jessedwalters@gmail.com
mattczirjak@gmail.com
07.18.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:52 am by jwalters
The
last few miles home were kind of strange. Matt and I were both thinking
the same thing… what now? For the past two years this trip has consumed
my spare time, looking at places to go, what to bring, how long it will
take, how much money it will cost, etc. I have to admit, that’s part of
the fun. In a way, this trip started 2 years ago for me, and is just
now winding down.
But it couldn’t have ended any better. We pulled into Gusses, up the
street from our apartments, where we were greeted by a lot of friends
and family. My brother, Jason and sister-in-law Becky drove down from
Waterloo to spend the evening with us! Friends from my college research
lab were there, and even a coworker from Intermec! Jason G, Jason W,
Becky, Tom, Jen, Josh, Mel, thanks for stopping by, it was a perfect
ending to a wonderful trip.
To top it off, Matt’s girlfriend Ashley, baked us a cake. It was really good too. Thanks Ash!
I have to admit, if money wasn’t an issue and I didn’t have any
career goals, I could see spending a lot of time on the road. Cruising
the country for 6 months at a time, would be a great way to see the
world. But what I really found was that having a place you call home is
just as important as traveling. Friends and family make four walls and
roof a home, and it was nice coming back.
And since I do have career goals, I am eager to get back to work,
and excited to see where my skills take me. Matt is in a transition
period , aka early retirement, but I am sure he will have no
problem finding a job. Would I do this same trip again? ABSOLUTELY. I’d
take the same bike, same gear, and hit the road tomorrow. My bank
account says otherwise, and so does my eagerness to get back to work.
But I no longer think those retired couples who sell everything and
travel in an RV are quite so crazy.
Hopefully in a few years I’ll be able to do something like this
again, but by then, who knows. Maybe South America, maybe Labrador, or
right back up the way I came, there is still so much to see!
Thanks to everyone who sent us emails and posted comments. It REALLY
made this site worth the effort. We had over 2,000 unique
visitors to our humble website this past month! I can’t believe
it!
Well, that’s it! Adios!
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07.17.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 8:57 am by jwalters
We
are making our last leg home today. We will be swinging by Lamberton,
MN for some free massages and then setting the compass to Coralville!
We will be stopping by Guss’s Bar for a beer this evening when we pull
into town. Meet us there, ~9pm!
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Posted in Uncategorized at 8:45 am by jwalters
We
swung by a few dealerships along the way to Wabasso, but no one stocks
tires and chains for Matt’s KLR around here. Through Montana and
Canada/Alaska there was plenty of parts available at Kawasaki dealers
for the KLR, but around here his bike must be less popular, and finding
sprockets and tires has been a harder problem. His tire should make it
back to Coralville/Iowa City, but it will be a stretch, same goes for
the chain.
We made it to our long time family friends Curt and Carla Trost’s
farm, just north of Wabasso, MN. We use to live in Wabasso, and I could
resist a swing by our old house. Curt, Carla, Justin, Tara and Andrew
(a two week old) made us steaks and vegetables, much better than the
cans of cold chilly we’d been eating the days before. Cold beers were
on the menu too. The steaks were awesome!
I think Curt got some useful info from Matt as well. They are int he
process of reseeding their lawn, and Matt the retired landscape
professional, talked grass, shrubs and flowers. We really enjoyed
the stop, and it was great to see little Andrew for the first
time. Congrats Justin and Tara! Curt and Carla, thank you!
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Posted in Uncategorized at 8:27 am by jwalters
We
said goodbye to Montana and road our way through South Dakota. We
followed highway 12 the entire day. The route was pretty uneventful,
but the scenery was nice. It has been a month on the road, and for the
past few weeks every road has been a new experience. We made it to the
intersection of highway 12 and 83, this was an intersection I am
familiar with. Our family has roots north of this intersection in the
town of Strasburg, North Dakota. Here we normally head north and visit
our relatives in Linton/Strasburg area. Unfortunately, I didn’t have
time to swing north and visit our family, we were 3 days from Iowa, and
already 2 days late, making us a week behind.
