7000km Part 4 (or 7000 words, whichever comes first)

We weren't sure where we were going after Sturgis. We didn't know how many rain days we would have, but with 45 minutes of rain over the entire two weeks, we were free to go a little further. South was our first thought, but a heat wave was pushing temps into the 40's so we decided west and North into the canyons of Wyoming and Montana. Again, the scenery was amazing. Devils tower, finger canyon, and more badlands. ok.... Out of room for pics, and typing fingers are tiring (only 2 fingers sharing all this work). Stories about running out of gas, and our only rain/hail storm on the 401 back in toronto will wait till a nice beer and a good talk. :)

7000km Part 3

So yes, Sturgis was a circus. But you have to run away to the circus at least once in your life. :) Stayed their two days, went to the worlds largest drive-in/through biker bar, and bought a couple of tacky souvineers. We spent mostof the time on the road checking out the windiest roads and most beautiful scenery outside of Cape Beton. Mount rushmore was creepy, but the roads the park were amazing, especially 'needles' highway. Every road was filled in bot directions with motorcycles, mostly Harley's and the lack of time behind the wheel was obvious with most of them. I started calling them the first gear club, but to be fair, no-one was taking the road beyond their skill level - which was good.

7000km Part 2

So we escaped the land of corn by the husk of our ears (yeah, that was corny, but if you cob something that bad together, you have to field it...). Acyually, by the time we hit western Iowa, we found some great back country roads riding through the first hills we had seen in days. There were old clay, grassy hills that resembled the 'fingered' hills you often see in pictures of China. And set the stage nicely for Nebraska. There we found more rolling hills, and we had our first night couchsurfing staying with Joe, a student who discovered couchsurfing while studying in Poland. the first of two cool couchsurfing experiences. We didn't stay long as we were close enough to our first goal South dakota, the bad lands and Sturgis.
The badlands were stunning, and even these pics don't do the justice. We detoured through them on the way from Nebraska to Sturgis, and spent the beter part of the day twisting through kilometres of badlands national parks.It was also the first time this entire trip that we saw a sign
of the 100, 000 bikes that were supposed to be at Sturgis. We went from seeing 2 bikes per day on thge road to two cars per day. We found out how this worked by the end of the rally. It seems no-one really drives their bike to Sturgis anymore. they put it in the trailer behind their SUV, tow it to Sturgis, park it on main street and pose by it.

7000km

Anna and i have posted our vacation pics on facebook, but I've just been told we've neglected our friends on this blog.
The idea was 2 people, 2 wheels, 2 weeks, very little luggage, no roof and 7000 km.
The story starts with packing, of course. Last year we upgraded the size of our saddle bags, and bought a 'sissy bar' bag which tripled the amount of space we had. This being our first motorcycle trip together, though, a civilized debate ensued regarding what consituted 'a neccessity' on a trip like this, and whether a hair dryer fit that category. Being the skilled orator she is, Anna argued that a hair dryer is nothing more than a 21st century towel. Being high tech geek and a Douglas Adams fan, I couldn't argue with this and room was made.
We set off on a Friday, early morning. Now my usual mode of travel on bike is to find the smallest, windiest road that gets us close to the destination and take it, but knowing how flat, industrial and boring the scenery was going to be early in the trip, we hit the big highways trying to get as far south and west as could on that first day. While we didn't quite hit 'iron butt' status (1000miles in under 24 hours) we were well into chicago territory, and that was even including a heartfelt, though somewaht lengthy, welcome from the US customs guards. Now don't go blaming Anna for this one. I have a 100% success rate at being pulled over for 'random' checks when trying to drive into the states.
So the first day was industrial, the second day was all about corn. It took us a while to find a decent road off of the interstates, but we eventually hooked up with the 'US' grade highways which are typically 2 lane and go decent distances. US 66 is probably the most famous, but we found US 20 and 30 going fairly cleanly east to west. unfortunately. my maps were a bit out of date, and these 2 lane highways had in large part been twinned and now resembled nterstates themsleves. Even compared to my last trip 5 or 6 years ago, it was getting harder and harder to find a nice country back road. If the road went anywhere, there was a good chance it had been or was being upgraded. Now the price of this went beyond my own annoyance. A lot of these highways were twinned very recently and we were seeing instant effects when we tried to pull of the roadfor gas or lodging. Two lane roads used to cut through towns and the few people that took them would stop for lunch or gas, creating small local economies. With these new bypasses, we were finding ghost-town after ghost-town.
So, here we are heading through michigan, illinois, indiana, iowa (and the other 6 states that start with I that I can't remember). We were doing an average of 600KM a day, back roads and no hurry when possible. On the first day through, we were amazed by the amount of corn. By the third day, the corn god was speaking to us directly, telling us to abandon our motorized contraptions and live in the fields wearing corn husks for clothes...

We did manage to escape, but at a cost too gruesome to mention her.
The food in these small farming towns gets mixed reviews. Portions were enough to feed us for an entire day, of course, but the steaks were some of the best i ever had. Anna was understandably confused when told hat 'soup' was a seasonal dish...
More to follow.