Kadoka SD To Hot Springs SD

We are 2 time zones west so waking up is easy. I rode the bicycle up the abandoned county road next to the hotel and passed a couple women walking and gabbing, and then passed another younger woman jogging and was impressed with what a fit town this must be (It was 5:30am), showered then went to the hotel lobby (such as it was) and it was closed. It was only 6am and the sign says open at 6:15. What they meant to say was the restaurant next door opened at 6:15. So back to the room where Dave had a conference call (and another after that). Jeff and I tried the restaurant and it was indeed open. Us being strangers in town, they made the correct assumption that we were staying in the motel next door and said the continental breakfast was in the back, but we could eat at the restaurant for a 15% discount. After seeing the continental beakfast selection (more like a state or something you might find on buffet night at a prison camp), we decided to spring for the real breakfast. Two young women ran the place, one certainly still in high school and the other might have been her older sister. It was actually a great little place with knotty pine (I love knotty pine, my grammas kitchen, etc) and 50s stuff hanging on the wall (old gas station stuff, Elvis posters, 57 Chevies, you get it), but also what looked to be regulars. A retired guy and his wife that I saw leave the restaurant last night on their GoldWing, came rolling in for breakfast. This place had the regular locals in it. Very relaxing. The town of Kadoka SD is pretty small but they have their own high school. I asked the younger woman about the school (she was wearing the Kadoka Track & Field t-shirt) and she said the kids funnel in from all the farms around there. So this is a very extended community.
Dave finished his calls and we hit the road. We took the county road west until we hit the road south to the Badlands. We bought passes and drove through Badlands. These places take your breath away for the first 20 minutes and then they grow familiar on you. The road was being repaired so we had some waits, which was just fine given the surroundings. After Badlands we went to Wall but did not stop (been there, done that) and then to Rapid City on the interstate. Pulling into Rapid City some big ugly clouds dumped on us (just after I put my rain stuff on thank goodness) and we stopped for lunch to wait for the rain to pass. The sky was blue but these rogue clouds were moving around, dumping on people. During lunch it came down in buckets and threw some hail in to boot. The waitress' son was doing jumping jacks and pushups outside our window in the pouring rain. He was 12 and having a blast. When the hail came I went outside and got him a handful of ice. Wonder comes easy to 12 year olds..
The rain let up and we suited up and went to find cheap sleeping bags. Dave reserved a cabin for tonight, but there is no bedding so we have to bring something to sleep in. So now we have sleeping bags (to carry the rest of the trip...)
We left Rapid City and headed to Rushmore. It always looks smaller that you image so we took some pics and headed south through Custer park. Beautiful day by the way with more wind knocking us around, although not as bad as yesterday. We found the cabin and it is the cutest thing with 3 beds, communal bathroom, etc, next to tenters and campers on a beautiful reservoir. Nice spot. Back into town (Hot Springs SD) for dinner, then back to the cabin. Pretty tired so sleep should come quick tonight (in my brand new Chinese sleeping bag).

500 Smoking Miles From Rochester MN to Badlands

It peaked at 97 degrees today and everything looks dry. Another day on the interstate (yuk). No rain so that was going for us. What can I say, interstate, gas stops every 170 miles (Jeffs bike has a smaller tank), hydrating the riders, and occasional stops at rest areas. My routine the last day or 2 (or 3) has been hang way back and hold the needle at 80 (actually 75mph according to the GPS') and keep Jeff and Dave just visible. Then crank needle to 85 until I get within a tenth of a mile or so away from them. Repeat and rinse. That way I don't have to speed up and slow down when the traffic gets tight. Dave and Jeff's cruise controls crapped out today for some reason so they were both on manual mode. I also leave tons of space between me and cars ahead and behind so I can look around more and not have to worry about someone slowing down too fast without me noticing.
Minnesota farmland started stretching out to bigger and bigger fields until the corn went from horizon to horizon. We also saw a boatload of wind turbines in Minnesota.
South Dakota starts out green like MN with corn and then gets dryer and what looks like wheat is grown instead of corn. Also cattle grazing on the open plains (fenced in plains that is). South Dakotas biggest crop of course is billboards.
I been getting crap all day for going too slow and wearing my jacket instead of t-shirts like the road-rash poster boys, so the last hour I told the Andretti brother to not wait up for me and go as fast as they want the rest of the way. For the last blissful hour I went 65 on the interstate and then hit a beautiful side road where farmers were cutting hay, birds would fly up from the sides of the road and the views were soft green and brown rolling hills of pasture and wheat. The secondary road only got 50 mph from me (have not seen that seen for 4 days!!) and there was nobody on them. I went back east a bit and rode through a bee swarm which took me by surprise. I stopped up the road and shook any extra bees out (no bites so they must be friendly bees). I headed back west and landed in our town, which is tiny, and couldn't miss our hotel. I found the hotel and the boys had just unpacked. A little laundry and then we are going out for a little dinner followed by a sunset ride.
Beautiful night and no interstates tomorrow (yea!!) 