I started to realize that this was the beginning of the end to our
trip. From here on, the roads will become more and more familiar, the
terrain will become more and more Iowa. I am not complaining, this has
been a hell of a trip, but the end is in sight, and I am happy to get
back, but sad to see the end of the trip I’ve been planning for years.
Along the way we ran into Rick. Rick just bought this tractor cab
and we struck up a conversation about it. Matt and I have seen a few
more retired tractor cabs pulling relatively light fifth wheel campers
on our trip. We were curious if he was a current or retired driver, but
Rick said he bought the truck because it was actually cheaper than a 1
ton pickup. And mileage was about the same, 10 to 11 miles per gallon.
With the tractor cab, he gets a bigger living area, and a lot more
power for the mountains of Montana.
Making our way to Aberdeen, SD we slept next to a gas station in an
abandoned lot. It was late and we didn’t feel like spending the money
on a motel. We were convienently setup next door to the Kawasaki
dealer, so we could check on tire and chain availability for Matt’s
bike. We planned on stopping by in the morning, before heading out of
town.
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07.15.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:15 am by jwalters
After
getting kicked out of our motel room Saturday morning,we packed up our
bikes and headed to Big Sky where we waited for the UPS truck. It
arrived with my sprockets, and within an hour, Big Sky had us back on
the road. Leaving Missoula around 2pm in the 104 degree heat, we got on
I-90 and looked for the first 2 lane highway intersection. We decided
to hop on highway 12 and take that clear across the state.
The roads were great, but the heat was out of control. We don’t’
have many pictures from the past few days, because its just been too
hot to stop. Off in the distance we could see we were riding into a
heck of a thunderstorm. We pulled over and put our rain gear on. Ask
anyone on a bike and they’ll agree, once you lace up your rain gear,
you won’t need it. We ended up not getting very wet, only a few light
sprinkles, but the wall of cool air the storm front brought was a HUGE
relief. It went from 104s to mid 80s in about 20 miles! This cool air,
along with a nice tail wind, helped us ride about 500 miles that day.
Considering we didn’t leave town until 2pm, that wasn’t too bad.
Here is a couple shots I managed to take of highway 12 as we ran
through the National Forrest’s. The smoky bear fire warnings were at
Very High.
That evening, we road highway 12 to Forsyth, MT. I could tell few
cars traveled this highway, because the livestock in the fields on the
side of the roads, were spooked at the sound of our bikes. In the
Midwest, most of the animals are accustom to hearing vehicles, but up
here the ranches are so large, animals must not be by highways very
often. It was actually funny to see one of the small sheep, cow or
horses bolt, then watch all the others take off with it. Seems like
this could be a lesion in some sort of social behavior science.
Sara?
As the evening wore on the weather got a little hairy. We typically
don’t ride at night because of all the deer, but we wanted to get
somewhere with water, so we had another 50 miles to ride before
Forsyth. After seeing countless deer on the road, and missing a owl
sitting on the highway by a few inches, we slowed down to a snails
pace. I remember thinking how calm it was outside as I road with
nothing but my headlight lighting the way. Just then a lightening bolt
struck, and I could see the trees around me, bent over as if I was in
the middle of a hurricane. Turns out the wind was a perfect tailwind
and I didn’t feel it. That is, until we came into town.
At the gas station in Forsyth, I left my helmet on as I filled up
with gas. The dust was blowing so hard, I thought I was in a sand
blasting tank. Running in to pay for gas, I ran back outside, to hold
my bike, as it almost blew over! Time to get out of that crap! We moved
the bikes to the other side of the gas station, sheltered from the wind.
While sitting outside waiting for the wind to die down and watching
the gas station attendant hopelessly try to recover her garbage cans
from the wind, when we ran into Keith. Originally from Vinton, IA, he
lived in Iowa City for a while too, and seemed happy to talk about
home. Keith, was up here working as a Cowboy on a ranch. He kind
laughed when he said “Cowboy”, because he told us he didn’t realize
that was an actual job title anymore, and didn’t really fit the part by
John Wayne standards. Sounded like he liked the work though, and was
planning to stick around at least for the rest of the summer.
