West Coast Adventure - Day 5

The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plains...

The Great Plains. Montana's High Plains. Big Sky. Is it possible for something to be so awesome and beautiful that it just gets boring? Maybe it's just overwhelming in an underwhelming sense of the word.

To be clear, I'm not disappointed...this is the US-2 I was expecting. It's rural...in every sense of the word. The highway slims back down to a petite two lanes not long after you leave Williston, North Dakota. It's well maintained and the speed limit during the day is 70; once you get out here, you know why...it would be dumb to set it any lower.

I'll take this moment to give props to the drivers of Montana. In the nearly 300 miles I spent on US-2 in your state today, I don't think I was ever tailgated once. I was passed quite a bit because I was typically only doing 60 to 65. Most of the folks with Montana plates on their vehicles would pull over to pass while they were still a good 6 to 10 cars lengths behind me and wouldn't pull back in until there were 6 to 7 in front of me. I wish the idiots in Michigan could figure out how to do that, instead of riding 10 feet off my back bumper and "wishing me faster." If traffic was coming from the opposite direction, the Montana drivers would just hang back at a safe distance until it was clear to pass. No muss, no fuss.

Driving this section of US-2 is one long drink of prairie. There are a few trees, but very few. Mostly it's just grass, wheat, or hay and livestock. There was a point, not long after I left Malta, where I realized there were more trees, a lot more trees, and the population seemed a little more dense. It took me a few minutes to realize it was because the highway had wandered into the valley. The hills could still be seen off in the distance to both the north and the south, but I was now traveling in the plain between the hills in the watershed where the Milk River flows. I can only surmise, based on my liberal arts education, that the presence of a constant water source accounts for the trees and the population. It was a refreshing change of pace from the grasslands.

I found that it's not unusual to see farm equipment sitting forlornly out in the middle of land that doesn't look like it's been farmed in a very long time. A tractor, a harvester, etc. Just sitting there as if the farmer got out of the seat one day, walked away, and never came back...maybe that's exactly what happened. I was half tempted to stop and wander out to one of these steel monuments and see if the keys had been left in the ignition.

While we're talking about Montana, let's put a certain myth about the availability of gasoline to bed. It's just not true. If you run out of gas out here, it's because you're an idiot. I think the longest stretch I can remember going between gas stations is about 40 to 45 miles. And, yes, I did see one idiot pulled off to the side of the road about 5 miles out of Wolf Point, buying a can of gas from someone, at what was probably an exorbitant mark up. There's no excuse for running out of gas on this highway...aside from sheer incompetence.

To keep things interesting while you travel this route, there are Historical Points at regular intervals along the roadway. Typically it's just a large sign, posted at the side of the highway in a small area where you can pull off and read it without even getting out of your car (or off your bike.) Lots of history out in this barren land, mostly dealing with the military, native Americans, and trading posts. Once you get to Havre, you can even take a tour of the place where the native Americans ran buffalo off a cliff...which was a lot easier way to hunt them than with bows, arrows, and spears. Here's the view from Buffalo Jump, just west of town.

Buffalo Jump in Havre, Montana

Speaking of buffalo, I had enough time to investigate a member of the local fauna today...the mighty hayffalo. I noticed small herds of hayffalo almost immediately upon entering Montana. I saw them mostly in groups of anywhere from 30 to 50 animals. I wasn't long before the herds started getting bigger. At one point there were so many hayffalo to be seen on the prairie I was unable to even guess at their numbers, the herd must have numbered in the thousands. These portly beasts, with their immense girth, appear to be very slow moving, which is probably a good thing, considering the size of the herd. When I stopped to take a few pictures, I also found them to be exceptionally quite. Aside from the occasional passing car, the hayffalo live a peaceful existence listening to the crickets and the wind blowing through the prairie grass. From time to time I noticed what must be the nesting sites of the haffalo; they appear to bed down in large piles, sometimes two and three animals deep. I'm guessing this may be an attempt to keep warm when the temperature drops 40 to 50 degrees at night. Should you choose to travel through Montana keep your eyes peeled and enjoy the land of the stately hayffalo.

Herd of hayffalo grazing just west of the Montana/North Dakota state line.

