jessedwalters@gmail.com
mattczirjak@gmail.com
06.25.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 4:19 pm by jwalters
We
got a good start on the Alcan highway. It was much faster than the
50mph we were averaging on the Cassier. We stopped in Nugget City for
breakfast and then hit Swift River, Yukon for gas. There was suppose to
be a log book motorcyclist’s sign at Katy’s just off the Cassier Alcan
junction, but they were closed when we came through, so we couldn’t
sign it.
We cruised for about a 100 miles when we pulled into this outpost
gas station. We can’t help think the semi trucks they have up here are
cool. Check out the axles on that trailer! There is a cheater axle on
the tractor as well. The driver said he can haul 105,500lbs with that
truck and trailer combination. Pretty cool, gonna stay out of his way.
He was impressed that we could haul at least 50 lbs with our axle
configurations on these dual sports.
This shot was at the same gas station as the big rig. Yes this is
the gas station. Notice Matt hanging by the bikes, incase the meter
maid came around and tried to issue us a ticket for parking in a no
parking zone.
Here is a shot from inside. This place looks like a true northern
outpost. With a little bit of everything, from hardware, to bumper
stickers, to cloths, gas and even a diner.
Later we met up with Rick who is into dog sledding. There isn’t much
of that in Iowa. He had some neat Alaskan huskies, and all were very
friendly. He explained that his dogs in the truck were sprinter dogs
and only good for 20 miles or so. They wouldn’t make the Iditarod. He
was on his way to Willow, AK to meet up with a fellow musher. He is
from New York, and recently retired. He said with the kids out of the
house, he can finally pursue his sledge dog passion. Good luck to him!
He even had some 6 day old pups that were with their mom on the trip.
After hanging out with Alaskan sledge dog folks, we hit the road to
Whitehorse, YK. Poked around for some internet access for a few hours,
but couldn’t’ find anything. So we hit the road to Haines Junction.
Glad we did, we got a motel because it was a bit late and met up
with Ken, Ken, Dan and one other guy. All riding KTM 950/990 variants.
Very nice guys, and all were seasoned riders. They made our wee dual
sports look like the runts of the litter, but all owned bikes like ours
as well, and had nothing but good things to say. We shot some pool and
had a couple beers. I don’t think I made one ball in pool, I tried to
blame it on those Canadian tables, but they called me on that one.
(Guys, hope you made it back safe, send me an email when you get this.
I hope I got the names right!)
While in Haines Junction we came across this fake cop car. After a week on the road just about anything is funny to us.
This was as dark as it got in Haines Junciton that night. What a nice evening though, no bugs, about 55 degrees. Perfect!
Permalink
06.24.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 2:18 pm by jwalters
We
woke up and broke camp. Getting a good start, we were on the road by
8am. About 30 more miles down the Yellowhead we came to the Stewart
Cassier Highway! This has been a target on our trip. Instead of taking
the Alcan from Jasper north, we opted to turn west and take this less
traveled route. We found out up here, the locals don’t call it the
“Alcan highway” they call it the Alaskan Highway. Since one person
actually corrected me, when I called it the Alcan, I figured I better
start calling it the Alaskan Highway as well, at least until we are
back in the good ole US of A.
The scenery was worth the detour. We traveled over 500 miles on the
Stewart Cassier highway after leaving the Yellowhead, and saw more bear
than deer! In one case, we drove less than 7 feet away from the bear. I
made eye contact and he told me, to keep moving or else…. I listened.
Dad, that’s EQ!
The road surface was great on the southern part of the Cassier until about 15 miles south of Dease Lake.
