This report was assembled "live" on the road as I stopped each night during the trip that took place from June 11-25, 2005. Other than correcting some spelling and grammar errors later on, I've not altered any of the original writings from each day.
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It's once again vacation time! After being really dumb in 2004 and cancelling vacation after vacation after vacation for no good reason that I can fathom now, I'm off for two weeks of "me" time - the first time I'm done that since April 2004.

This time the trip takes me north in to British Columbia, then east in to the Canadian Rockies and finally south in to western Colorado for the 2005 Sport-Touring.Net National Meet in Montrose before heading home to Portland.

Day One - Portland, OR to Victoria, BC

The day dawned gray and cool in Portland. As it should be, after all, today is the day of the annual Rose Festival Grand Floral Parade! In other words, the classic Rose Festival Low is in full effect. But even though it's a bit gray, it's dry for now as I finish packing the bike and head out at 7:30 AM.

The start of the day was simply a push north. I had 3/4 of a tank of gas in the bike, so I decided to just jump on I-5 and get going. This gave me the opportunity to get settled in to the day right away and start feeling the "road groove." Centralia, WA would be my first stop this morning.

By Longview, the dry day wasn't anymore. Sprinkles turned in to showers which eventually turned in to steady light rain by Centralia. The gas stop got extended a bit as I grabbed a coffee and a couple of granola bars for breakfast and waited to see if the rain would let up any.

It didn't. So, after cleaning my face shield, I got back on the road.

By Seattle, the rain had gotten a little heavier. By Marysville, I had to get off the road again just to change gloves and get the mass of water off the inside of my face shield. It was a good excuse to top up the gas tank again too, although I only took a little over 2 gallons. At least I could feel like I was legitimately taking up space under the service station canopy while I dried things out.

I turned off I-5 in Bellingham in order to take highway 539 up to the border at Aldergrove instead of waiting for two hours in the backup at the Blaine crossing. At the border, I handed over my Passport, got asked the customary list of questions and cleared the booth in about 2 minutes. By now, the rain had tapered to a very light shower and I could see much clearing to the west toward Vancouver, so it was time to change gloves and such again so everything would have a chance to dry out a bit.

I made a stop in White Rock to get some Canadian cash from a local ATM and buy a good BC road map. From there, it was back on to highway 99 and on to the ferry terminal at Tswassen. I would be boarding the ferry with six other motorcycles. I love how the BC ferry service treats bikes - you're first on and first off and parked in a good spot toward the exit ramps. The bike is secured simply on its side stand with a wooden chock provided for the right side to keep it from rolling that way. It's a very stable arrangement, surprisingly enough.

Once in the Ferry, I finally decided to dig out my camera and get some pictures of the crossing.


Looking back at the Tswassen terminal and the rain clouds floating around over the mainland


Looking ahead at the islands and the rain clouds forming there .... hmmm, I though it was drying out.


Heading in to the passage between the islands with The Spirit Of Vancouver Island headed to Tswassen


The Sprit of Vancouver Island - I was on The Spirit Of British Columbia. These are amazingly luxurious ferries. On our ship, there were shops, cafes, arcades, lounges, massage chairs ...... According to an article in the paper Sunday morning, these little amenties netted the BC ferry service over $67 million last year - 15% of the service's non government funding.


And finally, looking back along the starboard side from just below the bridge.

That was pretty much it for the day. I'm staying in Victoria until Monday to sightsee a bit and go on some local rides before striking out for points north some time monday morning.


Day Two - Playing tourist and playing on the bike

What a great day! I was up at a relatively early hour and asked the nice lady at the front desk of the hotel about where a nice breakfast cafe was. She directed me to a little place a couple of blocks away, so breakfast began about a two hour walk around downtown Victoria. What a terrific walking town this is. There's something neat and interesting every few yards - oops, sorry, every few METRES - along the streets. Near the waterfront, a lot of this is very tourist oriented, but a bit away from the waterfront you start to see little galleries and neighborhood shops and so forth.

And seemingly every third person speaks with a distinct British, Irish or Scottish accent. I guess I keep forgetting that this is, after all, British Columbia.

At any rate, I had my little morning constitutional and got back to the hotel around 10:00 AM. I had been e-mailing back and forth with a friend who lives a few kilometers from downtown and we were trying to set up a short ride today. We met up downtown in front of The Empress hotel at The Causeway. Another friend joined us and the three of us struck out in search of twisty roads.

We headed out of town on highway 14 for a bit, made a stop at the Royal Road University, formerly the Royal Road Military Academy, and toured the grounds a bit. After this visit, our third rider had to bug out for home, so we were down to two. After heading out highway 14 for a bit longer, we turned off on to a road the name of which I didn't get. It didn't matter - within a couple of kilometers, we were in to the twisty asphalt. For the next 15-20 kilometers or so we we enjoying a wonderfully smooth road with little traffic on it. The road wasn't "technical" by any means, but were able to tilt the pegs quite nicely.

Eventually, we turned on to Otter Point Road and enjoyed yet another 15 kilometers or so of more curved road, with only a little rough patch toward the very end before intersecting higway 14 again a little ways from Jordan River.

This was the point where my friend had to split off and head for home, so we parted ways and I continued on to Jordan River. After having a little spot of a late lunch, I finally got around to taking some pictures.


One of the beaches at Jordan Bay. Off in the distance, the moutains visible are those of the Olypmic Range in Washinigton - that's the USA over there.


... and just some proof that I actually did ride there ...

I considered pressing on to Port Renfrew, but after looking at the map and realizing that once at Port Renfrew, I'd have to turn around and retrace this same road anyway, I decided to head back from Jordan Bay. I found Otter Point road again and had a great time riding it a second time today. Then I rejoined highway 14 and trundled along in to Victoria and back to my hotel, arriving around 4:30 PM.

The clouds were gathering again as I took another walk around town, this time sticking to the waterfront areas around The Causeway, the Capitol, etc.


The British Columbia Capitol building


Totem and Capitol. There's a lot of emphasis on First Nations here - the people and traditions that we in the states would call "Native Americans"


I just like this shot. The Canadian flag flying proudly (and on a really tall flagpole) above the capitol grounds


Just some of the typical old-style buildings around Victoria's downtown


Back on The Causeway and a look at the harbor and The Empress Hotel


One of the float planes in the harbor


Tall Ship at the dock


A nice CBR belonging to one of the workers at a Causeway tourist shop

All in all a nice day. The weather was about perfect and it's been very nice to just relax around town and around the southern part of the island for a bit. The basic plan tomorrow is to head for Comox and the ferry to Powell River on the mainland.

Day Three - a slight change of plans

Well, I've had more discouraging days in my life. Plenty of them in fact. Today is dicouraging more from the standpoint of frustration and "I knew that was going to happen."

But more on that later, first the part of the day that didn't suck.

I checked out of my hotel in Victoria around 7:30 and headed up the road to breakfast at John's Place. A Ukranian Benny and a cup of coffee hit the spot nicely and I was in a terrific mood as I left Victoria on the Trans-Canada highway northbound.

Today's goal was to ride a number of Destination Highways. DH84 was first out of Colwood up to Mill Bay.

Along the way, there are great views of the Saanich Inlet looking back toward the Saanich Pennisula.


Saanich Inlet


Some more of the hills of the pennisula.


And once again, proof that I actually did ride there ....

DH84 was next, leading to DH49TE-C, TE-A, TE-D and TE-E. For those that are fans of the Destination Highways books, those codes will take you right to the roads that I rode. For those that have never heard of the books and don't know what the heck I'm talking about, these roads are small local roads that bypass the Trans-Canada and twist along through the countryside and eventually on up to Cowichen Bay.

At Cowichen Bay, I rejoined the Trans-Canada through Duncan and then joined highway 19 in Nanaimo and headed north toward Campbell River and DH4 (highway 28 from Campbell River to Gold River.) Once I had ridden highway 28, I would decide what to do next. The ride in to Gold River was going to be a couple of hours at least - so would the ride back out, so by the time I eventually arrived in Campbell River, I wasn't sure I'd be able to get the whole ride in before dark. Regardless, I probably wasn't going to leave the island today. The plan was to head back down to Comox and catch a ferry over to Powell River, then ride the Sunshine Coast back down to Vancouver and then on inland.

It was on highway 19 to Campbell River that the day began to be less than pleasant. The intermittent rain let up only to be replaced by heavy west winds coming over the mountains. I fought the gusts for about 150 km with the wind only letting up 20-30 km north of Comox.

I pulled in to Campbell River at about 1:45 PM. I figured it was time for lunch, so I found a cafe downtown. It was at the cafe that my day started sucking even worse. I was fatigued and needed the break after that wind on the highway. I parked the bike and when I got off, I noticed that the bike wasn't terribly stable on its sidestand. The parking area I was in had a slope to it and I was parked at an odd angle to the slope. I should have moved before I got off the bike, but I didn't. Let what happened next be a lesson - be extra careful when you're fatigued and tired...