And that my friends is what you have time to think up while you're traveling through the High Plains of Montana. :)

West Coast Adventure - Day 5

The route so far

Tomorrow is another day and another road. :)

West Coast Adventure - Day 4

I got to sleep in this morning...which was unexpected with a 4 year old and nearly 2 year old in the house. A heartfelt thank you goes out to Ben and Libby Johnson for putting me up for the night and filling me up on some delicious homemade and garden fresh food last night. I do feel like I need to apologize though...I was totally clueless in missing that today was their 5th anniversary. I took their wedding pictures. I saw the collage of photos on the cabinet in the dining room a half dozen times over the course of last evening and this morning and it never clicked that today was the day listed with the photos. Anyway...HAPPY ANNIVERSARY LIBBY AND BEN! From the bottom of my heart. :)

The sun was shining brightly in Grand Forks when I hit the road. US-2 is a four lane highway all the way across North Dakota...but it's definitely not a busy interstate.

I was only about 4 miles out of Grand Forks when I rolled over the 1,000 mile mark on my trip, so I stopped and snapped a quick picture to prove that I was still smiling. Well...I was smiling on the inside.

So, there is a downside to riding through the plains...it is a little boring. I saw lots of cowscornwheathaysunflowers and other agricultural whatnot. For the first 3/5 of the ride today, I struggled with keeping my speed in check. Everything is so flat and wide open, and there's so little traffic, that I kept slowly speeding up. It seemed like I'd have the speedometer up to around 80 without even realizing it. In a situation like that, I find it actually helps me to have a vehicle traveling the speed limit, or slower, about 100 yards in front of me; it gives me a gauge to keep things in check when I start to wish I was looking at something other than pavement, fields, and the black-eyed Susans growing along the edge of the highway.

I did find one thing to slow me down and distract me for a whole two minutes about 50 miles out of Grand Forks. I found myself back in Michigan. Whodathunkit? :)

I stopped for a quick gas up and lunch at Devil's Lake. I had planned on stopping there...but I was surprised to get there as quickly as I did...see the paragraph above for an explanation on how that happened. If you're ever in Devil's Lake, North Dakota, I'd recommend Kneadful Things for a meal. It's a small bakery/bistro. Not a huge menu. Mostly sandwiches, pastries, and other desserts. It was really good food, even if it was a bit pricy, and the coleslaw seemed like it was pretty well made on the spot, just for my meal, instead of scooped out of a bin.

About a half hour or so down the road from Devil's Lake I found a cool roadside attraction to stop at...the geographical center of North America. It's a small, unassuming monument in Rugby, North Dakota.

After enjoying being the "center of attention" for a few minutes, I jumped back on Black Max and continued my journey into cowscornwheathaysunflowers land. I was in for a nice surprise though...things spiced up just east of Minot. The terrain changes quickly. One minute I'm cruising along through the flattest land I've seen in a long time and then you come around a curve in the highway and the road dips down into a small valley and all of a sudden you're in hill country. It reminded me a lot of what the northwest lower peninsula of Michigan might look like...it it didn't have trees. Things got even more spicy after Minot, the hills just get bigger. Again, I was thinking it compared to some of what I've seen in the western and norther upper peninsula of Michigan...but, again, without the trees. The scenery doesn't change much after Minot. It's hills, hills, and more hills all the way to Williston. One thing that surprised me was that Williston is only 1,000 feet higher in elevation than Grand Forks and only 200 feet higher than Minot. It seemed like I was riding uphill for the better part of 2 hours after I left Minot. Every time I got to the top of a hill, there was just another, slightly taller, hill in front of me.

Yesterday, I was bemoaning what I felt was pork barrel spending that had resulted in US-2 being widened to 4 lanes. A little research shows me that happened, at least for some portions, back in the early 70's. I softened my stance on it a little today, not a lot, just a little. A couple of reasons:

• There were several times when large farm equipment was being driven along the highway. On a two lane highway this would have caused a huge back up. Even though US-2 isn't a packed interstate, there does seem to be enough traffic that having the ability to just go around the tractors is a welcome benefit with those extra lanes.
• The closer I got to Williston, the more traffic there was. It never got overwhelming, but there was enough for me to think that a two lane highway would have seemed pretty busy...and probably slow. I can see where having the extra lanes makes things move more smoothly along the highway, even if there are times when it seems like you're the only person using the road.

Now, before leaving on this adventure I had been told that there was an oil boom out this way. I wasn't prepared for what that meant. If you're desperate for work...you can probably find it out here. You may not be able to find a place to live, but you can find work. The oil and natural gas industries are running full tilt. There are not enough hotels, apartments, and homes to keep up with the housing demands. I first started seeing the effects just a few miles outside of Minot. What appears to be "temporary" housing complexes are popping up along the highway. These complexes look a lot like railroad boxcars that have been modified to be apartments. The ones I saw were typically stacked 2 high and there were 10 to 20 units in a "complex."