From here you see how the road started to narrow, and the cars we’d
been passing started to get dirtier and dirtier. Also, we started to
get closer to another mountain range. The speed limits through the
highway were pretty fast considering the remoteness and the amount of
wildlife on the road. Matt and I road slower than the posted limits,
because of all the wildlife around. I don’t think there was any MORE
wildlife in this area than any were else, its just a bit more dangerous
because there is no shoulder, the forest is right up to the road, so
animals can jump out quickly. Slow and steady…
We took a break at the turnoff to Stewart and Hyder, AK. We were
close to Alaska we could smell it! Unfortunately, the bugs were so bad,
we had to keep moving. Matt made himself at home here.
The water was up throughout the area. They have been getting a lot
of rain. But we must be bringing good weather, because we had only seen
scattered showers. Later we found our rain gear useful, but most of the
time we can ride through it. Notice the grid pattern on the bridge,
that can be fun with narrow dual sport tires.
We stopped in Bell 2, for some gas and a coffee. Only one pump
worked, which was a great chance to socialze and get swarmed by bugs.
Hell, its the only place in 120 miles, someone had to be up for a chat.
Some folks gave us the 411 on the hot springs off the Alcan,
unfortunatley we were heading the other direction once we reached it.
The skeeders up here, actually like our Canadian cologne, we got nailed
while waiting for one RV to finish gasing up so we could put in our
staggering payload of fuel…4 gallons.
Well we thought we would take some final pictures of our reletively
clean bikes. They’ve seen over 3,000 miles since we left but up to this
point they still looked pretty good.
Up here, it is actually cost effective to helo in construction
supplies and sometimes its the only way to get supplies to where they
need to be. We came across a construction site that was bring in some
stuff.
Back on the road, the Cassier highway really does have some great
scenery. The road continued to turn from gravel to pavement, but that
was good, because this detered a lot of the slow RV and truck traffic
the Alcan gets.
Just before entering Dease Lake, there was a pretty rough stretch of
gravel that was down to one lane. While waiting in line behind the
other cars, a trucker signaled up to the front of the line. First class
treatment all the way! Turns out they keep bikes up front, so when they
fall they can stop the motorcade and keep track of them. We did not
fall, that’s why we brought these types of bikes up here, to handle
this rough stuff! But before we left we had about a 15 minutes to burn
before the other side made its way through the single lane. We got to
talking to the local signaling worker. We cannot recall her name, but
she was really nice. She said she was majoring in teaching and worked
this job in the summer for extra money. Seems like all the businesses
up here need a lot of help in the summertime. I suppose its the only
time they can work on construction, and tourism must explode this time
of year as well.
In Dease Lake, our bikes finally started to look like they had tasted the Great North!
Here Matt thought he saw a glacier, and take heed from the Japanese
tourists. Unfortunately, it was not glacier, and he just looked like an
idiot.
We eventually made our way to the Yukon border. Our two bikes parked
next to each other, was the deifnition of a Yukon traffic jam. There
was NO ONE up here. What we didn’t realize was that it was already
10pm. It didn’t really get much darker than what you see in the
pictures below, which made setting up our tents later that night real
easy.
After a bit more riding on the Cassier, we finally made it to the
Alcan highway. This is Alaska’s artery from the 48 states. The road was
created back in world war 2 to get supplies to the Alaskan front. Back
then it was dirt, today it is almost completely paved. You just have to
be patient with construction, because the summer months is the only
time they can work on the highway, leaving all the repairs from the
winter for just a few weeks of warm weather.
Once on the Alcan, we headed east to Watson Lake, Yukon, and had to
get some mandatory tourist pictures of their sign forest. Then we hit a
local camp site. It turned out to be a cheap night, because the office
had closed at 11 and we didn’t pull in till around 11:30.
Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized at 1:11 pm by jwalters
We
are back! After a couple days of living off the grid, we have returned
to the land of cable modems and wireless internet. As of writing this,
we are in Destruction Bay, Yukon. This place got its name because the
strong winds blew away the first settlement here. We’ve had a heck of a
time finding internet access over the past few days, but we will do our
best to get you caught up. We wrote the entries for the previous days
already, so the tense may be wrong, but we don’t have time to go back
and change it now. Here we go! This was from June 21st.
