Western Adventure

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Added: Thu Jul 3rd 3:48pm
Posted in: Adventure

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Well, it's that time of the year again.  Every year I take an extended motorcycle ride to somewhere in North America.  This year I decided to ride the pacific coast highway from Vancouver B.C. to Mexico.  This would be a fantastic ride all by itself, but I'm starting in Florida.  This means that I'll get to see a lot more of the U.S. 

I'm heading north out of Florida (no other choice) into Georgia, then through Alabama, Tennesse, the southwest corner of Kentucky into Missouri.  We lived in St Louis, MO for about 5 years in the 70's, so I had to visit some of the old haunts.  There have been lots of changes in the past 30 years, some good and some bad.  From St Louis I set my sights on Minnesota, which was my place of birth back in the 30's (yikes). I had picked a route following the Mississippi River, which was a big mistake.  Through Iowa I had to reroute several time because of the recent flooding.  Many of the back roads that I wanted to take were still closed.  I could see evidence of the flooding everywhere I looked.

I eventually arrived in Minneapolis, MN, and even though I had visited it a few times over the years, it has really changed.  I eventually found the places of my early day memories (we moved to California in 1944), our old house, my first school, and Minnehaha Park near where we lived.  The old house was still there, but it had been remodeled.  The school was pretty much the same, and it was old in the 1940's, a real dinosar.  The park had changed quite a pit, but all for the better.  My biggest memory of the park was the creek that ran through the middle of the park and the 50 foot water fall, which hadn't changed.

From Minneapolis, my next destination was Portand, North Dakota. This is a place of many good childhood memories, and also the place that my mother grew up.  For several years, I would spend summers on my uncles farm, and I have so many wonderful memories of that time.  When I arrived in Portland, I was a bit disappointed because nothing looked the same.  The old general store on the corner was gone.  In fact, everything that I remembered had been torn down and replaced with newer building, but those newer building were 40 or 50 years old.  The town hasn't hasn't really grown over the past 60 years, and only has about 600 people currently living there.  Unfotunately, it started to rain very hard when I was there, so my exploring was cut short. 

My next stop would be the Badlands of North Dakota.  I expected to see some very arrid terrain, but quite to the contrary, the Badlands are beautiful.  Since I arrived at the park at noon, I was thinking that I might stay over.  I knew there where buffalo in the park, but I hadn't seen them.  I'm sure if I wandered down some of the side roads that I would at least catch a glimpse of them.  I did see quite a bit of wildlife, and such a pristine setting.  It was late in the day, and decided to call it quites, so I tried to get a motel room for the night, and go back into the park the next day.  Unfortunately, all of the hotels in the area were full (the pitfalls of traveling in the summer), so I drove to the next town.  Guess what, they to were booked, so I rode to the next town, which was Glendive, MT, and luckily found a room there.  Glendive is a nice little town, and much to my surprise had a big classic car show that weekend.  The show was just breaking up and the town was filled with old cars.  I was in my glory, but wished I had got there earlier to see the show.

The next morning I had to decide whether I would head back 50 miles to the Badlands, head south Mt. Rushmore, which was my next big destination.  I decided to head south, since I knew it would take me a day to get there.  I decided to stay in Sturgis, SD that night, which is not far from Mt Rushmore.  I foud Sturgis very interesting, especially because of the notority it has gained from the annual motorcycle rally.  It's a huge event, very similar to Daytona's bike week. 

I was up early the next morning, and headed south to Mt Rushmore.  Along the way I stopped at the South Dakota Memorial Cemetery.  It was so sad to see the huge number of military persons that had died, and while I was there, another brave sole was being laid to rest.  Not far from Mt. Rushmore I spotted the Reptile Gardens, which was on  my list of "must see's."  This is one of the largest reptile zoo's in the country, and has hundreds of specimens.  I was especially interested seeing this zoo because of my grandsons interests in reptiles.  He is the assistant curator at the St Augustine Alligator Farm & Zoo.  He's also the President of the Florida Venomous Keepers Association. Needless to say, I am very proud of him.

On to Mt. Rushmore.  I visited there some 60 years ago, and of course, the vision is still fresh in my mind...yeah.  While I've seen pictures of it so many times over the years, it is so impressive to see it in person. I shall now have a vivid memory of it for the next 60 years.  I spent a fair amount of time taking pictures and just looking in amazement at this wonderful piece of history.  Before I knew it the sun was casting long shadows and I thought I'd better head down the hill and find a place to stay.  The area closest to Mt Rushmore was packed with people, so I headed down the road to Hot Springs, where I found a nice little mom and pop motel (my favorite kind of luxury lodging). 

The next day I set my GPS for Longmont, CO, where I would meet up with some old friends from our days in San Diego, CA (that's where I grow up from 1944 to 1974). I had a nice visit talking about old times and catching up on the new stuff.  I didn't leave until 1am, and was hoping that I'd get a go nights rest.  Unfortunately, I woke up at 6am and couldn't get back to sleep.  I set out for the Rocky Mountain National Park, which due to snow had just opened their highest road just a few days earlier (12,183 feet high).  As I headed into the park I was overcome by the beauty, and the higher I went, the more beautiful it was.  What an awesome experience, especially on a motorcycle.  It's not the place to go for someone that is "Virtigo Challenged", but for me it was a little piece of heaven.  The decent was also great, but there were fewer trees on the west side of the mountain.  I keep thinking about the experience well after I was out of the park, and didn't pay a lot of attention the dark cloulds in front of me.  Before I knew it, the rains hit me hard.  I stopped and put on my rain gear, but was already very wet.  I continued on and the weather got worse.  Lightning was hitting all around me and the winds really picked up.  I was having to lean the bike way over just to compensate for the winds.  I have ridden many time in severe weather, and this was one of the scariest times.  Eventually I came to a fair sized town that had lodging accommodations, so I decided to stop there for the night.  The lack of sleep and the bad weather had drained my energy.  The town is Silverthorne, CO, and that's where I'm at now.

Tommorow I will head for Aspen, which is to my west.  There is also a very high pass that I will need to go over in order to get to Aspen.  I am looking forward to.

My journey from here continues west to Utah, then north through Wyoming and Yellowstone NP, then to Montana and Glacier NP.  From there I'll head west through Idaho and Washington, then north to Vancouver B.C.  From there I'll take the pacific coast highway all the way to Mexico.  Along the way I will take several side trips, like Mt. Saint Helens, Colombia River Gorge, Yosemite NP, and Solvang, CA.  I will stay in San Diego for about one week and will then head back home via the Mexican boarder all the way to the Big Bend area of Texas, then north to the Texas hill country.  From there I will head west to the Gulf of Mexico and follow it to Florida.

I'll write some more blogs as I progress on my adventure.