Hobicus

Saturday, July 7th...
Philip shows up at my place after dinner time. I fill him with beer and conversation until bed time.
Sunday, July 8th...
Ride to Rapid City, South Dakota
Philip and I head out about 7 AM from Madison, grab I-90 and head West. We cross the Mississippi River @ LaCrosse and continue heading West.
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We're both getting horrible gas mileage, mostly due to a strong headwind. Philip told me that he usually gets about 175-200 miles on a tankful, but at 150 we're looking for gas. Philip ran out about a mile from the exit. I went ahead to get gas and see if I could borrow a gas can, but he was able to get it to start up after it sat for a minute, and got the extra mile out of it and met me at the gas station.
Pretty much after that, it was 150 miles, gas, and go. Philip was a trooper, we kept it between 10 and 15 over most of the way, but there were some stretches where we ran a bit faster... :icon_whistle:
Once we crossed the Missouri river, we were officially in the "West":
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and once we got to the Wall Drug exit, I knew we were close:
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We pulled in to the hotel about 6:00 local time, and while we were checking in, Scot (Involute) and Mike (RodeRash) showed up. XX MAN had a blown R/R and would try to join us en-route. Duane (Flitmedic) had stuff to do on the home front and got a late start, too, and got there later that night.
We basically all went to dinner then tossed back beers until bed time.
Monday, July 9th
Unstructured Day in the Black Hills of South Dakota
Scot had a whole route planned for the day, but after talking with one of the local guys, scrapped the whole thing in lieu of doing 2 trips. The first was through the "Badlands" @ Badlands National Park, and the other was to go see Mt Rushmore and the surrounding wildlife areas.
Badlands
We took off from the hotel and headed East to Badlands National Park. Basically, it looked much like Nevada, except it's in South Dakota:
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I did get one of my calendar submission shots while I was there:
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We headed out of Badlands to Wall, where we stopped at Wall Drug to have lunch and be able to say "We've seen Wall Drug"
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We went back to the hotel after that, refilled our water and stuff, then Scot, Philip and I headed off to Mt Rushmore
Mt Rushmore
We left the hotel and went over to Mt Rushmore. Scot told the ranger girls that were working the entrance that we didn't want to pay to park, but they wouldn't let us out the way we came in, so the ranger girls told us to just tell the guy at the gate that we're not going to park and just let us through. So of course once we were in, we parked anyways.
We walked up to the end, and took pictures:
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Note that Philip got the GOOD picture of the blonde in the mini skirt with her legs parted.
After we got back on the bikes, we proceeded to tour through much of the surrounding area. We took a nice little detour down a "Wildlife View Road" (or something like that) and saw lots of buffalo:
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and even went by the "Chief Crazy Horse" carving still in the works:
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Eventually, we found some KICK ASS roads in the area and had a good time tearing it up. Lots of tight technical stuff that was TONS of fun. If only the idiots from Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois would get the hell out of the way, it would have been even more fun.
Forest (XX4me) joined us in the evening. Dinner and beer followed.
Tuesday, July 10
Devil's Tower, and up to Red Lodge.
We left out of Rapid City early in the morning on Tuesday. We somehow lost Duane in Deadwood, and pulled over to wait for him to catch up:
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Scot went back to try to find him, and when he couldn't find him, came back. After 45 + minutes and much debate, we decided that it was of no use to sit there, so we took off, hoping he'd catch up to us, and assuming he made a wrong turn somewhere. We did have a bit of confusion about the route (Some people thought we were going to do Spearfish Canyon road, but that would have left us with lots of slab to get to Devil's Tower) but eventually we followed plan and stopped for gas in Sundance, where low and behold, Duane was waiting for us. He found a public library somewhere, logged on, found the route, and slabbed it to Sundance so he could meet us.
We took off out of Sundance towards Devil's Tower, and stopped a couple times for pictures:
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And even a calendar shot:
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The rest of the route was basically 2 lane highway, with as little interstate as possible. Lots of wide open stretches and places to stretch the bird's legs a bit:
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and some forest roads and stunning overlooks:
