The time has finally come. We will be setting out tomorrow AM, bright and early, for our two week vacation ride to the Rocky Mountains of WY and MT. As some may know, I had originally been intending on doing this as a solo excursion, on the ultra cheap. But the more that I talked about the prospect with TMJ (The Magnificent Josie), my wife and pillion of 37 years, the more she thought that this might be something that she didn't want to miss. And I know that having my best friend along will make the trip that much better.
I'm starting this thread as a placeholder to log our daily ride notes. Since we're riding 2-up and therefore have no space for camping gear, plus TMJ doesn't really like any kind of camping anyway, the budget has been expanded and we will be motelling it all the way. So, with nightly wi-fi, I think it will be easier to do some blogging on a (brief) day by day basis, rather than collecting notes and photos and trying to do it all when we get back home.
Our plan is only a general one. We'll plan on 4 days of travel to get out to some of the sights in western SD (Badlands, Black Hills, Rushmore, but NOT Sturgis) and we can start the real sight seeing touring there. We'll head west tomorrow with our only immediate "destination" being Niagara Falls. Josie has never seen them before, and it is a nice easy day of mixed 2-lanes and slab from here to there as a warm up day.
We'll tour around in WY and MT for a few days and then take our time getting back. Looking at around 7-8k miles total, but spread out in leisurely ~ 500 mile days. Preparation of the bike has really only been a fresh set of tires and a regular oil change. All other service has been taken care of on schedule in the past, so we should be good to go. How great is that, to not have to do anything special for a trip of significant distance?
I did reinstall my old Vista Cruise throttle lock (has been on the shelf for a while) and popped an old Laminar Lip onto the Cee Bailey shield that I've been favoring lately. Also borrowed a set of highway pegs from local NERD Captain Jack (bbdig), as I hope these few additions will make life on the open slab a bit more tolerable. As I have said (often) in the past, I am not much of an LD slab guy. In fact I should be the poster boy for the CBA. But I guess it is a necessary evil to get to the goods out west.
Here's the old B4 (Bass Bote Blue Beauty) in 2-up touring mode:
My view for the next two weeks:
I also have a SpotWalla page set up for this trip. I'll be using SW Connect on my iPhone as the input device. I'll just have to remember to turn the app on each morning, but I guess that is true of even the real satellite SPOT devices too, right?
And so, in less than 24 hours, we'll be off! Hope we can get a few winks tonight
I'm starting this thread as a placeholder to log our daily ride notes. Since we're riding 2-up and therefore have no space for camping gear, plus TMJ doesn't really like any kind of camping anyway, the budget has been expanded and we will be motelling it all the way. So, with nightly wi-fi, I think it will be easier to do some blogging on a (brief) day by day basis, rather than collecting notes and photos and trying to do it all when we get back home.
Our plan is only a general one. We'll plan on 4 days of travel to get out to some of the sights in western SD (Badlands, Black Hills, Rushmore, but NOT Sturgis) and we can start the real sight seeing touring there. We'll head west tomorrow with our only immediate "destination" being Niagara Falls. Josie has never seen them before, and it is a nice easy day of mixed 2-lanes and slab from here to there as a warm up day.
We'll tour around in WY and MT for a few days and then take our time getting back. Looking at around 7-8k miles total, but spread out in leisurely ~ 500 mile days. Preparation of the bike has really only been a fresh set of tires and a regular oil change. All other service has been taken care of on schedule in the past, so we should be good to go. How great is that, to not have to do anything special for a trip of significant distance?
I did reinstall my old Vista Cruise throttle lock (has been on the shelf for a while) and popped an old Laminar Lip onto the Cee Bailey shield that I've been favoring lately. Also borrowed a set of highway pegs from local NERD Captain Jack (bbdig), as I hope these few additions will make life on the open slab a bit more tolerable. As I have said (often) in the past, I am not much of an LD slab guy. In fact I should be the poster boy for the CBA. But I guess it is a necessary evil to get to the goods out west.
Here's the old B4 (Bass Bote Blue Beauty) in 2-up touring mode:
My view for the next two weeks:
I also have a SpotWalla page set up for this trip. I'll be using SW Connect on my iPhone as the input device. I'll just have to remember to turn the app on each morning, but I guess that is true of even the real satellite SPOT devices too, right?
And so, in less than 24 hours, we'll be off! Hope we can get a few winks tonight
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well, at least for a long while. It rained VERY hard here yesterday (Sun about 4pm - 7pm). Flooded areas and several roads n streets shut down, but mostly east of Geneva.