I went in to the cafe to have lunch and plan out my ride to Gold River. It was a pleasant, quiet lunch and the food was good. While I was sitting quietly, a man came in from the street and saw my jacket and helmet and asked if the silver Ducati out front was my bike. "Yup, that's mine" I said. "Its fallen over" he said.

I bolted out of my chair and headed out front. Sure enough, there was my bike lying on its right side. Brake lever broken, mirror lying about 3 feet away. So, after cursing myself for not paying attention to the poor parking spot to start with, I executed the textbook bike lifting maneuver - left hand on right grip, butt in seat, push with the legs, etc.

I got the bike upright again and was walking over to pick up the mirror when I heard behind me, "CRASH" - I spun around to see my bike now lying on its left side. The kickstand had been down and I thought the bike was stable on it when I righted the machine, but the bike must have rolled forward a little on the slope and the kickstand folded up.

So, I once again executed the textbook bike lifting manuever - right hand on left grip, butt in seat...... that's when I noticed the busted clutch lever.

I didn't let go of the bike this time. Instead, I mounted it and rolled it to a better parking spot. Then upon getting off, I double, triple, quaduple checked the kickstand and whether the bike was stable.

I picked up the mirror, put it in a saddlebag and - now fuming mad - I went back inside, finished lunch and booked a room for the night at the hotel to which the cafe belonged.

After lunch, I visited the two motorcycle shops in town hoping against hope to find a couple of levers. No go - in this town, replacement parts for bikes come mostly in the dirt bike variety.

So, the change of plans.....

I didn't ride highway 28 to Gold River and I won't tomorrow either. Tomorrow morning, I'm heading back down to Nanaimo and boarding the ferry to Tswassen - where I started Saturday - so I can head in to Vancouver to pick up two Ducati levers that are set aside for me at parts counter of the local Ducati dealership. So, after shelling out nearly $300 CDN for a pair of levers, I can continue my vacation. The mirror was reattached this afternoon by reinstalling its spring and applying liberal amounts of JB Quick epoxy.

The moral of the story today? Be careful when you're fatigued and listen to that little voice that's trying to tell you, "Hey Ed, something's not quite right here..."

I'm gonna go have a beer now.


Day Four - From frustration to relaxation in twelve hours ...

After yesterday's "oops", I woke up this morning with a determination not to let this little mishap ruing my damned vacation. That would be dumb, I said.

I awoke to a very nice sunrise in Campell River.


Campell River Sunrise (almost sounds like a country song ... or some froo froo drink)

The day was a little cool, in the mid 50's - oops, wait, I'm trying to live the whole metric thing while I'm up here...

The day was a little cool, in the lower teens, and there was a dampness to the air this early in the morning. I packed up the bike, checked out of the hotel and hit the road at 6:00 sharp, headed for Naniamo and the BC Ferry to Tsawassen so I could go in to Vancouver and get my new levers.

I headed straight out of town and directly on to highway 19 south. This early there were very few cars on the road and only a few big trucks. With one eye out for the "Speed Tax Collectors" I made record time to Nanaimo, pulling in to town at about 7:45 AM and heading directly for the Duke Point ferry terminal.

My arrival at the ferry terminal began a day that I should have known was coming - after all, with that sunrise, "Red sky at morning, sailor take warning" and all that.

I pulled up to the ferry terminal to find no cars and one person at the ticket booth ... who told me that the next sailing was at 10:15. The 7:45 boat had just left ... it was now 8:00 AM. Oy.

I toyed with the idea of getting back on the road and heading back to Victoria. The ferries leave there every half hour this time of day and it would only take me about an hour and half to get to the ferry terminal at Swartz Bay. But then I started doing the math. Assuming I hit the Swartz Bay ferry schedule dead on and had no delays getting there, I would probably get on a boat at maybe 9:30 or 10:00. The crossing from Swartz Bay is a little over and hour and half - I'd arrive in Tswassen at maybe 11:30 ish. I decided that another 90 minutes of slabbing it wasn't worth saving maybe 45 minutes total, so I opted for breakfast at the local diner instead.

At any rate, The boat sailed on time at 10:15 AM with me and my bike on it.


There were three of us this morning. Me, a Yamaha V-Star and a vintage 1974 Kawasaki 750.

The ferry ride was pleasant, if a bit windy. I went topside for a little while, but the breeze forced me back inside to the warm passenger deck in short order


You can get an idea of how breezy it was from the flag on the ferry. I thought it was about to leave the mast at any moment.

As I sat up top, I started getting the "Man, am I glad to be leaving that #%@@&^& island, dammit!"


Leaving Nanaimo - and Vancouver Island - behind.

I guess that was a bad attitude to have, because I had a really nice time on the island all in all and I plan to visit again. I was letting my frustration seep back in again.

So, we arrived in Tswassen at about 12:15 or so. Off the boat and on in to Vancouver and my next round of "I HATE THIS PLACE!!" syndrome.

I needed to do two things in Vancouver. I needed to find a bank and I needed to find the dealership that had my levers wating. First, a bank. Why a bank you ask? Well, I have to confess that I'm on this trip right now on a fairly tight budget. I don't have the cash to spare to pay for the levers and the only credit card I have with me that has enough of a balance on it to cover the cost is my American Express card.

A piece of advice for you if you don't already know this. You know the card that says "Don't leave home without it"? Well, when you come to Canada, leave home without it. Trust me. Your Amex card is about as useful here as snow skis in Fiji. Virtually no businesses take it - except the big hotels and restaurants that cater to US visitors - and even banks don't deal with it for cash advances. This is what I needed to do, since the motorcycle dealership didn't take "The Card" either.

So, I go to one bank and they say "sorry, we can't take American Express." So I go to a somewhat bigger bank. Same answer. So then, I go to the Vancouver main office of the Royal Banque Canadienne - RBC. Not even THEY could do a cash advance on AMEX. By now, I'm getting more than a little frustrated when the guy at RBC tells me, "There's an American Express office downtown."

Oh, really? Where please?

So he gives me directions to the office downtown. He didn't remember the address, just how to get there.

So, I proceed to try to follow the directions in a city I've never visited before and that was apparently laid out by ancient gypsy coal miners on acid or something. Streets end and turn in to other streets with no warning, roads bisect whole sections of the city so that you can't get from side "A" to side "B" without going through Seattle, the city fathers apparently don't believe in clear signage, my hands were KILLING me from operting the bike with the little lever-stumps I had to work with ..... Yes, I was getting more than a little pissed off at this point and was screaming at the city inside my helmet.

OK, time to make a long story short. I found the American Express office with the help of a nice hotel doorman down the block. The ladies at the American Express office gave me very good - no, EXCELLENT - directions to the motorcycle shop. I got my levers, installed them in about five minutes and then asked the motorcycle parts guy for directions the HELL OUT OF VANCOUVER!

Arrival time at Tswassen - 12:15. Departure time from Vancouver - 3:15. It's a DAMNED good thing I took my blood pressure pills this morning.

I was maybe fifteen minutes out of downtown when my mood changed as if someone had flipped a light switch. I headed out highway 99 toward Whistler and Pemberton. As I come round the bend at Horseshoe Bay, the city disappeared and the most amazing vistas of Howe Sound opened up.

There's road construction going on from just outside of Horseshoe Bay to just south of Furry Creek and then on and off again after that almost to Whistler. But the traffic wasn't all that thick once I got 20-25 km out of Vancouver, so it wasn't all that bad.

I finally stopped in Britannia Beach to get a bottle of water and take a break.


The start of the Squamish Divide and the head of Howe Sound. The bridge is highway 99

From here, the day started spooling back in to control. Getting a bottle of water in me helped, getting away from the city helped. Realizing for the third time that I'm on vacation and really should relax a little helped. The road helped - highway 99 up here is GORGEOUS!! Except for the amazingly low speed limits set, I'm convinced, for the sole purpose of making it easier for the Revenue Collecting Motorized Patrol (RCMP)*, the road is just a hoot to ride. Smooth pavement, wonderful great big sweepers that overlook amazing scenery, not a ton of traffic (it is Tuesday, after all) and the smell of pine, spruce and balsam hanging in the air. It's enough to put your mind right no matter what the day has been like.

Just outside of Squamish, you can get a really good look at the Squamish Divide.


Looking back toward Squamish to the south


Part of the divide itself - look for a snow dappled moutain behind those big fluffy clouds.

I pulled in to Pemberton at about 6:00 PM. Nearly twelve hours today - much of it spent atoning for yesterday's screwup. I've atoned. The bike has good levers again and also has some new "character marks" on the fairings. Frustrating to be sure, since I just got the bike back pristine and perfect from the Easter Rear Ending, but at least its in one piece and I'm not off the road.

The final "wow" for the day was finding my accomodation for the night. I've checked in to the Log Cabin Inn B&B in Pemberton. I highly recommend the place. It's very quiet here. Peaceful. There's an amazing view out just about every window. They have high speed wireless internet access. I've got a wonderful room, with a private bath, for $95CAD/night. Heck, look at my room!


My room.

The owners of the place are both super nice people and very accomodating, the other guests are pleasant and the place is very comfy and homey. I'd stay a while if I didn't want to get back on the road tomorrow.