The storm we would eventually run into created a magnificent sunset.
This is Montana!
Off to North and South Dakota!
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Posted in Uncategorized at 8:37 am by jwalters
Leaving
Spokane, we hopped back on I-90 and headed east. We only made it about
170 miles when I started hearing a pinging noise from my bike. Since it
was 105 degrees outside, I figured my air cooled engine was overheating
so I slowed down in the right hand lane of I-90. Without having to ask,
Matt pulled along side of me, and quickly saw the source of the noise,
it wasn’t the engine, it was my brand new chain.
Pulling over, I counted at least 5 kinks in my new chain. When I
grabbed the chain to try and get the kinks out, it burned my hand. This
sucker was hot! And none of the kinks would budge. For the next 30
miles I limped the bike into Missoula where we looked for a place to
get parts, stopping every 5 miles to rewax the chain. We came to Big
Sky BMW/ Kawasaki /KTM, just down the street from the actual Suzuki
dealer, but I heard that these folks have great customer service. The
hear-say was correct! With John Kilpatrick on the phone at Iowa City
Motorsports and the service reps at Big Sky, we were able to figure out
what sprockets I needed and the conversion necessary to go from my
unique 525 chain, to the more common 520 size. Unfortunately, it would
take a day to overnight ship the sprockets, and but they were delivered
the next day (Saturday nonetheless).
So not much to tell, other than we got out of the heat, and waited for our sprockets to arrive from Illinois.
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07.12.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 10:58 am by jwalters
We
got a good start out of Concrete, WA and the sun was already starting
to bake us. It hit a high of 105 yesterday, and with a black jacket and
riding pants (about the same as snow pants) it was hot, really hot.
Fortunately we followed the Columbia river basin much of the way.
Surprisingly, the vineyard irrigation systems kept us cool as we road
through them. But it was short lived and we were left in the heat.
Highway 20 was some of the best road we’ve been on yet. This
highway, along with the Haines highway in Alaska, the Cassier highway
in the Yukon and the Lewis and Clark highway in Montana have been the
most memorable on the entire trip. Highway 20 is a motorcyclist road.
Good surface, and lots of curves. The north cascade mountains we
traveled through weren’t the tallest we’ve been in, but you are right
next to the jagged rock, and you feel real close to the mountains.
Because of the terrain, dams are a huge feature around here. Aside
from the Grand Coulee dam, there are lots of smaller dams in a series
all along the highway. They created really neat lakes at the base
of the mountains as you can see below. The water around here was
great. In the heat of the day, I was searching for a place to take a
cool dip.
Not too far down the road, we saw a gravel road that led to a decent
size river. This water was cold, and most likely feed by the snow melt.
But what a relief, this cooled us down in a hurry. Hoped back on the
bikes, and stayed cool for another hour after taking a dip here.
Once we pulled out of the river basin, it turns to semi-desert
badlands. The soil here is really dry and rocky. Today’s ride really
highlighted the importance of the dam systems in this region. Without
them, there would be no irrigation for the farming that has cropped up
(no pun intended) along the river. But as we left this area, the heat
intensified and we were left with nothing but the sun hitting our backs.
We got to Spokane without any surprises. It was so hot, we didn’t
want to stop the bikes, just kept on rolling. On the west side of
town is Fairchild Air Force base. There we saw a C-17 Globe Master take
off! Trying not to get distracted by the aircraft, we made it into the
downtown area and grabbed a cheap motel. Air conditioning is a
wonderful invention. That’s all for today.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 10:34 am by jwalters
When
we got off the ferry in Bellingham, we swung by the local parts dealer
to pickup our tires and then head to Aaron place. We got the tires, but
unfortunately, Aaron was stuck in O’hare airport and wouldn’t be in
town for a full day. We decided to look around town and find a
motorcycle dealer that had time to install our tires for us. After
calling six or seven local dealerships, we gave up. Turns out no dealer
wants our service business, they all wanted us to order tires through
them. Obviously that’s not possible on a trip like this, where we don’t
know when and where tires will be available or needed.