560 miles from Sault Ste Marie MI to Rochester MN

The critics have spoken and would like a little less creativity in the blog so I'll keep it more factual.
We got up early, quick breakfast then load the bikes. It was already hot and humid and threatening so we started with rain suits and around 8am it started raining. Not too bad but drippy until mid-day. Fast interstates all day with really heavy fast traffic in Green Bay. West on Rt 28 then south on rt35 to Green Bay. Southwest to Appleton, Oshkosh, Ripon and then Rt82 to the interstate (90) in Mauston. Then pretty much all day on the interstate until we got to Rochester MN. John is definitely the pokey one so with coaching has picked up the pace. The old girl can do it, but may need some oil infusions to keep it up. The "peg stretches" every 15 minutes are still working so the old hip is doing great. We got a comfy Comfort Inn suite and found a hopping restaurant just down the street. No pictures today. Another long fast one today but should end up in Badlands tonight.

Fast Damp 500 Mile Dash Through Canada

We got up, did the continental breakfast thing, took turns riding the bicycle (don't tell Andrew) then on the road. Fairly warm and humid this morning, but pretty nice. We did Rt 417 until we hit Rt 17 and spent the whole day on 17 to Sault Ste. Marie where we crossed back into the US. This part of Canada is pretty flat with not much going on. The Canadians were all very pleasant and you can sense the national pride when you see flags here and there painted on rocks, on peoples porches and huge ones in towns and car dealerships. From the few people we talked to during pit stops, I sense that they do not see a lots of Americans up here. A young guy asked if we were going to stay the night in his small town, cause tonight was the "crash-em-up" which is I presume  the equivalent of our demolition derby. We stopped at the diner in the picture for lunch which needed a doctor standing by given the menu choices. The bikes ran flawlessly and we hummed along all day at normal traffic speed (65 or 70). I discovered an amazing trick today that seems to have solved my hip issue (I promised not to discuss it again) and also solved the "monkey butt" issue (Google it) and to some extent the "giant knotted muscle between the shoulder blades" issue. Every 15 minutes I simply stand on the pegs and stretch. This was amazing and I arrived here in Michigan ready for more miles (if we had more light). Huge difference from past long days (except when I was 18 years old of course..).
  As we got near Sudbury, the landscape got a little more rolling and for a brief period, the trees were replaced by bald rocks that looked like glaciers had scraped them off. West of Sudbury, we saw lots of woods and lakes. Oh yea, it rained (lightly) from 1pm to about 5pm, but then cleared off and cooled off as we got closer to Sault Ste Marie, Ont. We pulled into customs to brilliant sun and white puffy clouds. No line at customs and we breezed through. Nice hotel and off to search for "pasties". The place in town famous for them was closed Sunday (as were a lot of places) but we found a great place down by the locks. After pasties and local fresh fish (and cold beer), back to the hotel to sleep. The sun was just going down around 9:30 since we are on the edge of the time zone. Good day..
Tomorrow may be rainy so....

Oh Canada!!

A very eclectic day is all I can say, but here we are just west of Ottawa Ontario. Lazy morning at home (rolled over for another hour or two of sleep), then pack and tried to get to Daves house by 10 but it turned into 10:45. Jeff came in a little before noon and Dave still had stuff to do so we left about 1:00, not bad. Dave's rear tire got a nail in it a year or 2 ago and he has been babysitting it with various eleixirs, chants plugs and magic cans of flat-be-gone. But today all the magic came to a screeching halt. He plugged it early this morning, then again before we left. Once on the interstate by Costco, where he finally said uncle and called Franks, who happened to be doing nothing. We called Jeff who was on standby up the interstate at the rest area and we all met at Franks. Which the 2 mechanic guys wheeled Daves bike in to exorcise the gallon of fix-a-flat, we went next door for lunch. 45 minutes later (should have been less except the environmental impact statement pertaining to the gallon of green goo that poured out of the tire when they removed it) we were on the road. Up the interstate to Swanton, across the bridge to New York state.   On to Malone, past the windmills (using NRG IceFree anemometers I might proudly add) in Ellensburg, then to Ogdensburg where we crossed the bridge into Canada. The customs girl was very pleasant and noted the "cute bike" on the back of my motorcycle. I chalked it up to the usual shameless flirting (happens all the time to me) and once clear of customs Commander Keeney blasted us north to Ottawa at 70-80 parsecs (Real live American parsecs, not those watered down Canadian namby-pamby ones). We snagged a hotel with an extra cot (no charge) and walked to dinner next door at an Italian place with a very attractive waitress from Sudbury (Jeff and Dave noticed, I did not of course), then back to the room to crash.
So all in all a lazy then scattered then focused day on the road. 250 miles and one new tire.