This evening finds me in a totally different frame of mind than yesterday. Well hell, I'm in a totally different frame of mind than I have been for the whole trip so far. Must be all this nice fresh mountain air.... or maybe it's the fresh picked strawberries in the fridge that my host just told me about.

*The 'RCMP' joke isn't mine. It's from Destination Highways, BC by Brian Bosworth and Michael Sanders

Day Five ... Rivers, lakes, mountains

Fifth day on the road, fifth day of getting wet. OK, Sunday, I didn't get wet until I went out for dinner that evening, but there's been at least a little rain every day since I left Portland. Eh, that's OK, it's the Pacific Northwest in early June, this is the way things are.

For those of you keeping score, today's "Destination Highways" tally is DH3, 21, 70, 45(half) 50 and 82.

For the rest of you, today's route was Pemberton to Lillooet on the Duffy Lake road, across the Frasier River up to Hat Creek, 20 Mile House and Clinton. Then from Clinton to 100 Mile House, past Horse Lake and eventually to Little Fort, then on down to Kamloops.

Kind of a light picture day as well. Roads that are meant to be ridden hard often, I'm finding, have few places that are safe to pull off to the side. So, a lot of the stunning scenery I saw today will stay in my brain for years and years, but alas, I didn't get a lot of it committed to ones and zeros.

A awoke at about 7:30 from the sleep of the dead. The B&B was so peaceful and tranquil and the bed so comfy that I slept better than I have in a long, long time. Then add to that a hand made breakfast of granola and yogurt with fresh strawberrys and a home made chive butter scone with smoked salmon, scrambled eggs and tomato, hot coffee and fresh squeezed orange juice, and I was having a hard time thinking about leaving.

But, leave I did. The bike was packed and I was mobile again at about 9:30. I had half a tank of gas, and the trip to Lillooet was only about 95 km, so no sweat. I headed for Mount Currie and the continuation of highway 99 to along Duffy Lake.

The road is amazing. It's no wonder that it's DH3 - the third best motorcycling road in southern BC. From amazing high speed sweepers to surprisingly tight mid-speed haripins, this little bit of asphalt never fails to bring a smile to your face. Then, there's the view. The road snakes along the Cayoosh Creek and Duffy Lake - both of which lie a the bottom of a spectacular canyon. I may not have snapped many pictures today, but most of the ones I did take were at Duffy Lake


Duffy and The Duc


And a clean view of this amazing gem


And Duffy Lake Road snaking off in to the distance

I only had to contend with two RV's - and they were easily passed on the short straights that the road offers up from time to time.

Km/h - did I mention already that I'm living metric while I'm up here? Since all the speed limits read out in km/h and gas is sold by the litre, I had switched the Duc's instrument display over to the "EU" setting as soon as I crossed the border. Now the liters for gas aren't an issue, but I can't tell you how many times I've gotten a little shock up my spine when I glance at the speedometer and see a number over 100. For a kid born and raised in the USA and who's been conditioned to think that any number higher than "55" is bad, travelling at triple digits keeps making me think that a cop is around the next bend waiting with handcuffs...

At any rate, pulling through these big high speed sweepers and kinking around the little tight hairpins, I don't normally look at the speedo, but sometimes I can't help myself. When I do and I see that "1xx" reading out there, it's a little extra cheap thrill.

The road heads up in to an amazing set of sheer wall canyons as it nears Lillooet. I'm about 40 km from the end when I notice an amber glow out of the corner of my eye - my "low fuel" light was on. Hmmm, I said to myself - I had plenty of gas in Pemberton, this trip shouldn't be an issue. Then I remember that carving corners and climbing big hills drinks a bit more petrol than normal cruising. The light comes on with about 5 litres still in the tank. Should be enough, but just in case, I coasted down the last loooonnnng hill in to town and stopped a the first gas station. I put 21.4 litres (and at $1.07+ per litre, these fillups arfe starting to sting) in that tank and I could see dry steel on the bottom when I opened the cap.

After the quick stop in Lillooet to buy gas and stretch a bit, I decided to continue on up 99 toward Cache Creek. Coming up the hill out of town, I was passing a lot of tour busses coming down the hill in the other direction. I stopped at one little turnout to take this picture of the valley looking back toward town.


If you look toward the left of center, just below the middle of the picture, you'll see the road I just came up.

This road is pretty awsome too. Not as challenging as Duffy Lake Road - a lot more big, wide sweepers - but very nice nontheless. A little broken pavement here and there, but all in all a fabulous ride.

At the Hat Creek Ranch junction, I decided to head up 97 toward Clinton. In Clinton I stopped for lunch and just barely avoided the heaviest rain showers I had seen since Saturday's Portland departure. I was sitting inside having a burger as the rain banged away on the pavement outside the window.

The rain had pretty well let up by the time I left, so I headed up 97 to 100 Mile House. This is a town, you understand, not a "house" - the various "mile" houses are names given to the locations when this was the Old Cariboo Mining Trail from the gold rush days. Mile Zero is Lillooet.

By 100 Mile House, either the rain had caught me again or I had ridden back in to it. It got to "Frog Strangler" intensity in short order and I made a not really necessary stop for petrol at a local Esso station so I could hide out under the station canopy for a while. I gassed up. I changed gloves, I bought a Snicker's bar and ate it, I cleaned my face shield, I cleaned off the back of the bike , I paced around ....... The rain eventually trailed off enough that at least it wasn't making rivers on the street as soon as it fell, so I headed out and over Horse Lake Road toward Sheridan Corner and the junction with highway 24.

I stopped at Horse Lake for a picture. It wasn't terribly scenic (the really scenic views were all in people's front yards and various marinas with "KEEP OUT" signs posted) but I hunted for a spot for so long I was bound that I was going to take some shots anyway. And since I worked so hard to take them, I'm posting one, dammit.


The Duc at the eastern end of Horse Lake (the non scenic end)

After joining highway 24, the tight twisties were pretty much over. There were some good bits here and there, but the road to Little Fort was largely a curvey freeway with no traffic. Nothing like it really, for pushing in to those great big long sweepers with all you've got.

I turned on to highway 5 at Little Fort, bound for Kamloops. The first bit of 5 from Little Fort to McLure is pretty nice as it snakes along the North Thompson River - but like a lot of the nicer roads, there were zero places to pull off for a break without taking the risk of getting clobbered by a logging truck.

So, a little south of McLure, I was able to stop for a look at the North Thompson River - through a recent forest burn along the side of the highway and above the CN tracks that run along the river.


North Thompson River near McLure

The rest of the trip in to Kamloops was on road that was getting increasingly more like a freeway as it approached the Trans-Canada. I pulled in to Kamloops at about 5:30 and found a hotel by about 6:00 or so - once I figured out where what roads went...

All in all, this was among the nicest days of the trip so far. No issues, no real traffic, great scenery, terrific roads, not horrible weather. I may finally be settling in to vacation mode.


Day six - short, but very, very sweet

Today, it was all about the roads. The sweet, sweet roads.

For those of you following along, today's list includes DH68, 77, 2, 73, 35 & a short bit of 47 for just a few kilometers out of Revelstoke.

And for the "regular" folks, this means that I rode out of Kamloops on the Trans-Canada for a short distance to Barnhartvale Road over to Westwold then on to Vernon where I joined the second best road in British Columbia up to Needles. At Needles, I took the ferry across Lower Arrow Lake to Fauquier, then rode up the other side of Arrow Lake though Nekusp to another ferry crossing at Galena Baycrossing Upper Arrow Lake to Shelter Bay and on in to Revelstoke. It sounds like a lot of road, but in reality, it's only about 350 km, give or take a curve.

DH2, also known as highway 6 from just outside Vernon to Needles. At first, all I can say about this road is simple:

Oh. My. Gawd.

What little chicken strips I had on the outside of my new tires are now almost completely gone. I discovered that the outside of my pipes touch the ground before the pegs when the bike is in the "touring" configuration with pipes lowered to accommodate the hard bags. I disovered that this bike corners like its on rails at nearly any speed - and I mean ANY speed. I discovered that all the stuff that David Hough and Keith Code and Lee Parks and the others teach you about cornering really, really comes in handy when you need it. I discovered that deer sometimes stand right in the middle of the road, and so do bears. I discovered that Nine Inch Nails on satellite radio makes a reaally good rythm setter for a road like this. I discovered that my limits had been pushed a little farther out. I discovered that my face hurt from grinning so much by the time I stopped for the ferry in Needles. I dicovered that I was out of breath and soaked in sweat by the time I stopped for the ferry in Needles.

Have I mentioned yet that I really like these new Avon Azaros I just put on the bike?

The road to Arrow Lake was the highlight of the day, for sure, but it was a pretty nice day overall. For starters, it was the very first day of the trip that I didn't get wet. The bike did a little from lake splash on the Upper Arrow Lake ferry, but it didn't rain today. Second, it was a fairly short day. I started at about 8:15 or so and checked in to a hotel in Revelstoke around 3:00. Then I went out and played some more with the bike unloaded of all my gear until dinner time.