We got a late start out of Prince George, because we had a lot of
shopping to do. Prince George would be the last big town we would see
until Whitehorse, Yukon. Since these towns were more than 1,200 miles
apart, we swung by the local Suzuki motorcycle parts dealer, grocery
store, hardware store, and a clothing store. We bought a tire pump,
since we forgot the one we had at home, and I bought a sweat shirt for
the cold nights up north. We also got “Bear Bate” aka sandwich meat,
cheese, crackers and some “Candian Cologne” aka bug spray!
Downtown Prince George was not a great place to window shop. We felt
uneasy leaving our bikes parked on the main street because there were a
lot of locals asking for money. After talking with a construction
worker, the next day, we heard that Prince George “left a little to be
desired”.
Our first stop was a rest area not too far out of Prince George. On
our way we saw two black bear cubs wresting in the ditch and Matt
spotted our first grizzly bear! Man, those suckers are big. Not 1/2
mile down the road was a camp grounds… makes you think those RV’s
aren’t such a bad idea. :) We weren’t sure what was worse,
camping by the bears, or the Mosquito River Campsite we saw in Montana!
As we made our way west towards Smithers, on the Yellowhead highway,
we came across patches of rain. But like all the rain we’ve encountered
so far, it was not long lasting and we were able to ride through it. By
this time, we had been out of the Rockies for a while, and the
landscape resembled northern Wisconson forests but with larger hills.
Not a bad view, aye?
In Smithers, BC, we stopped at a Canadian Tire to get a new mp3
player because mine broke somewhere in the Glacier Park area. We
started talking to a couple in the parking lot of the Canadian Tire
store (not just a tire store, they sold mp3 players and toilet seats).
We noticed then and ever since, that a lot of locals don’t travel very
far out of their city. Even the locals that moved to the smaller towns
from Vancouver and Calgary rarely leave their small towns once there.
We made camp in South Hazelton, BC at Cataline’s Country Lodging and
Camping. What a nice place and the owner was great. She gave us free
firewood, and she had the best hot showers we’ve had yet. (Of course,
we haven’t had many showers to compare to) 
Permalink
06.21.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 11:41 am by jwalters
Today’s blog entry is brought to you by:
Neither Matt or I actually received any financial backing from the
makers of GoldBond, but after a few thousand miles in the saddle, we
have grown fond of the stuff. Ok, our shameless plug is done.
If you are in a hurry here is the day in one sentence. We saw moose,
bears, rams, waterfalls, glaciers, and Japanese tourists (explained
later).
The day started off pretty good. We left Radium on highway 93 which
took us into the Banff National Park, up through the Icefields Parkway
and into Jasper National Park. This highway is awesome, tons of
wildlife, and lots of scenery, this has been a highlight of the trip so
far. The weather was beautiful all day. As you can image in the
mountains, we’d go from 70s to 50s in less than a mile, when the road
wraps around the shaded side of a mountain.
Through Montana and all of the Rockies we’d have rivers that
followed the highway through the mountain valleys. They are a awesome
color of blue and green. Here is a shot of one of the rivers at a
turnout.
At Lake Louise we filled up amongst the RV traffic. We’ve been doing
pretty good on mileage even with our loaded down bikes, but gas stops
were 60 miles apart or more, so we filled up at every opportunity.
After getting back on the road, we came to our first glacier, Bow
glacier. After riding in this area for a few days, you become a bit
tone deaf to the scenery, but this place wakes you back up.
As we were admiring the glacier, a bus of tourists from Japan showed
up and were taking pictures. In every picture they would make a strange
hand gesture. We watched for a few minutes as every couple made the
same hand gesture and had their picture taken. It was like these middle
age tourists were flashing gang signs or something. Well, curiosity got
the best of me, so I had to ask what they were doing.