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We made quite good time, until we hit some construction in Wyoming. They do a bit of a weird thing there, where they like to send "Pilot Cars" for you to follow through the construction zone. Sadly.. one of the places where we hit construction was all dirt/gravel. We follow the pilot car for a while, and we come upon this water truck, who promptly starts dumping water all over the dirt/gravel, turning it into a nice mud. My bike may never be clean after that.
The last little stretch into Red Lodge was a sign of the roads to come the next day, FR 308 into Red Lodge had some really good technical stuff and some stunning views, if you wanted to take your eyes off the road long enough to see.
We got to the hotel about 6:30 or so. They offered a free "bike wash" area, which was nothing more than a hose, but it was much appreciated after the mud we had to ride through. In the process of cleaning my wheels after rinsing off the top layer of mud, I found that I was missing 2 of the nuts on my rear sprocket. :icon_eek: and in the effort to tighten down the remaining ones, found that all of the others were loose.
Thankfully, Forest had some loctite, and I was able to tighten them down good and tight. We did dinner and I located the hardware store, which was closed but would open again @ 9:00. We tossed back a few beers, and then went to bed, with plans to get some breakfast in the morning and hit the hardware store right when they opened.
Wednesday, July 11
Beartooth Pass, Yellowstone, and up to Browning, MT
Forest and I were there shortly after 9, and after a few trips back and forth to the bike found some nuts and washers that would work, and had everything ready to go by 9:30. We got on the road and started heading up Beartooth Pass:
The pictures do not do the view justice:
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At the top, I decide to make snow angels, only be be molested by Scot:
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Eventually, we came down out of Beartooth:
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And into Yellowstone:
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With the exception of the 45 mph speed limit, and the idiot cagers traveling through the park, Yellowstone was beautiful, but not as stunning as Beartooth. Of course, we only skirted the northern top of it, and really didn't get down to see Old Faithful or any of the attractions.
We followed Hwy 89 pretty much the rest of the day. Montana pretty much is wide open, but there was the typical mountain views and streams:
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Eventually we came up behind this guy:
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And Duane starts telling me it's a cop, it's a cop.. so we slow down and follow this thing for almost 45 miles, before I finally get to place where I can pass him. It turns out, its a mail service car, not a cop.
There were lots of areas which had been hit pretty hard by forest fires:
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We finally got into Browning, Mt after 8. Chris (Cappel) and Tim (Fireldt) are already there.
Just for the record, the entire population of Browning is made up of Indians who pretty much hate non Indians. Aside from the people yelling at us and cutting us off when we went to a crappy meal with crappy service at the Casino, there was always the rude behavior of the people at the gas stations to make you really happy to leave the next day.
Thursday, July 11
Glacier National Park, then south to Challis, IdaHO
The plan is to get up bright and early, get the hell out of Browning, and get into Glacier before the traffic gets bad. We take off out of Browning about 6:30, and head north on 89. Duane leaves early, he wants to get some pictures of us as we go by. We all pass him and Chris leads us through to the park entrance. The only problem we encountered was some horses in the road. Scott hangs back to let Duane know about the horses, otherwise he'd hit one considering he'd be running pretty hard to catch up. We pull up at the gate, and wait for a while.. and a little while longer.. and still no Scot, and still no Duane.... It took a good 30 minutes before they finally roll up. I think they just decided to pull off and have a little tryst on the side of the road. Must be that mountain air.
At the entrance:
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And going up through the mountains:
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We tried to stop when we saw something worth taking pictures of:
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And another calendar shot:
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We stopped at the top and took some pictures and did walking around:
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Eventually we came down out of glacier and started heading south, stopping for gas in Kalispell before turning south on Hwy 2 and going by Flathead Lake:
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Pretty much, once we left the lake, though, it became flat and boring, so we made some time. The only thing that was surprising was the amount of forest fire damage:
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Somewhere along the way, we came up behind Ray (Mile High, or R2T2) and he lead us down into Challis.
XX Man joined us, he'd gotten his R/R fixed, so now we had everyone. We had dinner at a nice Italian restaurant and after a few beers it was time for bed.