The day started a little cool in Kamloops. I had to crack the visor a bit on the way out of town and I was glad I had selected my warm gloves. I took a short break next to Monte Lake near Westwold

.


Monte Lake near Westwold

I got to Vernon and once again got lost. Even though I have copious quantities of maps. I have a polite suggestion for the people of British Columbia. You've been terrific to me. Very helpful, friendly & accomodating. I notice in several towns around here that there is seems to be a push to increase or improve tourism. In Kamloops yesterday I saw a big banner advertising "Tourism Week June 13-19" and in other towns, I see hotels with signs out saying "Helping Tourism in BC..." So, good people of BC - if improved tourism is what you're going for, could you do us tourists a favor and ask your provincial and regional governments to install more SIGNAGE?? Vernon was another example like Vancouver on Tuesday and Kamloops yesterday where critical route signs are omitted at critical road junctions. Today, it was the sign for highway 6 - there was one, don't get me wrong, but it was five kilometers before the critical "T" in the road and only advised "this lane 6" but there was a peel-off lane in the intervening distance. When the critical "T" junction arrived, there was not sign one telling a person which direction to turn. One direction is highway 6 toward Coldstream and the other is highway 97 to Kelowna. I had a 50-50 chance and chose wrong, and then had to navigate the local streets to find my way back to the right highway. A single $10 sign. That's all I ask...

Hey, at least it's an adventure I guess.

Leaving Vernon, I entered the road I spoke about at the beginning of this day's notes. Highway 6 lulls you in to a false sense of "so what" for the first few kilometers. For a while, you wonder why this road is considered the #2 motorcycling road in the province. Then you pass Lumby and get woken up a little. Then, you pass Cherryville and head in to the Horseshoe pass and get slapped upside the head in a big way when you go from 100 km/h in to a hard and tight right hander that's only warned of with an innocent little right bend arrow sign. From there pretty much to the ferry ramp in Needles, it's one hard corner after another with nearly perfect surface conditions almost the whole way. There is one spot when a small bridge over a stream occurs right in the middle of a corner, but there's plenty f wanring signs ahead of time, so it's not a big deal if you're paying attention.

It was not long after coming out of a series of about ten tight curves in the space of roughly 1 kilometer that I came in to a straight section and saw a slow pickup truck ahead of me. Man, he was going REALLY slow. I was just about to blow by him when I saw the deer and fawn standing in the middle of the road that he had slowed for. I slowed a bunch, but by now the pickup truck was nearly stopped - waiting for the deer to move, I guess. I found that a quick full throttle BRAAAAPP!! got the attention of those forest rats and they scampered off in to the woods, allowing me to pass quickly an leave the pickup truck wondering what just happened.

The arrival at the Needles ferry terminal was a nice break. A couple from Edmonton, AB was waiting there with color matched "his and hers" V-Stars and we chatted a bit.

Here we all are at the Lower Arrow Lake ferry crossing in Needles, doing what the sign says.

The ferry is kind of interesting. Due to the current and the relatively short distance it has to cross (maybe 750 meters) it rides along a set of three cables that are anchored on the two beaches and lie on the lake bottom. The two outer ones ride in large pullies on the outside of the hull and the middle one runs right through the middle of the boat just under the vehicle deck.


And here we are crossing.

I stopped for lunch and gas in Fauquier on the other side and relaxed for an hour or so. Then it was up the side of the lake on the continuation of highway 6. This road climbs and falls constantly along the whole length of the lake. It's not demanding but is smooth and offers great scenery. Unfortunately, like many of the roads I was on yesterday, there weren't very many places to pull off and get pictures without being run over.

After passing through the town of Nakusp, the road gets a little more interesting again as it snakes right along the shore of Upper Arrow Lake on some great pavement. Eventually, I arrive at the Galena Bay ferry ramp - after waiting for half an hour 1 kilometer up the road for a road crew to clean up a load of wood chips that had fallen off a truck that had gotten on the ferry last time across. So we sat for half an hour for that, rolled down the hill one more kilometer and then sat and waited for another half hour for the ferry. Just keep thinking, "different time scale. BC. Vacation..."


Upper Arrow Lake looking toward Mt. Sproat (I think)


A little bigger ferry for this crossing, which is a couple of kilometers at least - probably more like four. The load master had me pull all the way up on to the apron so I'd be first off. Right behind my bike was a deck scupper that was creating a little geyser of lake water every so often as the ferry hit the waves. The back of the bike was a bit damp, but what's new there this week?

I got to Revelstoke and considered continuing on, but I want to visit Glacier National Park and I wasn't going to head up there at 4:00 PM, so I decided to make Revelstoke my base for the night, giving me good access to the park tomorrow and roads back south as well. It's time to start thinking about heading back to the states, and I'm planning out the route for that now. I'm most likey going to end my time in BC in Creston after riding a couple more great roads including DH1.

Time to relax and have a little drink. I'm staying at The Regent Inn in Revelstoke. It's a really nice old place that's been renovated. I was surprised - the room was quite reasonable, the manager let me park my bike right by the door, they have in room high speed wireless, and .... AND .... they TAKE American Express!!


Day Seven - Mountains, rain and "Where to next?"

Well, I rode some 450 km today to end up about 100 km from where I started this morning. I'm in Nakusp, BC this evening. East of here, southeastern BC, southern Alberta and parts of southwestern Saskatchewan are under severe storm warnings right now and the outflow from all that is dumping heavy, cold rain all over the Kootenays ... where I am.

The day started gray and threatening right of the bat, but it stayed dry until about noon time. I was on the road around 7:45 on my way east toward Golden and the Rockies. Talking with the folks at the hotel, I had come to realize that a trip in to Glacier National Park wasn't just a quick "in and out" kind of thing, and that while there was some scenery to be seen from the main road, a real visit to Glacier requires a good day of available time to get in to the park and see the place. Since that isn't what I was interested in today, I decided to settle for the "from the road" view and modified my plan to go ahead and ride one more DH, DH75, from Golden up to Field in the Yoho National Park.

I made a quick stop at Rogers Pass for gas and some coffee.


At the Rogers Pass center along the Trans-Canada

The ride to Golden is all Trans-Canada - in other words, essentially freeway. Freeway with nice scenery, no doubt, but big, wide, fast road nonetheless. The only impediment to travel was some work going on in a couple of the avalanche protection sheds over the highway. Otherwise, it was a quick trip.


Looking ahead toward Yoho National Park from just above Golden

The ride out of Golden was under construction for about 25 km or so for road widening and straightening, but about 10 km west of the Yoho park boundary, the character of the road changed almost instantly to a mixed bag of tight hairpins, big wide sweepers and mid-speed climbing curves. This is still highway 1, so whereever it can be straightened, it appears to have been, but in this particular area, there isn't a lot of room to straighten, so the curves appear to be safe for now.


Along one of the rare straight sections in Yoho National Park along the Trans-Canada.

I turned around at Field and headed back down. The goal was to go back through Revelstoke and head south toward Creston and DH1. Just out of the park, I saw what looked like a shortcut on the map that appeared as though it would cut 30 or 40 km off the ride between the park boundary and Golden. So, I said what the heck and gave it a try.


Maybe I should have gone for a dual-sport bike....

The pavement lasted for a good 10 km or so, then it turned to "almost pavement" - a very hard packed gravel/sand mix. From there, it continued to go back and forth from pavement to dirt for another 15 km or so.


A little dirt .... a little pavement .... a little dirt ..... (notice that XM still works up here though)

At any rate, the route took a little less than 30 km. It put me back on the Trans-Canada about 5 km from where I left it... so much for the "shortcut". I must have made a wrong turn somwhere - or the map is wrong.

Heading back west again, a little past Golden again, I stopped for a quick break


This was one five minute period when there WASN'T a CN or CP Rail train on the tracks headed east or west through the valley.

I made one more stop at Rogers Pass to get gas again and then headed nonstop back in to Revelstoke. This is the point where it began to sprinkle a bit. I continued south on highway 28 for the Shelter Bay ferry where I had come from yesterday. During this portion of the ride, the rain got heavier and steadier the whole time. When I reached the ferry terminal, water was running down the side of the road toward the lake in a stream about half a meter wide and several millimeters deep. All the cars had their wipers set in "fast" mode and the water was beginning to run in to the vents in my helmet. We had to sit for about 20 minutes for the ferry, and the crossing today took almost half an hour with the wind howling, so I got plenty wet in the meantime.

After getting off the ferry, the rain hadn't let up any for the ride in to Nakusp and to top it off, the fog was beginning to settle it fast. Fog, heavy rain and logging trucks do not mix well at all, so that's when I decided to cut the day short and stop in Nakusp. The road I want to ride wouldn't be any fun in the rain anyway - in fact, a really twisty road can be a CHORE to ride in the rain, so I'll strike out tomorrow morning and see what I run in to. Right now, however, the bad news is that tomorrow doesn't look any better than today, so who knows?

Regardless, tomorrow I re-enter the United States. If the weather allows a good shot at DH1, great. If not, then so be it. The road will still be there later. Now it's time to start getting headed toward Colorado.


Day Eight - Back in the U.S.A.