Turns out, they were making the shape of the glacier with their
hands. While asking this, I noticed a Japanese woman discretely snap a
picture of me standing next to his husband while we talked. Being 6′8″
I think I was quite a show. Instead of shying away I invited the camera
lady to get in the picture. Well, it didn’t take long before the ENTIRE
bus was in the picture! I felt like a celebrity. Notice the progression
of tourists in these shots.
That was a hoot! They were really nice. With exception of the
guide, none of them spoke english, and my Japanese consists of about 4
choice words my buddy taught me when we were little. None of them would
be any use. But with a few hand gestures and the help of the guide, we
were able to carry on a primitive conversation. Quite a few of them
were from Kobe, and I explained that I had a good friends in the area,
the Tadaki’s (hope your reading Yudia, you should have taught me more
than swear words)!
Back to the ride, we were cruising along about 10 miles north of the
Bow glacier when we saw a whole group of people pulled over. We stopped
to see what the fuss was about, like tourists are suppose to do.
:-) This is what we saw.
In the picture above, Matt was busy filming the bear, I was already
getting stretched out for the run. Remember if a bear attacks, my goal
is to out run Matt. Besides I am pretty sure we can both out run the
lady to the right. So I didn’t feel to guilty asking Matt to get
some video of the bear.
As I mentioned, there were so many views, and only so much time.
Here are a few more shots of highway 93 and what we saw along the way.
On a side note, up here, no one refers to highways by their number,
instead they all have names. Keeping with local customs we will start
doing the same! So highway 93 is now the Icefields Parkway.
About 10 miles south of Jasper, Alberta we came across Jim and
Dennis. They are from Wisconsin and Illinois, and are headed up to
Alaska as well. I think they are running the Dalton to the Arctic ocean
like us, so we’ll probably run into them farther up north. We parted
ways in Jasper, Alberta though, because we are taking the less traveled
Stewart Cassiar highway up to the Yukon, where they are taking the
Alcan highway. So in order to get to the Stewart Cassiar highway, we
needed to head west out of Jasper on the Yellowhead highway (HW 16).
After kicking the tires on our bikes for a while, we were joined by
some mountain goats. The funny thing was, those suckers didn’t move off
the road for ANYTHING. Traffic just came to a complete hault while
these things laid on the roadway.
Notice the BMW 1200GS Adventure tricked out in the background. Never did meet up with that guy.
Don’t mind us!
Further down the Icefields parkway, we came to the biggest glacier we’d seen all day. The Stutfield Glacier was amazing.
Notice the little specs in the middle of the glacier ice. Those are
large trucks with huge tires that take tourists into the glacier.
Just north of the Glacier we came to Wabasso Lake. I grew up in
Wabasso Minnesota, and have never heard of any other city/park/lake
named Wabasso until now. I wanted a picture next to this sign,
unfortunately it was a dangerous part of the highway, and stopping
would have been a bad idea. Curt, if you are reading, check it out on
google maps, its about 5 miles south of Jasper, Alberta, Canada.
From there, we road to Jasper, and ate lunch at the Dead Dog. One
thing I really appreciate about Canada is their internet access. Every
shop, gas station, and even bar/restaurants have free wireless. The
Dead Dog was no except. So we had a burger and checked our email, then
hit the road. This time heading west on the Yellowhead highway to
McBride, BC. On this stretch we crossed the continental divide.
While hanging out at a gas station in McBride, we started talking to
some local truckers about their rig and what the roads conditions are
up north. Who better to ask, right? They gave us a good
idea what to expect in the coming days. I was curious to find out
why they use the strange trailer configuration up here. As opposed to
the 53′ trailers we see in the states. Their trailers have more axles
which got us thinking it was one of two things:
1. More axles means they can carry more weight.
2. Canada requires less weight per axles to lessen road damage.
Turns out it was number 1. They said with higher gas prices, the
only way you can make it in their business, is to haul big loads and
always have a load to pick up on your return trip. These guys were
hauling wood to a factory and picking up glue on the return trip.
