Day Three - Destination Grand Island NE

This morning was a complete turn around from the previous two mornings. This morning greeted us with blue skies and not a cloud was to be found. We got our start a bit later than intended (I just had to check those tire pressures) and were heading out of Hannibal, MO at 8:30am.

We topped off at a nearby gas station in Hannibal, MO. Not but a few seconds of our arrival 6 other motorcycles all showed up for fuel also. This (believe it or not) is the most number of motorcycles we had seen in any one location since our departure from Virginia.

We got on US36 west and drove nearly 200 miles straight across the northern part of Missouri. MODOT is in the process of adding two more lanes to US 36. When they are done, it'll go from a 2 lane highway to a 4 lane divided highway. Construction zones went on for miles and miles. I think the first 100 miles of the road were under some kind of construction. Fortunately, since they are adding the 2 additional lanes on the other side of the median, there weren't any hold ups with traffic. We simply got to look at all the various stages of the construction project. The further away we got from Hannibal the less progress had been made. So while near Hannibal, we were riding on a two lane divided highway, by the time we had ridden 100 miles, all we saw was them clearing brush and burning it to make way for the new lanes.

Our first stop wasn't until about 200 miles from where we began. We stopped for lunch in St. Joseph just east of the Kansas/Missouri line.

Tom needed fuel so we stopped off at a Shell gas station before getting back on US 36 West. Shortly after lunch, we crossed the Missouri river and entered Kansas.

North eastern Kansas was quite a bit different from the descriptions I had heard about Kansas. Instead of being flat and "boring", it was made up of rolling hills, and varied vegetation. It was quite the lovely back drop as we motored west on US 36 and then north on US 75.
After a short 60 miles, we entered Nebraska on US 75 and continued north to Rt. 2 were we turned west towards Lincoln. With about 170 miles on the clock since we last stopped for lunch in St. Joseph, MO we stopped in Lincoln, NE for our last fuel stop of the day.

We said good-bye to the highways and hello to I-80 West. Upon approaching Lincoln, the winds had begun to pickup out of the west. A quick glance at the XMWeather screen on the Wing told me that we would be approaching a strong winds area just west of Lincoln.

Sure enough, heading west on I-80, we battled a pretty stiff head wind. We estimate it at about 15-20 miles an hour. I-80 is a 75mph road so I ran the Wing up to 75 and punched in the cruise. Between the head wind the gusts and the extreme turbulence from the heavy truck traffic, our 90 mile trek west on I-80 from Lincoln to Grand Island was "intense." In fact the head wind and turbulence was so strong, Tom announced that he was nearly out of gas when we arrived at Grand Island. In 90 miles of riding, Tom had managed to burn up 3 gallons of perfectly good gasoline!! LOL I had only managed to burn up 2.5 gallons. The Wing pushes so much air that a little head wind doesn't even phase it.

We topped of the tanks at a nearby gas station and then made our way to our hotel in Grand Island. When we pulled into the hotel we saw about a dozen motorcycles in the parking lot. Now its beginning to feel like we are getting close to Sturgis!! We suspect the numbers of bikes will be rapidly increasing from here on out.

 We checked into the hotel were Tom immediately broke out his laptop.

With the bikes unpacked, we walked across the street from some Mexican food and margaritas (yum). After dinner, I noticed the skies were darkening. We checked some radar images on the web and sure enough a string of nasty thunder storms were heading right for us. I guess Mother Nature just can't resist trying to rain on us.

Tomorrow is our last travel day to South Dakota. We'll ride from Grand Island, NE to Hot Springs, SD. Mileage should be around 388 miles. The only tricky part of tomorrows ride will be not running out of gas. I'm sure I'll be fine but Tom may have some problems if I don't remember to stop for fuel in Theodore, NE. I'll have to remember to keep a sharp eye on my mirrors to make sure Tom's headlights are still back there. ;-)

Stay tuned for a video clip of Day three's ride!

Day Two - Hannibal Bound

We awoke this morning to low clouds and fog but without rain. This was a definite improvement to yesterday. A quick look at the forecast told us that we could expect relatively dry weather. Good news!

We had our breakfast, packed up the bikes and were on our way by 8:15am. Today's route was mostly Interstate except for a nice connector (Indiana 1) between 275 and I-74. Starting in Ohio, we moved along I-71 towards Cincinnati. We routed south of Cincinnati to dip into the northern part of Kentucky and then westward into Indiana. We picked up I-74 and rode that up to Indianapolis.