Today was a play in two acts. Act I - The grand exit from British Columbia and the ride down DH1. Act II - The long nonstop push to Missoula, Montana.

Act I began at 6:30 this morning in Nakusp, BC. Although lighter than yesterday afternoon, it was still raining. A quick check of Environment Canada's radar pictures, however, showed that the rain had a definate back edge and the it was dry over near Creston where I was headed.

For those keeping score in Destination Highways, BC, today's roads were DH56, 5, 60 and .... #1.

The route was highway 6 out of Nakusp to New Denver, then 31A over the pass to Kalso, then south on 31 to Balfour, then the Balfour-Kootenay Bay ferry to highway 3A from Kootenay Bay to Creston. At Creston, it was higway 21 south to the Porthill, Idaho border crossing in to the states. Once in the USA, it was US 95 south to US 2 over to Kalispell, Montana, then US 93 south to Missoula.

Striking out from Nakusp this morning, I was in a reflective mood. The morning certainly helped cause this, as it was dark and gray and wet, with wisps of low clouds occasionally allowing a peek at the spectacular scenery surrounding the valley. I bundled up against the cold and felt a little like the Stay-Puft marshmallow man as I hefted myself on to the bike and trundled out of town toward New Denver. I was thinking about the past week. There's so much to see here and so much that I didn't get to. I know now that I'll be coming back to British Columbia often. I'm amazed that I've missed it for the whole eleven years that I've lived in Oregon. This week had its frustrations and it had its amazing highs. I discovered that when the goals of your trip are to see neat things and ride great roads, the two frequently conflict with one another. Sightseeing uses the road merely as a means to an end, in riding great roads, the means ARE the end.

So, I consider this trip a "sampler" of the tastes of BC. I saw a lot but I missed so much more. This is one time when my normal "flip a coin" means of travel kind of backfired on me. I think I would have been better off following at least a basic route of one kind or another.

But all in all, it's been a great week and I've had a wonderful time. I've not found a single person in BC that hasn't been willing to help me, answer questions, stirke up a conversation or share stories. I'm definately coming back.

On the way out of Nakusp, I started to notice that a rainy day can be quite nice with respect to the views. The clouds were in about three layers this morning, with the lowest layers hanging in wispy curtains around the hills and over the lakes.


Summit Lake near Nakusp


Looing south at Summit Lake

So, on to New Denver and an arrival about 7:00. People say this town is a "sleepy lakeside village" - at this time on a Saturday morning, it was more like an "asleep lakeside village." The only thing in the whole town that was active was the gas station. I filled the tank and headed out over the pass. The rain had finally quit, and things were looking up in the weather department.

The road over the pass rides right along the Kaslo River. About half way along the road, I stopped to explore this old logging camp/company site that, according to the "historic site" signs around, is what remains of a large 50 building complex that was built in 1894 an stopped operation in 1932.

The old logging trade buildings

On this road, you see near postcard scenery around almost every bend. Every time the scene changes, it's like something out of Walt Whitman or Robert Frost or some old Plein Air painting by Thomas Cole. The fog and low mist hanging everywhere helps this impression of course. Today, I suppose that even ugly scenery could be made to look beautiful with the lacey vaporous blanket overhead.

Not far from the logging camp, one of the streams feeding the Kaslo River passes under a bridge after falling out of the rocks just off the road.


Lyle Creek swollen with rainwater from recent storms

This road is also very much out in the woods. It's early morning and feeding time for all the cretures of the forest. Not once, not twice, not three times, but four seperate times, I encountered deer either in the road or standing just off the road eyeing me carefully as I went by eyeing them carefully. The last one caused me to have to do a classic MSF range maneuver - the sudden stop while in a curve exercise. I had slowed considerably due to the various deer I had encountered, as well as fresh gravel in the road, fresh rock fall in various places, busted up asphalt in other place and, of course, the wet road surface. But still, coming around one particularly tight bend, I came face to face with a young buck who had just lumbered on to the road. I had time to notice that his first year antlers still had their velvet as I executed a textbook straighten-then-stop manuever with my front tire coming to rest just centimeters shy of the sand along the side of the road. The buck just stared at me for a moment, until I gave the throttle a good hard twist and he scampered off in to the woods.

I arrived at the Balfour Ferry terminal with a solid 40 mintutes until the ferry arrived. Smartly, two local entepreneurs have set up cafes right there at the ferry ramp, so I spent pretty much the last of my Canadian cash on a cup of coffee and a little breakfast.


The boat arrives on time just as the rain starts again.

The ferry offloaded the oncoming vehicles and then left all of us sitting for another 15 minutes. In that time, the rain started up again, so the time I had spent drying off in the cafe was now wasted. We loaded up about five minutes before the scheduled sailing and still got out on time. There were three of us two-wheeled maniacs on board this time - me and two friends travelling together, one on his Goldwing and the other on his Magna.


Here we are on yet another BC Ferry.

The crossing took about 35 minutes. This ferry was big enough to have indoor passenger space and a little coffee shop - nice for getting in out of the cold for a bit.


Looking ahead as we depart Balfour Harbor


A small camp along the side of Lake Kootenay. Looks peaceful.

When the ferry docked, I was off and riding again on DH1. I have to agree with various people that have said that #2 should really be #1. I can understand why Brian Bosworth and Michael Sanders rated this road as #1, but in my mind, DH2 is a much better road to ride. The main reasons for me are two - first, this road passes along the shore of Lake Kootenay for basically its whole length. Along the entire road, you're passing driveways, stores, camps, etc. There's kids, dogs, cyclists, traffic and so forth. The road was quite busy at even 9:00 on a rainy Saturday morning - I can't imagine what it would be like on a hot August weekend afternoon. Second, this road has poor sightlines in a lot of places. The curves are great and there's plenty of them, but when you can't see through 95% of them, you can't really ride them to the limit and still be safe. on DH2, there's huge stretches where four, five and six curves in a row are all fully visible and you can link them easily and get a perfect ride out of the experience. DH2 also doesn't suffer form all the development that lies alng DH1.

It's still a fun road and a great ride with lots to look at and virtually zero straight sections for 48 miles. Personally, I'd call it #2.

I arrived a the Porthill Idaho border crossing at about noontime. I got asked the customary questions and passed through fairly quickly. I stopped to put US cash back in my wallet and put my speedomter back over to miles and MPH and hit the road.

This is where Act II for the day begins. Act II features no pictures. It does, however, avoid all interstate highways.

I initially thought about riding US 95 south to Coeur d'Alene and joing up with I-90. I looked at my map and on a whim decided instead to stay off the superslab for one more day. So, I joined US 2 east to Kalispell, Montana. This is actually a really nice ride. There's not a ton of traffic and few towns to slow the speed limit much. The weather had finally improved and the sun had come out. The ride to Kalispell took about two and a half hours and I pulled in to town at around 3:30 mountain time.

US 93 wasn't as pleasant. It's supposed to be a shorter ride from Kalispell to Missoula than it was from US 95 to Kalispell. The mileage certainly suggested that this should be the case. I suppose it would have been a quicker trip if virtually ALL of US 93 wasn't under construction in fits and starts and various levels of completion all the way from Kelispell to only about 15 miles north of Missoula. Oh well, such is life, I suppose. The bike is really, really, really dirty now - and it's dirt-dirt, not just road film and bugs and stuff. My bike now looks a lot like a lot of the pickup trucks around here.

Dinnertime now. Tomorrow is pretty much all a transit day and will be spent mostly on the slab. We'll see what the picture muse brings me as I go.


Day Nine - The Road to Yellowstone

Some thoughts as I wake up today... I feel a little funny this morning and I can't explain it. I'm almost feeling down or something. Maybe it's the transition away from my new experiences in BC and in to more familiar terrirtory in the USA. Maybe it's seeing all this Missoula sprawl and strip malls and Burger Kings. Maybe I'm just tired and beginning to feel the effects of being on the road for a week now. Like I say, I can't explain it. I know I'll feel better once I get packed up and back on the road. I've also decided to take another detour today and not slab it all day long. I've never made it to Yellowstone and the Tetons in western Wyoming, and they're basically right on the way to Montrose, so that's what I'm going to do today - visit the parks a little bit and see if I can't get some neat photos. The weather looks promising, and as I finish packing up after hanging out in my room for a while and catching up on the news, the fog is burning off and the sky beyond it is crystal clear and bluer than blue. This should be a good day.

It's a Foggy cold morning in Missoula when I get up - and amazingly quiet for a fairly large city. The temperature is hovering only a little above 40 as I head out in search of breakfast and a newspaper. The local IHOP fills the bill and I'm there early enough to avoid most of the Father's Day rush. I hung out until late waiting for the local Ducati/HD dealership to open. I was hoping to find a rear turn signal lens. Don't ask me how it got broken, but upon unpacking the bike last night, I noticed it. The only thing I can think of is that I may have thumped a fire hose box on one of the lake ferries in BC a couple of days ago. On one of the crossings, they had me cram the bike in way over next to the rail and among a bunch of mechanical equipment. My bet is that upon backing and filling to get the bike back out to leave, I may have backed in to the fire hose box that was behind me. I don't know, I'd just like a new one.