But I have to say thanks to Eric, Jeremiah, Gordy and Gordon. All
these guys helped us out in town. Jeremiah took time off of work, to
help us line up some dealerships to call. Eric offered a place to crash
after seeing this site a few weeks back. And Gordon offered some
burgers and brats after running into him at one of the dealerships.
Guys , the hospitality was awesome. Thank you!
We hit the road south on I-5 and stopped at Skagit Motorsports,
because my chain was in a bad way. After 18,000 miles on a stock chain,
I needed a new one bad. I had been tightening the chain everyday, and
every evening it was loose again. The chain was stretching at an
alarming rate and I was afraid to ride on it any further. Lucky, Skagit
had another 525 chain in stock and put it on while we got a bite to
eat. They even gave me a loner scooter, free of charge. Man I looked
good on this thing.
Back on the road, with a new chain humming as it should, we only
road another 40 miles down highway 20. There we stopped just west of
Concrete, WA at a KOA campsite. We borrowed a air compressor from the
campsite owner and changed out Matt’s front tire, and both my tires. We
called it a night, ready to roll in the morning.
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07.09.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 11:37 pm by jwalters
Hello
everyone, not a whole lot of interesting stuff going on today. Just a
lazy day of reading and watching the mountains go by. Matt and I
finished our books. I was reading the story of bush pilot Don Sheldon
from Talkeetna, called Wager with the Wind and Matt was reading The Last Season
about Sierra mountain ranger Randy Morgenson. Today we switched books
and are just enjoying the warmer weather, and the scenery.
Since not much is really going on, I thought I’d show some pictures
of the boat. What makes this unique, is it’s just a ferry, not a
Carnival cruise ship. There are few cabins, but mostly just tent space
and “coach” style airline chairs (but with much more leg room).
Also many of the ferry’s that sail for the Alaskan Marine Highway
have solarium’s. Here you can sleep in your sleeping bag under the
heated canopy or you can set your tent up on the deck. They warn you
about the winds if you choose to setup your tent. Through some of the
passes where we are in open ocean, the winds can blow a tent and its
contents overboard.
As I mentioned in a previous post, we’re taking advantage of the
indoors for the next few days. We really lucked out, because there is
relatively no travelers on the south trip back to Bellingham.
This has been home for the past 2 1/2 days.
Some advice to those thinking about taking the Alaskan Marine
Highway. Seasonal workers travel to Alaska in the early summer, so if
you are going to choose a one way trip on the AMH, take the southern
route from Alaska to Bellingham. Same is true in the fall when all the
workers from Alaska are heading back to the lower 48, for travelers,
that is the best time to take the ferry north. As you can see, we have
tons of space, and there is still plenty of room upstairs on the
solarium during the day to read.
The only real interesting thing that happened today was a little
game of cat and mouse with a smaller fishing boat. It was running along
side of the M/V Malaspina for a few miles, the channel ahead turned to
the left. The captain must have thought he was getting too close for
comfort with our turn coming up and whaled four times in quick
procession on the loud horn. Our ship turned in the opposite direction
briefly before turning to the left to stay in the channel. Just like
our fake DMZ crossing, I’ve now lived through a “Crazy Ivan”. 
The little fishing boat quickly realized what was going on and came to a stop! You can see the boat to the left of our ship.
Other than that, we’ve seen all the typical stuff you’d expect to
see sailing the Alaskan/Canadian coast. Whales, killer whales, bald
eagles, and dive bombing sea gulls. Check out the view at night! You
can see a whale in the second picture.
No photoshop’ing here, the sunset was unreal!
Also, we’ve past some neat fishing and sailing boats. These waters
would be great for sailing because there is a constant wind, but the
waters are sheltered from the sea by a string of islands. On some
islands we’ve seen small tents with kayaks, others seem uninhabited. We
are traveling with some folks who have their kayaks onboard, and
kayaked from Juneau along the sea, before loading back up and heading
back to Bellingham. That could be a fun trip too….Dad? Hows that new
kayak treating you?