Friday... July 13th...
Challis to Ely, NV
We pound on Duane's door, he's decided he needs to get a new tire and will meet up with us in Ely. Chris and Tim take off ahead of us, but I was expecting to meet them at our first turn. I pull over just outside of town after that first turn, and they're not there, they're nowhere to be found. Of course, I'm trying to turn around and stop, and mis judge where I put my foot (it's on an incline) and next thing I know, I'm dropping the bike. Fortunately, the frame sliders took the brunt of it, only the clutch lever got a bit bent, and the mirror and stator cover has some character. It's certainly ridable.
We figure since we didn't pass them, they must be ahead of us, so we take off. Darren (Rodantking) is behind me, but the rest of the group pretty much dropped off, mostly due to the chilly temperatures. We eventually pass Chris and Tim, they've stopped at a river to take some pictures.
You can see the steam from the mountain springs, and we pass a couple firefighting crews along the way:
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There was basically one really good twisty part of road along this stretch, which climbed up into some mountains and had a nice scenic overview:
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We stopped for gas in Hailey, and waited for the rest of the gang to get there. After about 30 minutes, I call Philip and he informs me that they are stopped about 12 miles up the road in the previous town for coffee. They meet up with us after Darren and I had been stopped for about 45 minutes. They gas up, and we're off towards Ely.
We pass a state trooper along the side of the road. When I went by him, he had his lights on, and the car that was pulled over had just left. He was just pulling out. Sadly, we were stretched out enough by that point (passing cars as necessary on a 2 lane road) that Ray got pulled over and issued a 25 over ticket. :icon_naughty:
He caught up with us at the next gas stop, so it appears that it didn't slow him down any.
I didn't take any pictures through the rest of Idaho, and only one after we got to Ely:
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We rolled across Nevada at an average speed of about 120 mph. Basically, we just flew. Pulled into town and after gassing up, found our way to the hotel.
We met up with Willsxx and the rest of the gang that was there. They were eating a late lunch over at the casino.
That evening, it was decided to take the Precious over to the local brothel and get some pictures:
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If this girl only knew where that chicken has been....
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Brothel Pricing: $100 for 15 minutes. According to the candy striper, that's about enough for a hand job. If you want more, you can usually do a half and half in 30 minutes. Basically, the longer it takes you, the more it costs.
As it turns out, this was the oldest licensed brothel in Nevada. We got a nice tour and everything. The girl starts asking someone about the 8 on the Free Plumber logo, and I initially explained that it's a sideways infinity... but she figured out that there must be a hidden meaning. Once I told her about rule #8.. she went on to explain that her first real big "O" was that way, and how she didn't like it at first but now she really gets into it. Of course.. she could just want that $100 for 15 minutes... but I still enjoyed the conversation. She also informed us that the massage parlor next door does Asian Massage with a "full body shampoo" which my guess comes with a happy ending.
Saturday, July 14th
We get up in the morning, and it's pretty obvious that there's not a whole lot of available good twisty roads. We had breakfast, and hung out for a bit, and I decided that since I am supposed to go to New Jersey... I might as well hit the road and head home. So about 11:30 or so local time I load up the bike and head out for Wisconsin. I blasted across Nevada and up towards Salt Lake City
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Was nice to run across Wyoming with a working camera, I got some nice pictures:
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I ran across 80 most of the day, until I hit Cheyenne, WY about 10:30 at night (local time) and found a cheap hotel to spend the night in.
The next day was pretty much get up early, and ride all day. I did the last 950 miles in about 13 hours, and got home about 8:30. It's amazing how much the humidity makes the heat just totally miserable. I also felt kind of weird (mildly dizzy, even though I was hydrating like crazy) and finally decided that it was an altitude thing.
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In the end, it was an awesome ride. Thanks go out to everyone who came along, it really made it lots of fun. Special thanks to Scot for helping plan the routes and the hotels.
Where to nexxt year???

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I love my country but fear my government
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WILLSXX

Very nice write up.

It was good to see you again bro.

We'll have to spend more time together nexxt meat.

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Is this the spot where I am supposed list all the bikes I have ever owned? Or maybe just all the farkles I have on the one I own now???