The final stretch of the day was from McBride, BC to Prince George,
BC. This was the more remote stretch of highway yet, covering 130 miles
with NO gas stops. We are definitely off the tourists route now, locals
like to poke fun at our accents now. But their the ones with the
accents, little do they know the jokes on them! This stretch of the
Yellowhead had tons of wildlife. We saw 5 bear, a moose and dear
between the two of us.
Arriving in PG (as the locals call it) we got another motel, because
we were in desperate need of some laundry and it was pretty late. Got
celebrity parking outside the hotel.
Permalink
06.20.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 7:35 am by jwalters
So
the bartender, Lennie from the Ramble Inn got us all setup at his place
last night for camping. What we didn’t expect was a great breakfast the
next morning. Lennie, Angela and Oden, thanks so much for the Montana
hospitality. After breakfast, little Oden helped us pack up camp!
We hit the road towards Glacier National Park with the roads winding
around the Rockies, it was a spectacular view, with the Rockies off to
our left and open Montana prairie to our right.
As we made our way into the park, the views just kept getting
better, but we wanted to keep moving since we’ve decided to return to
Glacier on our return route.
Unfortunately, the Going to the Sun highway is still closed, this
was one of the highlights of our trip. Apparently, they’ve received an
abnormal amount of snowfall late in the season, and the road needs a
lot of repair. So we traveled through Glacier on highway 17 which
turned into highway 6 in Canada. Donnie, here is your border shot!
By the way, the ladies working the Canadian border were very good
looking. If Matt or I had taken more than two showers since Friday,
they might have shown some interest… Anyway, the Canadian side of
Glacier is just as neat, and we wound our way up highway 6 inside the
mountains till we connected with highway 3. Highway 3 was pretty busy,
because it is one of a few passes that connect the two sides of the
Rockies. The pass on highway 3 is called the Crowsnest and was a
gradual pass, rising to 1367 meters. (ya we are in Canada, so we have
to explain things in meters, its the law)
From highway 3, we met up with highway 93. Highway 93 takes us into
the Canadian Rockies and Icefields Parkway, a highway that runs through
the middle of the Rockies and Banff National Park.
Here’s a shot of Matt as we passed through another town. Every corner was another photo opportunity, what an amazing place!
We are all packed up and ready to ride the Icefields parkway into
Banff and north through the Rockies. We have lucked out with the
weather, and looks like today is going to be beautiful as well. Talking
to some folks a couple days ago, they said they just received baseball
size hail, and showed us a car that was destroyed from it. Needless to
say, that kind of thing on a bike would not be good. But as I
mentioned, we have not run into anything yet, and the weather is
looking good!
Now if my toe just looked a little better. I didn’t take my boots
off for two days, and they are rubber lined so they don’t breathe too
well. Anyway, I am wearing sandles now, letting them air out a bit.
Last night we splurged and got the first motel of the trip.
Unfortunately, they didn’t have laundry, so we did it in the tube.
Unfortunately, nothing was dry in time, so we are riding with a bag
full of wet cloths… we didn’t think that one through.
By the way all the pictures I post can be viewed in high resolution here:
Alaska Photos
Permalink
06.18.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 11:30 pm by jwalters
First
off, just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has posted comments.
Matt and I have both read every one of them. Ryan, Ian, Debbie, Josh,
Donnie, Chad, Kendra, Tom, Ash, Aimee’s grandparents, Jason, Lil’ Lee,
and everyone else, its great to see that others are following this,
because it is a lot of work to keep the site updated, especially after
a tiring day or riding. But it is fun too, especially when we know
others are watch it!
This morning we headed over to Reiter’s Motorsports and got two new
rear tires fit to our bikes. Unfortunately, we didn’t get on the road
till about 2:30 by the time the service was done and we were back on
the road. Since we had all of our gear off the bikes, we thought it
would be a good opportunity to double check all the nuts and bolts.