As I got closer to Williston, I started seeing corporate housing complexes. At first I thought they were prisons. They were often fenced in and they looked like single story barracks lined up one after the other. I have a feeling these "villages" can be set up in just a couple days, house hundreds of workers, and probably earn the companies putting them up a pretty penny.

Some of the farmers are starting to get in the act, too. About 20 miles out of Williston, you start seeing the "land for sale" signs. They're plopped down right in the middle of the fields that are currently being harvested. There's money to be made here and those who "have" will. It would appear that at least someone thinks this boom can last a while, too. It looks like they are extending public water and utilities out along US-2 a good 20 miles to the east of Williston. In short, if you want a job, and don't care where the work is, or what it is, you can find some good money out here. One of the efficiency housing units on the outskirts of Williston is advertising "cheap" rentals...only $699 per week...

**** Sunday Morning, August 19 ****
Was surfing the internet and stumbled across this article about a kid trying to make money for college by selling showers in Williston.
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I've traveled over 1,300 miles at this point. I'm more than halfway to the west coast at this point. Tomorrow is going to be a warm day and I'll be planting my flag in Havre, Montana, for the evening. After that I'm heading to Kalispell, Montana, where I'll spend two nights so that I can do a day long tour of Glacier National Park.

Here's maps showing today's route and the trip overall.

Tomorrow is another day and another road. :)

West Coast Adventure - Day 3

The last 120 miles of my ride today were very difficult, what with the smell of pork overwhelming me the entire way…more on that later.

Traveling the length of the country on a single highway can start to add some perspective to the economic situations in the different states. Michigan appears to be dying…and it's sad. As happy as I was to see several of the hotels that were closed the last time I rode up here now open…there were more that were closed…and gas stations…and empty houses. It just doesn't look like there's any kind of recovery coming to the U.P. at a sustainable rate. Things don't seem to be going down hill as fast as they have in recent years…but it doesn't really look like they're getting better either. Crossing the border into Wisconsin provides an almost noticeable and immediate change…fewer closed businesses and fewer empty houses. By the time you get into Minnesota, you wouldn't be able to tell that things are so bad just a few hundred miles to the east. By no means am I saying things in Wisconsin and Minnesota are so great that we should begin a mass migration to the west, it's just easy to think that things outside of Michigan may be getting better faster than they are in my home state. Maybe I'm wrong…I hope I am.

The pork…I wasn't really smelling pork…it was pork barrel spending. US-2 turns into a 4 lane highway east of Bemidji, Minnesota, and remains that way for over 100 miles. Maybe someone from the area can tell me why this was necessary. I was riding this route from 4:00PM to 6:00PM, rush hour, and, with only a few exceptions, I can't tell why the money was spent expanding the highway out to 4 lanes…based on the traffic I saw, it seems like a waste. There were multiple times when I could see at least a mile down the road and couldn't count more than 8 to 10 cars traveling in either direction. How much does it cost to maintain a 4 lane highway instead of a 2 lane highway? How much did it cost to put it in in the first place? This didn't happen recently, it looks like it's been this way for quite a while. Someone slipped it in to some piece of legislation and we all just let it happen. It kind of makes me sick to my stomach…Maybe I'm wrong…I hope I am.

I woke up in Hurley, Wisconsin, this morning to crisp and cool conditions. The sun was shining, the breeze was blowing, and by the time I left at 8:15AM it was only 55 degrees. A perfect day for wearing a sweatshirt under the leather. Given my druthers, every riding day would be like this. :)

I got my first glimpses of Lake Superior about 30 minutes into the ride as I arrived at Chequamegon Bay. There's a nice little roadside park as you head into Ashland, so I pulled over to grab a couple quick pictures.

Traffic between Ashland and Superior was pretty steady, but it never got busy, which means I was able to move along at a very comfortable pace, even with the stiff breeze blowing out of the northwest. I made it to Floodwood, Minnesota, in time to meet WiseguyDave for a great burger at Bridgeman's. Floodwood is one of the many small bergs along US-2 with fewer than 1,000 residents. Resilient little towns that hang on and survive regardless of the situation.

I tried to take a picture of the welcome to Minnesota sign on the Ira Richard Bong bridge between Superior, Wisconsin, and Duluth, Minnesota....i didn't quite get it.

On my way out of town, I got a nice surprise…the Mississippi River. I was pretty sure I wouldn't be seeing it on this leg of my journey, as I knew its headwaters were south of US-2, but I didn't count on the fact that the river flows north and east before turning and heading south.

Here's a panorama of the river:

West Coast Adventure - Day 2

Hellooooooo wind!