We should be in Bellingham tomorrow morning 07/10 at 7am. We plan on
picking up some tires we ordered from a local dealership and taking
them over to a friends place that lives in the area. Aaron Ray, from
Univ. of Iowa, is stationed here as a Naval Intelligence Officer. The
Magnum PI jokes just never get old when he’s around, but the mocking
humor is all based on jealously. You see, recently he’s been taking
hops off an aircraft carriers as a flight intel officer. Thanks for
your service and congrats Aaron!
Once at Aaron’s place, we will change tires on our bikes, and do
another oil change. And if Aaron wants to pull some strings and get us
a ride on a Seahawk or Hornet, that would be OK too. PS. Aaron, if I
can get a ride on a F-18 Hornet, please don’t waste my time on a
run-of-the-mill D model, only the F-18E/F Super Hornet will suffice.
And if it helps my odds, I can provide my own full face helmet and
riding gear. I am out of barf bags though, I’ll see if there are any on
the ship before I get off.
Finally, I wanted to say hi to my cousin Chad. Chad, buddy, I got
your message, but you didn’t leave your call back number! Anyway, glad
to hear you are state side, and thanks for serving in Afghanistan for
all of us reading. Can’t wait to hear about those middle eastern women
in a few weeks.
This ship has been great, but both Matt and I are ready to get back on the road. Until then!
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07.07.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 11:14 pm by jwalters
Turns
out our wireless connection on the Alaskan Marine Highway works pretty
well. Its a slow connection, so I had to downsize the images on our daily repository, but they are there, you just can’t get the ridiculously large images.
Taking a look at my onetankatatime.net server logs, I went from
serving 100MB of data each month to over 5.6GB! To combat this surge on
my poor poor cable modem, I changed the start page, so it only shows
the latest 2 entries now. By doing this, the server doesn’t waste time
loading images from previous posts, if they aren’t needed. To go back
to older posts, you can click on the “previous entry” links at the
bottom of the page.
Ok, well here we are. Hanging out for the next couple days aboard the M/V Malaspina. Cruising down the inside passage, catching whales out the window and walking the deck with views on both sides!
Let me back up to this morning. We got into the ferry terminal late
last night after grabbing some late dinner and hanging out with Dave
and Megan. Instead of grabbing a camp site somewhere for 5 hours, and
run the risk of missing the ferry, we decided to sleep at the terminal.
After all, we have 3 days on the boat, so we’ll have plenty of time to
get caught up on sleep. We were the only ones in the parking lot that
night. I think some folks thought it was odd, as they pulled in to the
staging lot, to find me sleeping on the ground beneath my bike.
Sometime in the early morning, 4am’ish, I moved inside because the
mosquitoes formed an alliance sometime in the night and began their
assault on my face.
Around 7 am, lots of folks started showing up. A couple guys pulled
in on KLRs and started asking us all sorts of questions about our
bikes. John and Mel are their names. Nice guys, but both Matt and I
were still half a sleep when they pulled in, and were caught off guard.
They had just come from a motel in Haines, and were well rested…
Before loading up, we ran into a couple on bicycles we met earlier
in our trip in Tok at the Salmon Bake RV Park. They had ridden down to
the ferry and were hanging out with their loaded tandem bicycle.
We boarded the boat, and got a great spot in the cabin area. We have
our own set of seats, and even a table, as you can tell from the
picture above. We could also sit outside, but we chose to keep our
belongs in doors, and just go outside during the day. Some folks choose
to sleep outside as well, but it gets really cold at night. We’ve been
camping outside for 3 weeks now, so we figure we’ll take advantage of a
roof over our heads for the time being.
Tell you what, its been one relaxing day. We got off the boat in
Juneau, AK, the state capital. We had a 3 hour lay over there, giving
us some time to take a walk into town. Currently, we are heading to Petersburg,AK,
where we will have another short docking, but we will probably stay on
board till another stop somewhere down south. Nice to see that we are
finally getting some darkness at night, its making sleep a lot easier.
Until tomorrow!
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