Unfortunately, the dealership has just built a brand new building and is moving this very weekend. So, both the new and old stores are closed and all the parts for Ducati, HD and Buell are on moving trucks. Oh well.

I left Missoula right around 10:30 as I entered I-90 eastbound. There isn't much to say about this leg of the journey. Interstate is interstate. They're great roads for getting from place to place, but they weren't built for interest and scenery.

I continued on I-90 until about 30 miles west of Bozeman, where I turned off on to US 287 south toward West Yellowstone.

Not long after leaving the freeway, I entered the valley outside of McAllister


The valley near McAllister, Montana - the Tobacco Root moutains in the distance

This route was actually a good choice. Speed limit is 70 MPH, there's virtually no traffic and the road surface is in great shape. It even has some interesting twisty bits.


US 287 south of McAllister, Montana. This section snakes along the Jefferson River

A little farther along the valley, there's a Montana Fish & Wildlife Park - The Parker Homestead.


The Parker Homestead and the all-important well pump.

Who are the Parkers, you ask? Some great and powerful founding family of Western Montana? Nope, just one of thousands of homesteading families that settled this part of Montana from the 1860's to the early 20th century. This little homestead was built by Nelson and Rosa Parker in 1910 after they had lived in a refurbished miner's shack a few miles away and had a second home flooded out a few years after that. The well was dug only when they had saved the money to dig it - from the time they built the place, they hauled water from local creeks for years.


The Parker Homstead and part of their 160 acre parcel

The Parkers built still another new home a few miles away in the late 1920's and abandoned this place. Interestingly, Orville and Josephine Jewett bought the place in 1939 for themselves and their four children. They lived there all through WWII and for many years after, raising sheep on the land. They apparently had the place decorated up quite nicely with linoleum on the floors and cotton curtains in the windows. The Jewett children lived on the place for a time even after they had left school, helping mom and dad.


Looking through the cabin wall

Many of the Jewett kids stayed in the area and continue to own this homestead. In 1985, they leased it to Montana Fish & Wildlife Parks so that it could be preserved and shown.


The hills out back of the Parker Place.

The area just behind the homestead is a dairy farm grazing area. My motorcycle getup had the ladies curious


A curious bovine


More curious bovines.

I got back on the road after taking some pictures and trying to imagine the families that lived here making a go of it in that little sod roof cabin - especially through so many Montana winters.

80 miles or so later, as I was approaching West Yellowstone, I stopped for a break at a rest area next to the Madison River


Madison River just west of Cliff Lake, Montana

Across the highway from the rest stop, there was another grazing area....


... and still more curious bovines. Staring at us. Creepily. Like we're going to steal their milk or move their cheese or something.

I cruised on in to West Yellowstone, Montana at about 3:00 in the afternoon. In a popular place like this, I didn't want to take the risk of having to settle for the crappiest smoking room that was left later in the evening, so I booked a room early and unpacked the bike. Once done with that (and an unintended nap - I made the mistake of lying down...) I headed off to Yellowstone Park to take a quick look around tonight.


Near the west entrance of the park


Some local residents of the park were having dinner between the road and the river.



... and they were attracting a fair bit of attention.

As I said last night, today was pretty much a transit day. Tomorrow morning, I plan to go in to Yellowstone around dawn to try to get some sunrise pictures before heading south toward Grand Teton park. As usual, I have no idea where I'll be tomorrow night. If I spend the kind of time in the parks that I think I will, I'll probably be no farther south than Jackson. But who knows? Right now, I'm only about 650 miles from Montrose, Colorado, and I plan to arrive there about mid-day Wednesday. So I've got sightseeing time available.


Day Ten - Yellowstone and The Grand Tetons

Today was a very light day. I've only travelled from West Yellowstone, Montana to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I spent the entire day in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. I have no real ride stories to tell today, just pictures to show. The whole day was spent at 45 MPH or below...

The day began at 4:15 am, as I headed in to the park in search of pre-dawn and sunrise pictures. It was quite cold - temps hovering around 30 or so, depending on which valley I was in at the time - so the steam from the various hot springs and such was hanging heavily in the air. This made for some interesting sunrise photos where you can't really see the sun.


Pre-dawn near the west entrance


Pre-dawn along the Madison River


Just at sunrise near the Artist Paint Pots in the northwest part of the park


A few minutes after sunrise


Grand Canyon of The Yellowstone - the falls


Grand Canyon of The Yellowstone - downstream


West Thumb vent near the shore of Yellowstone Lake's West Thumb - the part of the park that's most recently erupted.


The "Abyss Pool" at West Thumb - the trail guide says it goes down at least 1000 feet, but that's only an estimate


Trees at West Thumb - they don't much like the hydrogen sulfide steam


Of course these signs are all over the park, reminding folks to stay on the boardwalks and away from the boiling ground.


This is the bottom part of the sign and my most favorite. Imagine the announcer from the old "Duck and Cover" movie for a moment ... "Ahhh, little Jimmy has ignored the warnings, and now he's gotten a NASTY surprise." I just love how sis has noticed but dad is strolling away, blissfully ignorant of Little Jimmy's new prediciment.


And you can't come to Yellowstone without visiting Old Faithful. This is taken from down the Geyser Hill trail quite a ways.


And finally, after lunch, I cruised through Grand Teton National Park on the way to Jackson.

Tomorrow will be another fairly light day. I plan to end the day in Grand Junction, Colorado, which will put me in good position for a quick trip to Montrose on Wednesday morning after sleeping in a bit.

Nothing more for today.


Day Eleven - Jackson Hole to Grand Junction

Not much to tell today. No real sightseeing, no major stops. In fact, I pretty much rode from Jackson Hole to Grand Junction with no more than brief pit stops for water, gas and snacks. With over 400 miles to travel, and all of it on two-lane highways, there wasn't really time to dawdle too much.

Today's route was US 191 south out of Jackson hole to US 40 at Vernal, Utah east to Colorado 64 at Dinosaur, then on to Colorado 139 at Rangely, the on to I-70 and in to Grand Junction on US 50, the road that I'll be taking to Montrose tomorrow.

I struck out from Jackson Hole at about 7:30 this morning and on out to a little surprise on US 191 south. The road parallels the Snake River for a fair stretch, offering up unexpected morning twisties to wake me up.


US 191 along the Snake River south of Jackson Hole, WY

Eventually, you have to leave the river to continue on 191, so at Hoback Junction, I did just that and got in to the groove that would be most of the rest of the day - mostly straight, deserted roads. I did stop for a moment just past Hoback Junction to look at some of the horses along the side of the road.


I think says "Wyoming" pretty well, don't you?

Not long after the horse farm, I got my one nasty and frustrating surprise for the day. The road - and I mean the WHOLE road, shoulder to shoulder, was torn up and being rebuilt. This meant a twenty minute wait at a construciotn stoplight and then 9, count 'em, NINE lovely miles of following a pilot car at about 25 MPH over gravel and hard packed sand. This on a Ducati ST - not a Multistrada. Oh man, that was about the most painful 9 miles that I've ridden in a long time.

Needless to say, once the construciton zone was done and we were all out on real road again, I made it my mission for the next three or four miles to pass big trucks and get back up to speed. Let's just say I made really, really good time to Rock Springs, Wyoming.

The road, however, from basically Hoback all the way in to Utah looked like this


Some section of one of the roads I was on today - doesn't matter which one, they mostly looked like this.

After passing through Rock Springs, things got interesting again. US 191 passes through the Flaming Gorge area and begins to get some of its character back again. For about the next 65 miles or so to Vernal, the road kinks and dips, rises and hairpins. There's one section of 15 consecutive switchbacks that are very difficult for trucks, pure heaven for a motorcycle.

After riding about 45 miles of pavement with no more than 1/4 mile of straight asphalt, I took a quick break at the Flaming Gorge Dam for a leg stretch.


The lower end of the Flaming Gorge resevoir just behind the dam

From there on, there was one more gas stop in Rengely and then straight on in to Grand Junction. I had one more issue to deal with as I left the Flamin Gorge and headed in to the oil fields of northern Colorado, and that was a series of thunderstorms. There was lightning flashing not more than a mile or two from me for the next 50 miles. As I approached I-70, the sky was looking very angry and there had been a good dozen or more lightning bolts all hitting the ridgeline on the other side of the freeway.


Junction of I-70 and Colorado 139 at Loma, Colorado

I avoided 90% of the rain and all of the lightning and pulled in to Grand Junction right around 4:30 PM. The Ducati dealership that I was heading for, in hopes of finding the rear turn signal lens that I'm looking for, isn't a Ducati dealer anymore. Gee, I'm glad I didn't make a seperate trip.

So, I'm 66 miles formo Montrose tonight. It's hot and muggy and the "value" motel I picked tonight has a barely adequate air conditioner, but it's not a total dump - I've stayed at worse places before (not many, mind you, but I have). I'd almost welcome some of that cold rain I had last week in BC.