Whew, feels good to be off the road. Mackinaw City to Hurley, Wisconsin, ended up being about 341 miles after throwing in a couple short side excursions. That is just about what I expect my average day to be like, riding between 300 and 350 miles and, hopefully, arriving at my destination by about 4:30. This should allow me time to clean up, find a decent place to eat, and spend the evening relaxing.

A few notes from the ride:

1. US-2 is a great piece of road. It's well maintained, scenic, and has plenty of places to stop for food, gas, etc. If you wanted to stop at all the touristy places, you could probably take about 4 days to make the drive from the east end to the west end of the Michigan portion of the highway.
2. It looks like the fall colors are going to be coming soon. As I started west on US-2, I'd see a tree beginning to turn red or orange every couple of miles. After Escanaba, there were more and more trees that look like they're going to turn soon, with some that were already unfurling brilliant red, orange, and yellow leaves. Admittedly, it's probably less than 1% of the trees, but it wouldn't surprise me to see the western half of the U.P. in peak color about 4 to 5 weeks from now. Then again, what do I know...
3. The ride from Mackinaw City to Norway was pretty dreary. Mostly cloudy with patches of what could barely be called rain. There were parts of the highway where I could tell it had rained quite a bit prior to my riding through, but thankfully I managed to get there too late for it get me soaking wet...right up until I was about 3 miles east of Norway. It rained enough for about 2 minutes to get my pants and coat pretty wet; then it eased up and I was left with partly cloudy skies for most of the rest of my journey to Ironwood. The nice thing about that is, you tend to dry out pretty quick once the rain is done.
4. After I left Norway, the wind picked up, and I mean it really picked up. It blew out of the northwest at a pretty steady 15 to 20 miles per hour with gusts topping 30 or so. I'm not a small guy, and the VTX is a big bike, but there were a few times when I felt like a kite on a string. I think I've only ridden in wind like that on three other occasions. I'm wondering how the wind on the northern plains will compare?
5. It fun to ride through towns like Norway and Vulcan...simply because of the names of the towns. "So, where are you from?" "Vulcan." "Riiiiiight...live long and prosper, dude."
6. Even though I've been on the road for two days now, it doesn't feel like the trip has really begun yet. I think it's because I've ridden all these roads before, so I haven't seen anything "new" yet. That will all change tomorrow. When I leave here in the morning, it's all new...all the way to the west coast.

As I make my way west, I find comfort in some of my now standard traveling companions. I find that most gas stations are now carrying SoBe's lifewater (0 calories). I figure it tastes better than water and is probably better for me than pop. It says it's all natural, no artificial sweeteners, and each bottle has a different mix of vitamins and minerals in it. I often find myself downing 2 bottles at each gas stop, just to stay hydrated. So far, that plan seems to be working for me. This isn't the first trip I've done it on and haven't found any real negatives yet.

 

I also learned, on my first long trip ever, bring some ibuprofen and non-aspirin pain reliever. I don't normally partake in this type of voodoo, but learned that it can make the difference been a great day of riding and a not so great day of riding. I think it helps me sleep a little better at night, too, when my arms, back, and shoulders aren't yelling at me and asking why I'm doing this to them. :)

A few random pictures from today.

Stopped at a scenic turnout to get a shot of Black Max with Lake Michigan and some "scenery" in the back ground. This is Max's first time across the bridge.

I paused for a few quick pictures at the Cut River Bridge. As my friend Joel likes to describe it, "it's a $10,000,000 bridge over a 10 cent creek." I took a couple of Photosynth panoramas, too. You'll probably have to have Microsoft's Silverlight installed to view them.

US-2 takes you right by Watersmeet. If I have to explain the Nimrod's to you, you either don't watch ESPN or you don't know Kevin Oxley. :)

Here's what today's route looks like on the map.

And the overall route, so far.

Tomorrow is another day and another road. :)

West Coast Adventure - Day 1

This is it...the BIG trip. It's part of what I wanted to do last summer, but the BIG trip last summer turned out to be enough after about 5,000 miles and 5 or 6 weeks of travel. I left this afternoon and hope to see the western end of US-2 in about 7 days.

Some of you might ask, "why?" The answer, of course, is because I can...or maybe, more correctly, because I want to. To which the quizzical would give me a blank stare and ask again, "why?" For those who ride a motorcycle, no explanation is needed. For those who don't...none will really make much sense. The "why" is the same reason people climb mountains and go deep sea diving. That's why.