I had been tracking a few rain cells about two hours outside of Indy. As we approached Indy, these cells merged into a larger cell just as we approached. The rain started off very lightly but quickly turned into a monsoon. We exited I-74 as soon as we could (about 2 miles) and ducked into a gas station. We only got slightly damp thanks to the excellent protection of the bikes. While it continued to pour rain, we took advantage of the Subway sandwich shop at the gas station and had lunch. By the time we had finished lunch, the rain had moved on and the roads were quickly drying. We topped off the fuel tanks and continued our journey west.

We moved along I-74 through Indiana and into Illinois. We picked up I-72 and road through the Tallgrass prairie (all I saw was corn) past Decatur, Springfield, and then crossed the Mississippi into Missouri were we stopped for the night in Hannibal at around 5:30pm CST.

We rode approximately 550 miles today through 5 states and still had time to get a quick shower from Mother Nature. :-) We saw a lot of interesting landscape changes. From vast expanses of agriculture to hills and rock formations. We even saw blue skies and the sun!!

Tomorrow we'll continue trekking west across Missouri, catch the northern tip of Kansas, and end our day in Nebraska. The weather forecast for Grand Island Nebraska looks clear during the day but with 1-2 inches of rain overnight on Friday. Let's hope we get in before the rain hits.

Day One - Departure Day

Today was the day. I woke to the alarm at 5am and while getting ready I heard what sounded like rain on the roof. A quick check outside confirmed it. Today would be a wet riding day.

I loaded the bike and awaited Tom's arrival. Right on time, Tom arrived at 6am and while the rain had stopped for the most part, a scan of the radar assured us that we would be needing our rain gear. In an attempt to confuse Mother Nature, Tom wore his rain jacket while I wore my rain pants. It didn't work.

Our route today was basically straight west on US 50. We would go from VA to WV to MD back to WV and then to OH for our day's destination of Chillicothe, Ohio.

About an hour west of Winchester, the rain began to pick up and I could see on the Wing's radar map that we were heading into heavier rain. We made a quick stop in Brookside, WV and Tom put on his rain pants and I put on my rain jacket and gloves. Shortly after setting out again, the rain picked up to a real frog strangler.

US 50 was incredibly slick. The bikes were really moving around on the wet pavement. We backed down the speed to a safe pace figuring it was better to get there a bit later than expected than not at all.

We made our first fuel stop in Grafton, WV. We met a fellow motorcyclist who was himself on a long distance ride. He was heading for New Jersey from St. Louis. We chatted a bit and then headed out; he going east on US 50 while we went west.

We stopped for lunch at Marietta, OH (just across the WV/OH border off I-77). The rain was still coming down as we went inside to have a sandwich at a Subway. It actually started raining even harder while we ate lunch. We came out to a good down pour. I guess Mother Nature was trying to make up for us being inside for lunch.

Given the amount of rain that was falling, Tom broke out his "booties" to cover up his riding boots and we remounted the bikes and headed North on I-77. We then turned off of I-77 and headed west following the Muskingum River Parkway into McConnelsville. From there we followed Rt. 37, Rt. 377, and Rt. 78. Rt. 78 took us by the Burr Oak State Park and into Glouster and then Buchtel.

We made our way across US. 33 to 278 and to 56 into the Hocking State Forest. Rt. 374 (which runs through the Hocking State Forest) sure would be a fun road in the dry. But seeing how it was still raining and the roads were still slick, we kept the bikes fairly vertical and enjoyed the very green scenery.

We made our final fuel stop near Adelphi about 40 miles from Chillicothe. On the final leg of the day we made our way south on 327 only to be met by a freshly tar and chipped roadway. We gingerly made our way across the 7 or so miles of tar and chip without incident (although Tom claims I threw up a stone that stung his knee cap) onto US 50 and into Chillicothe for the night.

Although wet for nearly 8 hours of our 10 hour day, the ride was good and we made good time even with the slower pace. We saw some fantastic scenery with the low hanging clouds that rainy weather tends to bring. Simply fantastic stuff!

Tomorrow we will head out in a westerly direction and stop in Hannibal, MO (birth place of Mark Twain). A distance of about 540 miles. The weather is looking drier with only a 40% chance of rain. In fact, I just saw a bit of the sun out the hotel window. Something I haven't seen all day. :-)

Storage Space

The motorcycle that Michele and I will be riding for this trip is a 2009 Honda Gold Wing (the airbag model for those interested).