I'm going to have to find some serious twisties to ride in the next couple of days to even out my rear tire. Between the heat, the extra load on my bike with all my stuff and the speeds that I was travelling today, I've developed, in one day, a "freeway band" in the middle of a tire that now has less than 3000 miles on it. Oh well, tire replacements are fairly easy and not awfully expensive.

That's all for tonight. I'm having supper as I write this and I'm planning to veg for the rest of the evening.


Day Twelve - Grand Junction to Montrose and The Party

Today's chapter will be highly abbreviated as the post dinner conversations are continuing in to the evening and it was a really short ride day anyway.

I dawdled around Grand Junction for quite a while this morning, not leaving my motel until after 9:00 and after running some errands, not leaving Grand Junction until after 10:00. Still, even with a stop for breakfast in Delta, I still rolled in to the Red Arrow here in Montrose at a little after noon and ended up being among the early arrivals. Which, importantly, gave me a chance to get some laundry done - there were things inside my laundry sack that just didn't smell at all nice after having been in there for over a week ... especially due to the heat the last couple of days.

So, excited about the day so far? The bottom line is that the "ride" today was down 66 miles of US 50 and was uneventful.

The crew started rolling in pretty steadily over the next 3-4 hours


Some of the earluer arrivals while the sun was out


And again


We did get a bit of a thunderstorm that rolled through later in the afternoon. Things got a bit damp, but it never really got seriously rainy - and in fact, after the heat of the last couple of days, the rain felt really good.

Most importantly, our beloved mascot got the achillies tendon surgery that he has been needing for a while.


Chilli on the operating table. If you want to see the whole procedure, you'll have to wait for the DVD.

I think just before dinner, we counted up 62 bikes in the parking lot(s) and we had a full house for dinner. The drunken debauchery hasn't started yet - at least in public.

That's all for tonight.


Day Thirteen - Montrose to Mesa Verde day trip

Today was a day to ride. Just ride. We didn't have to be anywhere specifically, we weren't travelling, the bikes were unburdened of their long distance cargo and we were among good friends and new friends.

Four of us, just one group of many hitting the road to explore Southwestern Colorado, set off around 9:00 am for a loop down to Mesa Verde National Park and return. The route was Montrose to Cortez via various local roads, then over to Mesa Verda, then on on to Durango via US 160 then north to Montrose again via US 550 through the mountains surrounding Ouray and Silverton. The ride was just shy of 300 miles round trip.


Southwest of Montrose on the road to Cortez

The ride south was terrific with clear skies, warm temps and terrific roads with not a ton of traffic.


At Mesa Verde park


One of the many Hopi cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde

Our group split up a bit with one rider going on ahead after a couple of stops in the park and me going on ahead once we had reached Durango.

Up US 550, we head in to some of the the higher passes in the area


At the top of Molas Pass, south of Silverton


The view from the top of the pass

... and then the rains came. Thunderstorms had been building most of the afternoon and lightning had been flashing here and there around us for some time as I headed in to the pass south of Silverton. This section of 550 is very challenging and is a really fun road in the dry weather. It consists of many, many repeated switchbacks that descend several yards at a time at each turn. Most of the route has no guardrails and the dropoffs are serious - many hundreds of feet at least. The speed limit is very low and you have to be on your toes the whole way, especially between Silverton and Ouray.

Well, today, the middle of a rain storm had settled right over the pass. The area between the pass summit and basically 20 miles north of Ouray was being drenched in cold rain. The coldest I saw it get was about 38 degrees. Meanwhile, the dreching rain was making a mockery of non waterproof gloves and open jacket vents. The fact that the real rain started just when I entered a section of 550 where it's impossible to pull over for about 15 miles didn't help the situation any.

I stopped just outside Silverton to finally change in to better gloves, cover up the tank bag and close up jacket vents. I hadn't brought my warm liners and such with me, so I was damned cold. But luckily, a few miles north of Ouray, the rain tapered off and the sun came back out, lifting temps back in the 60's and drying me out a bit.

I got back to the Red Arrow in Montrose a little after 5:30 pm - in time to get in to some dry clothes and head over to the "farewell" dinner at a local restaurant.

It was a good day and its been a good meet. We've traded a lot of stories and had a lot of good conversation and a lot of good riding - even with the rain.

I'm planning to hit the road tomorrow at "Oh-Dark-Thirty" so I'm packing now and getting ready to go home.


Day Fourteen - Montrose to Boise ... and a performance award!

Thirteen straight days on the road, nearly 4,000 miles travelled and not one single traffic stop the whole time ... until 6:15 am today. Day fourteen began with a performance award in the lovely little burg of Whitewater, Colorado. Your author had been travelling in a posted 65 MPH zone at somewhere above that number, kinda like most people do. At the town boundary of Whitewater, the zone changes to 55. I saw the sign and began slowing down. About 3/4 of a mile later, I see the lovely flashing strobes and blue lights of an unmarked patrol car.

Turns out that Officer Friendly was parked in the driveway of a store that's about 20 yards beyond the "55" sign. I apparently hadn't slowed down and he said he got radar lock on me at 74 in a 55. Oops.

Long story short, he actually wrote the ticket for 69 in a 55, which puts it in a different class of ticket and cuts the fine in half. I now owe the circuit court of Grand Junction, Colorado a $50 fine and $18.80 in court costs. I'm invited, if I like, to travel back to downtown Grand Junction to appear in court in September should I so desire. Yup, that's a plan, spent a few hundred dollars either driving or flying back to Grand Junction to fight a $68 ticket...

I'll write the check and hope that the good people of Colorado appreciate my contribution to their roads fund.

Now, this is where I must insert a small rant about Speed Tax Collectors - aka, traffic police patrols. We're always told that speeding tickets are to enforce safety. Bull. Take this ticket, for instance. If this ticket were about safety, The State of Oregon would be informed of the infraction immediately, so it would go on my DMV record. The actual fact is that if I pay this $68 fine in the next 20 days, nothing gets reported to Oregon at all. Nada. Not one point, not a note, nothing appears on my driving record. Good deal, huh? Well, sure it is. The Speed Tax Administrators know that most people aren't going to fight small tickets. They know especially that a person from out of state, who's home state driving record won't be impacted by the infraction, isn't going to bother to travel back to the town in question to fight a small ticket - and they're right. Write enough of these small tickets and you've got a nice municipal revenue stream going. It ain't about safety. Getting drunk drivers off the road is about safety. Handing out performance awards is about revenue collection and nothing else.

OK, end of rant - we all knew all that already anyway, right?

Back to the ride. I was on the road after checking out of the Red Arrow at 5:35 am. I decided to head stright out for a couple of hours before thinking about breakfast. My stomach doesn't typically like breakfast that early anyway most of the time. But, getting up this early does have advantages. I caught a spectacular sunrise just north of Montrose.


Colorado Sunrise

While the Speed Tax Collector was figuring out how to work his pencil, I took the opportunity to snap a shot of the surroundings of Whitewater, Colorado.


Mesas near Whitewater and Grand Junction

I continued on - strictly obeying the posted speed limit, officer - through Grand Junction and on to I-70.

There isn't a lot to tell about a mostly interstate trip. I stopped for breakfast in Green River, Utah around 8:00 am. Just after that, I pulled off in to a rest stop to put my XM earphones in and settle in to the groove for the day


Eastern Utah

Only two things really impacted the day's ride. One was a bad decision I made about going around Salt Lake City. I had been used to coming in to SLC via I-80 and transitioning on to I-84 outside town and never seeing the congestion along I-15 in the city. However, when coming in on I-70, the "bypass" route goes through the downtowns of Spanish Fork, Springville, Provo, Orem, and Heber City before getting back on to actual limited access interstate. I probably added an hour to my trip by chosing that route instead of just staying on I-15 and going through the middle of SLC.

The second thing that caused headaches was road construction just outside Brigham City on I-84. I had taken a short gas and water break at a local exit service center and when I got back on the highway, I travelled just about exactly 2/10ths of a mile before running in to the back of a 5 MPH backup that stretched as far as the eye could see out ahead. I sat in the backup, starting the bike to move it every couple of minutes, for over half an hour before I finally said to myself, "Self, you're on a motorcycle - USE IT, DAMMIT!" Knowing the California style lane splitting along the inside of the number one lane would probably get me crushed between semi trucks and SUV's, I decided to get out and travel the far left shoulder of the road, right up next to the grass in the median. I had a good 24 inches of pavement to work with and made pretty good time at about 25 MPH for - get this - NINE MILES! Now, I know that some reading this are going to be miffed at me for having done this. They'll think that I should have acted like the rest of the sheep on the road and just spent three hours moving through this mess. I'm sorry of you feel that way, but there was no freakin' way I was going to do that. There are times when riding a bike has advantages and I take them when I can.

