will rip our spleens out to eat as we watch I am certain. Sooo, off we go to the last light I pull forward and we sorta race thru the hills. I think we have lost them when we pull over at an epic scenic lookout. Turns out to be two older couples that wouldn't hurt a fly. We chat about riding and places to eat and the roll-on. Life, crazy place! Tomorrow Oregon I think. My laptop is about out of juice, so will hang up my keyboard for the night.
"Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthdayyyyy dear Nicholas, happy birthday to you" I call, leave a msg, send an email and text, my amazing son is 28 years old today, I'm so lucky to have great kids. I suspect it is all Janet’s fault though, my bring them up on space balls by Mel Brookes and Monty python probably didn't help any... Happy Birthday to my adult son Nicholas!
Well, the next morning has us at Stanley Idaho, nice drive, Howard says "best camping yet", was pretty nice on the lake. A fox strolled past camp, we hung our food and had no bears in our camp. Breakfast now in Stanley with the bear essentials (harhar) coffee, food, and internet. Coldest morning yet, I left camp sans gloves and had to stop to put them on. A number of deer are on the road was amazing to watch. Have a great day, hug your loved ones!
Pictures...
Animal Checklist
-
Nothing yet...
Stay tuned for more fun!