These single cylinder “thumper” have a tendency to rattle every nut and
bolt loose. A lil’ bit of loctite is always a good idea.
Here’s the gear in the corner of the dealership.
Leaving Billings on highway 3, we hit scattered showers to highway
12. We decided to hit some forest roads as we approached the eastern
foothills of the Rockies.
Highway 12 hooked up with highway 89 in White Sulfur Springs, which
took us through the Lewis and Clark National Forest. This Forest was
the highlight of the day.
Jesse spotted a spare seat on a goldwing, and was trying to bail on Matt.
This river was spectacular and following the highway all the way through the park!
We weren’t sure what this was, but it was old and made of wood.
Just before leaving the Forest on highway 89, we road past Lazy Doe
bar and cafe. We decided to turn around and check it out. Glad we did!
This place was great, we got a real dose of Montana hospitality. We
even were offered a free place to stay for the night, lodge and showers
to boot! Unfortunately, we had some miles to make up for the late start
today. But to our new friends at the Lazy Doe, we will be back! (and we
want a ride in the corvette and are hoping the free shot offer is still
on the table )
After leaving the Lazy Doe, we road the rest of highway 89 out of
the forest, and it only seemed to get better as we went. Riding through
Great Falls, it was getting dark and we stopped at the Ramble Inn for
some food. Turns out the Ramble Inn, gots its “Inn” status because it
was a former brothel in its previous life. The bartender offered a
place to pitch our tents, and that’s where we are headed after this
post.
Good night!
Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized at 10:13 am by jwalters
Wow, where do we start.
First off, we found those guys on the cruisers we were riding with
on 44 last Saturday. Carl and Terry, pictured below, are the guys from
Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, that we just happened to meet up with. And
then later, by chance, met up again in downtown Wall, SD. They are on a
one week trip, and are probably on there way back to the land of corn.
After surviving the severe weather the night before, we got packed
up and looked at the maps to see what we would be in for. It was a
beautiful morning and we weren’t in a big hurry to leave the campsite.
We really didn’t get much riding done before noon, only about a 100
miles. But we did go through Deadwood, SD, Blackhills and of course we
saw The Heads (Rushmore). The Blackhills were great, RV traffic wasn’t
too bad, and the weather was really warm, ~90 degrees.
In the Blackhills we ran into Chad McDonald. A fellow
advrider.com’er and all around good guy, Chad gave us good riding
directions, and the 411 on some gravel roads in the area. We might be
meeting up with him on our ride back home later next month. I know your
reading, thanks Chad!
Once out of Deadwood/Sturgis area, we headed north west on Highway
212 out of South Dakota, into Wyoming and then into Montana. This
highway was the most desolate we’ve come to yet. Stretches of highway
were about 60 miles between towns in some areas, and gas stops weren’t
always available in the towns, so we filled up at EVERY chance we got.
Even if we had just filled up 60 miles back. Also, we had a head wind
which really killed our mileage, making our range somewhat of an
unknown. One tank at a time, turned into about 1/3 of a tank at a time,
can’t have too much gas/range out here.
A whole lot of nothing here, its awesome!
We had a bit of a scare after filling up with gas, in Belle Foruche.
After filling up with gas, we started heading out of town, when we
spotted a motorcycle dealership. I learned in sharp to get into their
driveway and when I got into the parking lot, Matt noticed I had gas
running all over my engine. Thinking the worst, I thought my tank had
melted or something. Lucky, it was just the overflow tube dumping gas
after I leaned the bike way over on a full tank.
Side note: I learned something today, if you can’t tell the wind
direction in Montana from the countless rancher flags, or the direction
of the prairie grasslands, just look at which way the horses are
standing. Butts into the wind.
Back to the ride, after a stop in Broadus, MT, where the temperature
was ~60 degrees and overcast (yes 90 to 60 degree change in just a few
hundred miles) we hit Custer National Forrest where the wind finally
died down, and it turned into a very nice sunny day again, in the mid
70s. Custer Forrest has some great views, and although it was pretty
straight, there were a lot of rolling hills, which made for really cool
scenery. At Little Big Horn battlefield we met up with I-90 and cruised
into Billings, MT.