At 5.2 cubic feet of storage, the Wing has a fair amount of storage.

Two people for 17 days of traveling and everything needs to fit on one bike. How do you do that? Well, if you ask Michele, she’ll say, “Those trailers I see behind motorcycles sure look nice.” Uh….no! I don’t want to pull a trailer. I don’t want to pack a trailer. I don’t want to maintain a trailer. I surely don’t want to pay for a trailer. Besides, if we had the space, we’d probably fill it with a bunch of unnecessary “stuff” anyways….right?

So what is a guy to do to so he doesn’t get tortured by his wife complaining about not having room for all their makeup and hair tools? Well that’s not a realistic goal, so I just tried to focus on reducing the complaining. (Think I stirred up the women folk enough?) :-)

Before we even begin discussing clothing (or other "stuff"), I have some gear that I always carry with me on the bike. That includes:

• Rain gear (2 sets)
• First Aid kit
• Air compressor
• Tire repair kit
• Jumper cables
• Tool kit (in addition to the Honda supplied kit)

Those items basically take up one saddlebag which is effectively 1/3 of the storage. Add to that my DSLR camera and a half cover for the bike (keeps the seats dry overnight) and both saddlebags are mostly full leaving only the trunk (about 2 1/4 cubic feet) for any real additional storage. I still had a large bulky telephoto lens plus our tennis shoes (also bulky) that I would like to be able to bring.

The solution to the space issue was the Pakit Rack. Rather appropriately named, I think.

The rack attaches to the rear of the bike (via a vertical trailer hitch in my case) and allows for an additional 1.74 cubic feet of storage. So while the saddlebags will carry the above mentioned gear, Michele gets to take anything she wants as long as it fits in the trunk bag and I take everything I want as long as it fits in the Pakit Rack. That means I was able to double Michele's space.

As part of my lodging bookings, I made sure that we would have a hotel with laundry facilities at least every four days. We therefore plan on packing at least four days worth of clothing and doing laundry 4 times during the trip. With Michele smiling at the idea of going from half the trunk bag to the entire trunk bag, we have sufficient space to bring clothing and gear for our trip without the use of a trailer. :-)

One Week Out

It's been nearly a year in the planning. In fact, I began planning this trip before I even had the motorcycle I planned on making the trip on. So with one week to go before the trip begins, I thought I would start this blog off with a look back at how we got to this point.

In August of 2008, I was approached with an idea of going out to Sturgis for the 2009 rally. There was a group from my Southern Cruisers Riding Club (SCRC) looking to make the trip. Well I've been chomping at the bit to travel out west via motorcycle and I jumped at the possibility.

As is typical of me, I started researching the destination. I had never really looked very closely at the area around Sturgis, SD. I knew Mt. Rushmore was there but that was about it. Well, after a bit of research I soon discovered all the sites and roads that the area had to offer. I also discovered just how close Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Tetons were to Sturgis (about 500 miles). I was in. I knew right then that we would be making this trip. The trip however immediately took on a different destination. I wanted to ride out to see the area and not so much to go to Sturgis. There is so much to see (Mt. Rushmore, Devils Tower, the Badlands, Minuteman Missile historic site, the Black Hills, Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Custer park, Crazy Horse memorial).

Not wanting to “slab it” (ride the interstate the whole way), I found a book that identified 100 of the “most scenic drives” in America and began charting the ride, which I now was calling our Yellowstone trip. I attempted to connect as many of these scenic drives on the trip out and back as well as include them in our day rides while in South Dakota and Yellowstone.

After tinkering with the routes for nearly 9 months, I was done. We had found nice lodging in Hot Springs, SD and Yellowstone and I had charted out lodging locations for our “travel” days.

Trip Statistics:
17 days
19 states
6,300 miles
5 National Parks
2 National Monuments
1 National Historic Site

We were fortunate enough to have some friends of our want to come along on the trip with us, Tom and Julie. After teasing Tom with the routes I had put together, he was unable to resist the temptation and he and Julie were on board. I think being able to share the trip with Tom and Julie will make the trip that much better. We are all VERY excited to be going.

Next post I’ll discuss some of the items we’ll be using/bringing for this trip. This of course is a subject of much controversy as the ladies atempt to bring a fully equiped bathroom with them. :-)