Spring Tour 2007 - Yellowstone

The following morning we got up and spent a few minutes cleaning the dirt off our bikes. While we were cleaning up, a guy wearing leathers walked up and asked which way we were going. We told him we were headed for Yellowstone and he asked if he could join us. Turns out his name is Marcello. He's from Wichita, driving a Yamaha. Very nice guy. He rode with us all day. We left from the motel and had about a two or three hour ride to get to the park. Almost immediately we started up yet another pass. We had pretty heavy fog in places, and at the summit the temperature dropped to the high 30's. Both going up and down the road was in beautiful shape with great twisties. I was riding by far the best I have ever ridden. Marcello commented later that he'd never ridden twisties before, and was having a really hard time keeping up. Ooops...

Yellowstone was amazing. Lots of wildlife, and of course Old Faithful put on a great show for us. We also had our infamous raven attack! Unfortunately I didn't get photos since the mess was cleaned up before I got there.

When we were at the main lodge a man working at the desk told us they'd been having a raven problem, and that we should cover our bikes. He didn't go into detail. When we walked out toward our bikes there were at least 15 ravens sitting on the three bikes. WTF?

We ran toward the bikes and were able to scare off the birds. My bike was totally undamaged. Bobby's tank bag had holes pecked in the clear plastic map holder on top, and the ravens had opened his bag far enough to tear up our map of Montana. The real damage, though, was to Marcello's bike and belongings. The ravens pecked a hole in his leather seat. They also both opened a zipper on his luggage bag, and ripped a hole in the side. A guy had left him a note saying he'd found all his clothing spread over the ground. On further investigation he had one missing sock, and one pair of jeans was shredded up pretty badly.

Seeing Mt Rushmore and Riding Custer State Park

The thunderstorms that night were all around us, but we only got a light rain for less than 20 minutes all night. It made watching the show even more fun. The KOA offered a $1 pancake breakfast every morning. We went down to get our food on and while we were eating got into conversation with a nice retired couple. We'd been talking for awhile when the usual, "so where are you from?" question came up. It turned out this couple was from Palmer, AK about 45 miles from where we live in Anchorage!

After leaving the campground we drove to Mount Rushmore. The ride was through mountains and was cool as long as the trees hugging the road kept us in shade. When we hit sunny spots, eek! It was HOT!

I hate to admit being disappointed by a National Monument, but for me Mt. Rushmore was a let down. I don't know what I expected, or why the enormity of these carvings didn't excite me, but for whatever reason I walked away unimpressed.

Leaving Rushmore we drove through Custer State Park. If you are ever in the area, this park was more of an attraction for us than Mount Rushmore itself. I should start by saying we had discussed our procedure if we should come across wildlife. (We would slow and look, but not stop the bikes since we had no real protection) Good thing, because we saw more bison next to the road than we could count. The road through the park is SUPER twisty with all kinds of elevation changes, one lane bridges, one lane tunnels, and 270 degree switchbacks. What absolute fun!

We had totally forgotten what day of the week it was, much less that it was mother's day, so it was a pleasant surprise when we pulled into a little town near Custer for breakfast and found the little Songbird Cafe serving a mother's day brunch with live music. The food was good, and the music better.

We stopped for the night in Buffalo, Wyoming. We debated camping since the weather looked pretty nice, but decided that since the following day we'd be riding through Yellowstone, we wanted to get a good rest. Karma must have been with us. An hour or so after checking in, Bobby and I were sitting in the bar eating dinner when Bobby grabbed my arm and pointed out the window. I have never seen such blowing dirt. We later found out sustained winds were around 43 mph, with gusts up to 69mph!

Back to Spring 2007 Tour

Let's see, where were we? Oh yes. I left off with us in Nebraska.

We left North Platte, Nebraska heading for the badlands of South Dakota. It was a long hot and boring ride, and I was pretty much convinced the badlands were a bad joke someone had been playing on the rest of the country. We were within a mile or two, and the only signs of interesting geography were the road signs claiming to be the "Number 1 Badlands Attraction."

Then there we were. The desolation of this area is amazing. I would have loved to do some exploring on side roads, and some hiking but the temps were just too high. We still got some great views though. Very pretty, and worth the wait. We camped in a KOA campground between the badlands and Mount Rushmore. As we got our camp ready, we watched thunderheads rolling in. We used the tarp to make a waterproof work area where we could use the claimed wi fi.

It longer than it should have to load pictures, so we finally gave up and watched the storm come on.

Kansas City to Nebraska and a Problem Credit Card

We left Kansas City, MO and almost immediately crossed into the state of Kansas. We spent most of the day on route 36 that runs East to West across the Northern part of the state. We rode the Pony Express Hwy, and stopped at the geographic center of the lower 48 states. That was all fun. Having Bobby lose his credit card shortly there after was not fun. It was even less fun when my credit card refused to go through and after 30 minutes on the phone with my credit card company I found out my bank had changed its electronic routing code, so none of my payments had gone through since February! Think maybe someone should have notified me???? Anyway, we got that mess figured out, so now all is well. We stopped for the night in North Platt, Nebraska. Seeing all the history references along the way, I couldn't help but flashing back to younger days reading Little House on the Prairie and such books. Strange how those names come back when you're seeing them in person.










Day 26

Eagle River Ride

This afternoon I rode about 30 miles out of Anchorage to the Eagle River Nature Center. It was cool and windy until I got back into the Valley. Eagle River Valley itself was warm, I saw my thermometer go up to 50!