I had to join the construction traffic again about a mile before the actual cause of the backup, because they had the left lane closed for repaving. They had 15 MILES of the left lane closed for paving. About half way up that 15 mile stretch, the paving crew was actually working. What had caused the huge ten mile backup on I-84 today? CURIOSITY VIEWERS!! Yes, that's it. There was no reason why traffic in the construciton zone was moving at 5 MPH, except for those few IDIOT drivers that have apparently never been in a construciton zone before, have never seen big yellow trucks and have no concept that one should keep moving through a construction zone. Once we got past the paving equipment, the left lane continued closed for another 7-8 miles and lo and behold, traffic was suddenly moving at 50 MPH again. The right travel lane was no bigger, there were no fewer orange barrels, there was no difference in the surface or signage. The only difference is that there WEREN'T BIG PIECES OF CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT TO LOOK AT!!!

I can put up with a lot on the road, but a backup of this magnitude being caused by rubberneckers is beyond the pale. The people causing the slowdowns should have been found, moved along and then ticketed for impeding traffic. No big deal, you say? Wrong. In the nearly ten mile backup, there were several overheated vehicles and at least one fender bender that I saw. It was 95 degrees and people were getting very angry sitting there, and there was ZERO need for it. That kind of thing isn't safe for the construciton crews, that's for sure.

Once I got through that gaunlet, I actually had a hard time keeping up to the semi-trucks and other vehicles on the road. To a person, every driver got out of the end of that paving zone and just hit the gas - HARD. I was going about 85 at one point when a 55 foot tractor-trailer rig passed me like I was standing still. He must have been using the turbo diesel fuel.

After ten miles or so, people calmed down the the freeway settled back to a "normal" 85 MPH all the way in to Boise.

It was a warm day and a long day. I'm now less than 430 miles from home and tomorrow's ride will basically be a one-shot ride from Boise to my garage, with maybe one gas stop. I plan to be out of the motel here once again at oh-dark-thirty with the goal of being home midday.


Day Fifteen - Stuck in Boise??

Talk about a trip report update "in progress" ...

Right now, it's 8:21 am Mountain Daylight Time on Saturday, June 25th and I'm sitting in a TA Travel Stop in Boise waiting for the local Ducati dealership to open at 10:00 am.

Why you ask? Well, upon departing from the motel this morning and hitting the freeway, I started noticing a strange "tick-thunk-tink-thunk-tick" feeling coming through the handlebars whenever I went over even a small bump, changed lanes, etc.

I pulled off the highway and did an inspection of my bike's front end and discovered that I appear to have a bum front wheel bearing. Would it make it all the way back to Portland? Maybe. I'm not willing to try it, however, as a seized front wheel bearing at speed couls result in my firey and horrible death in the middle of I-84 somewhere in Oregon.

So, I wait. And drink a lot of coffee. And check my e-mail. And update this page. And read the news. And......

Thank goodness the truckstop has a really nice hi speed WiFi hotspot....

Boy, has the next line ever meant more?

... to be continued.


Day Fifteen - Stuck in Boise? NOT!!

OK, THE Gold Star for this trip goes to Big Twin Cycles in Boise, Idaho. Seriously, take your business to these guys if you're in the area. Here's why.

1. The shop hours said that they opened at 10:00 am on Saturdays. I arived at 9:30 planning to sit and wait for them to open up only to find the doors open and a crew happy to see me and willing to help.

2. Knowing that I was on the road heading home to Portland, they got my bike in right away - I mean like within 5 minutes of my arrival - so they could get a handle on what was up.

3. When they discovered they didn't have a set of bearings in stock, they started calling around town to bearing suppliers looking for a cross match.

4. When they found only one bearing supplier open on Saturday - who didn't have the right bearings - they started looking for other ideas. Finding that a BMW K bike bearing was the same bearing that Ducati uses, they took a bearing out of an old Beemer wheel out back and installed it.

5. They kept me fully informed of what was going on while they worked, let me inspect the work and the old bearing, gave me the old bearing in a plastic parts bag and didn't charge me through the nose for the work. In fact, because the bearing was used, they only charged me for the labor to remove and replace the front wheel. A grand total of $22.00

I arrived at 9:30 AM and the bike was back in my hands by about 11:30.

This, friends, is the way every single motorcycle shop should be run. Period. Oh, and on top of all of the above, they did the work with enthusiasm and a spirit of helpfulness. Never once did I get an ounce of 'tude or any indication that these guys weren't working their butts off to get me back on the road. I was impressed and very, very happy with the level of customer service shown by this shop. Just a plain great bunch of folks.

The bike in process


A two wheeled vehicle always looks damned unsettling without 1/2 of its wheels


The bearing right after wheel was taken off. You can see the grease spin-out all over the wheel and what's left of the seal to the left. The bearing had to have come apart yesterday, although from looking at it, it must have been deteriorating for some time. There was no grease on the wheel when I did my daily tire pressure check yesterday morning. This morning, it was pitch dark out when I did the check, so I didn't notice it. But, this is a good lesson for all of us to pay attention to your bike when doing daily routines.

Why does a sealed high speed bearing give out with only about 11,000 miles on a bike that's not yeat a year old? Beats me. At first, the logical thought was to blame the last work done on the wheel, which was a tire change about three weeks ago. But, my local shop doesn't use a center clamp tire machine, so damage to the bearing during that work seems unlikely or impossible. Axle installation? Not likely - the axle comes nowhere near the seal edge. Nobody thinks that the famous Double Drop of day three could have done this. Maybe its just a plain old defective bearing - they do exist out in the world. These are questions for another day at any rate.

So, with temporary Beemer bearing in place, and waiver signed swearing that if I died on the way home from a failure of the used bearing I wouldn't sue the shop, I made my way back to Portland.

Again, like yesterday, a 423 mile slab session isn't much to talk about. Interstate is interstate. Traffic was heavier than I like because of the nearly six hour delay in my departure from the original plan, but the weather was good and there aren't that many construction zones between here and there.

I was basically riding gas tanks today. Fill, ride to "Low Fuel" light, fill, ride, fill, ride .....

Yesterday and today were also the days that I confirmed that the XM Radio on the bike is a true sanity saver. One cannot discount the value of having good music to listen to all the way from Nowhereburg to Big Emptyville out there wihtout having to deal with hitting the "search" button all day long and getting nothing but local country or religion stations. For those who are familiar with the service, I listened to Lucy, XM 54 for most of the day, switching over to The Seventies on Seven around LaGrande, Oregon for a change of pace. "Disco Duck" was playing while I rode down Deadman's Pass east of Pendleton. By Hood River, I think "Run Joey Run" was on. Ahhh, the seventies.

I did stop for a couple of breaks to stretch a bit. One stop was near the John Day Dam.

I'd like this picture a lot better if the bike was clean... but I think it's a neat shot. The flag flies above the Army Corps of Engineers office at the John Day Dam.

So, this summer's "big" trip is over. It's hard to believe now, adding up all of my mileages, that I've travelled 5,361 miles in the last fifteen days ... and only in two time zones. The trip has had it's little issues, but looking at the overall trip, not a single issue that I encountered ended up being a show stopper. This kind of trip is what "Sport Touring" is about, after all - some highway, some twisties, some more highway, some more twisties, some scenery, some more highway.... Other than the blown wheel bearing, the bike has performed flawlessly and never cause me an ounce of worry on any cold morning nor in the worst weather conditions. The bike is completely capable of going from "Triple Digit Sightseeing" to the tightest peg dragging twisties in about 3 seconds without a moment's thought. I like this bike more every mile.

The bottom line is that I'm home safe and sound, if a bit tired and sore after the last two days. The bike needs a little work, and it certainly needs a BATH (which it will get tomorrow) but it's due for its 12,000 mile service now anyway, so what I don't get done in the next couple of weeks will be handled during that service.

Most importantly on this trip, however, is all the new friends made at the ST.N National in Montrose. I will cherish the fun we had together, the long conversations about bikes and everything else in the world, the jokes, the foolishness and the riding - oh the riding, on those terrific roads in southwestern Colorado. While remembering with fondness the fun of the National, I also must remember the unfortunate incidents as we all will. We have two seriously injured riders after this meet and we need to keep them in our thoughts and help them as we can.

So, there's a little list of things learned this time around. Gotta learn something new every day, right?

1. I must go back and visit British Columbia again. And again. And again. It's an amazing place and I got just a little tiny taste of it this time around.

2. I need to stop panicking when I see the "low fuel" light come on. Even what I thought was the most nail-biting distance between fuel-ups, I still didn't put even five gallons in a 5.5 gallon tank. One of these days, I need to do the "when do I run out" experiment

3. I need to work on my seat. ...not the bike's saddle, but MY seat. Note to self - excercises for glutes ... very important.

4. I need to do some track days and keep learning.

5. Friends that are around at breakfast may not be by dinner - pay attention to them and watch out for them.

6. I still to this day don't understand the "no helmet" thing, even though most of us took advantage of the "optional" law in Colorado once or twice for short, slow trips. But seeing guys doing 90 MPH twisties on cliffside roads in Couture de Squid makes my stomach hurt.

7. Double check the sidestand. Done? Good, now do it again.

8. You don't need a GPS. Paper maps work fine ... most of the time.

8. Speaking of maps - get a good one of Vancouver, BC...

10. Quit whining, shut up and enjoy the day. There aren't an unlimited number of them.

Thus ends my BC/Colorado trip report. Hope you enjoyed reading it. I had fun writing it.

So long.

A few links