We found a placer to crash just outside of Billings. No tent just a
sleeping bag and the stars. It was the best night of sleep yet.
We are currently hanging out in a coffee shop waiting to get some
new tires put on our bikes at Reiter’s Kawasaki in Billings, then we
are going to keep pushing north west as we travel to Glacier National
Park. Other than that, we’ve had no breakdowns, some minor upkeep and a
bolt that rattled loose, but nothing major.
Matt asked me if I am enjoying retirement….. I am. Onward and upward!
Jesse and Matt out!
Permalink
06.16.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 8:38 pm by jwalters
We
got an early start this morning, packed and on the road at 5:45am. We
got up early partly because we were eager to hit the road, and a little
scared a farmer was going to kick us out of his field! Got a good start
before stopping for breakfast, at the Crossroads Cafe.
After breakfast, we hit the road for a few solid hours, and even
found some dirt roads. Looking for some shade, we found some trees and
parked the bikes for a while. Ate some sandwiches and got back in the
saddle. Couldn’t believe how busy this gravel road, in the middle of no
where was!
After a few more hours of pavement pounding we got our first glimpse
of what the Badlands had in store for us as we crossed the Missouri
river.
On highway 44 west, about 80 miles outside of the Badlands, we ran
into two other guys on Harley’s from Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. We
road with them for about 65 miles before we went our own way. If you
guys get this, send me an email!
We splurged and dropped the $10 to ride through Badlands National
Park. Pretty darn cool, except the slow RV traffic wasn’t fit to sit
behind, especially in todays heat.
We finally settled into a camp site (yes a legit site this time) in
Wall, SD called Sleepy Hallow. This place has the nicest showers I’ve
ever seen in a camp site… very welcome site after two days of riding in
95 degree heat with full riding gear, ie pants, coat, gloves and
helmet. Needless to say, shower was top priority. And yes, Wall, South
Dakota home of the famous Wall Drug Store! Free ice water and home of
the $.05 cup of coffee. Thanks Tom Bair for the tip. Anyway, I was glad
we stopped because Matt’s only Tshirt was getting pretty rank, and it
was a good excuse to buy a new Wall Drug tshirt.
There is a chance of severe weather tonight, so things might get
interesting. To the mom’s and grandma’s reading we have a safe place to
go if things get bad. 
All of today’s pictures can be found at:
Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized at 8:29 pm by jwalters
All
the build up and anticipation for our departure finally arrived. It was
two hours after we planned but three hours before I expected.
As Matt and I throttled up the machines and headed out, Matt’s bike
died before he was even out of the driveway. What a great way to start
out the trip! Turns out, he forgot to attach his vacuum line on his
petcock, the night before. Ok, lets try this again. Were off! (Aimee
was laughing at us the whole time, by the way Aimee, those cookies are
terrific, and yes they are gone!)
We met Brad Miller as we were heading out of Coralville. He gave us
a nice escort out of town. The ride yesterday evening was great.
Covering about 150 miles before we came into Ogden, IA where we saw a
sign for “Fun Festival”… we had to stop. Glad we did, had a ribeye and
a drink then hit the road.
Not wanting to pay for a camp ground we scoped out a flat field that
had nothing but a cell tower on it. Total milage for the day 220. Not
bad considering we weren’t on the road till 4pm. (sorry its so dark)
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06.15.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 12:59 am by jwalters
Matt and I spent the evening working on his bike, doing some last
minute prep work before we shove off. The plan is to hit the road
around noon on Friday (today, it is 2am at the time I am writing this).
We have a date at Hi-Tech Motorsports in Billings, Montana in three
days, where we will get tires changed. Until then, we are just going to
head west through South Dakota and the Black Hills! Stay tuned!
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