Believe it or not, today may actually be one of the harder days of the trip. It was only 275 miles, but it was almost all Interstate and I didn't leave home until after 3:00PM. Riding that far, with no windshield, on the interstate is actually a little draining. My arms and shoulders hurt tonight in ways they haven't in a long, long, time. However, once I'm on US-2, the speed limit is normally about 55, so that's going to help a ton. 55 to 60 with no windshield is manageable, in my humble opinion, while 70 to 75 is pushing it hard.

I could have left earlier in the day, taken 2 lane highways all the way up, and avoided the Interstate stress and pain, but I didn't...duh. I spent the morning and early afternoon running all the errands and taking care of all the little odds and ends one must take care of before leaving on a long trip. I could have done them yesterday, but I didn't...duh.

Once Black Max was loaded, it was pretty much off to the races. I just had one last errand to run and then a stop for gas and we were on our way.

Black Max is what I've decided to call my VTX...every bike deserves a good name, right? I'd say the name came to me in a moment of inspiration, but that would be a lie. I actually had a FB friend that was looking for names for a piece of jewelry and asked people to make up a name using the color of pants they were wearing and the name of their first pet...hence, Black Max. In truth, I was wearing black shorts with a tropical floral pattern on them..but Black Tropical Floral Pattern Max sounds kind of stupid, if you ask me.

Tomorrow is shaping up to be the worst weather day for the first week of the trip. There's a 30% chance of rain first thing in the morning that quickly escalates to 50% and then 70%. However, it looks like something I can move through/past if I time it just right. The forecast for my destination, Hurley, Wisconsin, has a very low chance of rain tomorrow...hard to tell what it will be like until I actually get up in the morning and scope out the forecast and radar. Modern day travel has it's silver lining.

First day is in the books...and we're looking pretty good...tomorrow is another day and another road.

Here's the route for Day 1:

Just Another Ride

So, about 5:45PM last night, I'm riding north on I-75 headed to Detroit to catch the Tigers and Yankees game. My buddy and I had been in Cleveland, where he spent the day visiting his mom and I bought tickets thinking the ballgame would be a great way to relax on our way back home. I'm cruising along in the farthest left of 3 lanes at about 70MPH. It's pretty heavy traffic and only the left lane is moving at the posted speed limit. In the lane to my right, is a large SUV hauling a boat. In the lane to the right of him is a tractor trailer.

Just as I pull even with the front of the boat, and the rear of the SUV is lined up with the rear of the trailer the rig is hauling, the driver of the semi decides its time to move over into the middle lane. I started braking, but still found myself needing to head to the shoulder to avoid getting crunched by the boat…the 4 foot wide strip of concrete that serves as a shoulder in this case…the very poorly maintained 4 feet of concrete that serves as the should…you get the idea.

Those of you from Michigan won't need an explanation of the "Grand Canonesque" trenches that demarcate the highway from the shoulder. Michigan's crack Department of Transportation allows these 5 to 12 inch wide, and sometimes several inches deep "cracks" to exist in the vacuum between the roadway and the shoulder. They can be anywhere from a couple feet long to several meters.

In the end, I'm lucky to be alive. The only thought on my mind after I hit the first of these trenches was "keep the bike straight and keep it up." I wasn't trying to swerve back into the road where who knows what would have run into me. When I hit the first trench, I felt the front start to wobble and slip, I immediate knew the front tire was flat…at 70MPH on the busiest highway in the state, with no safe shoulder to stop on…I felt pretty boned at that point.

Fortunately, my buddy was far enough behind me that he wasn't affected by all this, and there were 2 tractor trailers in the lanes next to him that saw everything and immediately slowed down. Because THEY were paying attention, I was able to get back on the roadway and get over to the shoulder on the right side of the highway, thanks to them blocking traffic, where I was finally able to stop and begin cursing the day the first truck driver had been born.

Here's a picture of my tire and rim. The rim bent on both side, but the left side was the worst.

 My buddy's wife drove the hour and a half to come pick me up and we took the backroads home while he rode in front of us.

Anyway, I'm not sure how other people react the day after death grabs their nuts and squeezes like he's not going to let go…as for me, I decided it would be a good day to modify my Honda VTX a little more. I recently had it painted and customized to have a lot of the chrome blacked out.  Here's a few shots.

Watch me ride...

Went for a ride with my buddy, Jason, today. Buddy might not be the best word to describe him. Jason's my friend. A best friend. The kind most people are lucky if they have one of...in their whole life.

We rode over to the Dark Horse Brewery for lunch. Yummy! I'll have to go back to sample more of their menu sometime.

Here's a video I shot. It's 30 minutes of me, on the ride back. Enjoy it.

If you actually watched that whole thing...it must have only been for the music. :)