One Last Whine and Then I Shut Up

So today I had my next to last chiropractor visit to try and do something for this hip pain. The short story is last year my doc said I have arthritis in my hip, buck up and deal with it (not his exact words), then this spring it got worst and he said try physical therapy (which didn't seem to do much but snatch $20 co-pays out of my wallet and allow me to humiliate myself by walking around a well attended room with rubber straps strategically attached to my anatomy while imitating a mating crustacean of some sort), so being an open minded guy, I decided to try the chiropractor. I will say, the chiropractor is the first person to sit down and explain in detail human anatomy as pertains to hips, muscles and nerves, complete with nifty 3-D plastic models. So I told the new doc that we only had 2+ weeks to get me up to sitting on the beemer for 3000 miles. So we are in crash course mode. Stay tuned..
  I talked to Dave last night as he waited for the red eye back from Denver and the folding bike is in. I stopped by his house this morning to "pick it up". I found a box at his house that should have said Maytag on it for how big it was. It does fit on the bike but it is pretty large. We will unbox it and pray that they packed it with mattresses and hence the large size. Who signed us up for this bike challenge anyway...
One more day of work and then we are off!!

2012 Coast to Coast Trip

I decided to continue the motorcycle trip theme using the same blogger account I used previous years to keep things simple enough for my pea brain. This years trip is a 2 week ride from home (Vermont) to Portland OR. My niece is getting married and asked that I attend her wedding so thanks Beverly for the perfect excuse to ride cross country.
My brother begged out this trip (too busy fishing) so this year it's Dave, Jeff and I. Not having my brother will be tough. I'll miss his motel radar (see previous posts). We have sorta the same game plan, no organization, no real plan other than to get to Portland in time for the rehearsal dinner on June 29th and we leave this Saturday June 16th at high noon. I have my trusty old R1100RT, Dave has a brandy new R1200RT and Jeff has a K-bike (don't know K-bikes but I will fill this in later), so all BMWs. The rough plan is to go over the top of the Great Lakes (Canada) and end up in the Dakotas. After that it's meandering to Oregon. We hope to get a few long days in to build up the posteriors and then back it off when we hit the Dakotas.
Dave and I are part of a bicycle challenge at work (here) and we decided to get a small folding bike so we can continue participating while on the road. The challenge is to get people to get up and ride their bike and the neat thing is you get quite a few points for just riding each day regardless of distance. We are the #1 team in the state thanks to some young, slightly crazy bucks pounding miles in, and us less young bucks just wheezing out a couple miles every day. So as is typical, we solved the problem of 2 team members being gone for 2-1/2 weeks by just bringing a bike along. Might be nice to stretch the legs every night as well. Should be interesting and will certainly be a conversation starter on the road.
So in going over my RT I found those @#$% mice had chewed up my air filter again. So I snagged a new one and changed the oil and filter while I was at it. I just had a service last year so it should be good to go. I ran it into town and back tonight and it feels good.
My other dilemma this year (commence geezer whining) is my hip has been acting up and the doc says I will just have to deal with the pain until I get a new one. Ironically, it hurts the worst when I sit on the beemer. So I started 6 or 8 weeks ago doing physical therapy which didn't seem to do much. So I have been trying a  chiropractor for the last couple weeks to see if that helps. So far nothing magical is happening so we will see. I did a test run a couple weekends ago and it was ok. Hoping for the best (end of geezer whining).
It is about 3000 miles and we have about 12 days so we need to average 250 miles per day. That is about what my brother and I did the previous 2 years so sounds doable.
When we get to Portland, Jeff will fly back (his daughter is getting married back east and he guesses he ought to go), and Dave and I go back on the train up the coast to Seattle, and then another train from Seattle to Minneapolis. The fly home from there.
Should be a great trip!!