Day 5

Ok not to bad mouth or discourage anyone from visiting North Dakota but the hours upon hours and mile upon mile I don't have that many positive things to say. Lower 40's, wind and rain the first day, dark threatening clouds, lower 50's and the wind....not nice at all. Now in all fairness it may have been a storm system...NOT!
Now I will admit The Painted Lands 2900ft above sea level was breathtaking but that's about all the good I saw in ND

Welcome to Montana...
75 and Sunny. Next to no wind and clear skies made big sky country a pleasure to ride through.
Some amazing rock formations and green pastures...are just incredible.
Originally we were going to head Northwest and ride through Glacier Lake on the Idaho line but with the storms we encountered it pushed us back by almost 3 hours. While I can make up the time I decided to regroup and take a slower ride through all of Yellowstone National Park...yup you guessed it another photo op!

I have managed to get the Kodak software working hopefully by tomorrow night I will have some pics ready to be uploaded.

Thanks for following...cya tomorrow (with pics I hope)

Duluth to Bismark

Hi all,
Thanks to Best Buy in Duluth for having the new netbook that works so I can see Jack at night and type when I can...
So from what I hear the storms in NJ are pretty bad. I also hear that is in 90+ and 94% humidity. Please don't hate but out here in Duluth Minnesota it was a brisk 61 degrees with no humidity and a breeze of about 10mph. Needless to say a day of Chaps and Leather jackets were in order.(Yes I had other clothes on under the chaps sorry to disappoint)

One has to question the design of Duluth, It's built on the side of a mountain facing Lake Superior...um...cold, lake effect snow people?

The secondary roads are absolutely incredible...2 lane blacktop with an average speed of 65 and next to no cars for 60+ miles...a small town and back to 60+mph.

The rest of Minnesota was just spectacular...welcome to America!

And then there is North Dakota....Welcome and poof construction...
Fargo gave us dark clouds and no temp changes to note(mid 50's)
About 10 miles into ND we hit our first of 4 really bad storms. Radical temp drops(mid 40's) and lots of wind and rain for over 20+miles.
Then the sun comes out dries the roads and the riders, and then another storm.

The last one was fun...30 miles outside of Bismark, we hit a wall of water...the sky got black...not dark, BLACK, the temp dropped into the 40's and a wall of wind and water like I havn't seen in a long time. lighting on the horizon while amazing was scary for a rider with no overpasses for shelter.

about 3 miles outside of Bismark the sky opened, sun shined and the horizon went from praries and ta-tonkas to a city..an honset to goodness city.

Thanks to the Best Western for hooking us up with the rate and during check-in )looking like 2 drowned rats) giving us drink tickets good for 2 Sam Adams 22oz drafts!

Gonna look at the route in the am...we are about 120miles off schedule...decision time.

Day 3

So far so good...We have made it to all our end points so far.
Mackinaw City was truly amazing, everything I hoped it would be. I only wish Jeff was there to toast Mr. Seger for dragging us this far north...
The Macinac Bridge was well..interesting...open grates and wind make for quite an interesting ride. but obviously we make it across.
The Great Lakes
I have seen what I thought was all five but I was informed that there are actually 6 (Lake St. Clair ) Thanks... to Gene O'Neill for pointing that out...After looking it up on the website I can say I drove by it so therefore I have seen all 6!

Michigan was incredible...Some of the most amazing (very long) secondary roads...Friendly people and beaituful scenery made it a very great day of riding in America.

Gonna do some milage watching tomorrow, I'm pretty sure my Odometer/Speedo is not working well at all. Not to mention the gas mileage is poor at best...we shall see

Thanks to Mike for the use of his netbook mine is still broke.

Deluth tonight and North Dakota tomorrow

Thanks for Watching See ya tomorrow.

What a truly amazing day of riding yesterday...540 miles and some of the most amazing scenery. Started out in Niagara Falls..spectacular! Great views and great roads...changed the plan a bit and rode through Ontario. The skyway across Lake Ontario was incredible (no shoulders - no pictures) Got back in the US in Port Huron Michigan. The customs guys were cool...
160 miles on Rt 75 and 69 :) didn't see one trooper. We pulled into Mackinaw City around 9:30. First order of business to have a brew. Thanks to Bob Seger for that!

Thanks to all our followers!

Day 1

We made it to buffalo/Niagara Falls but not without some pretty good rain...spent some time under a bridge with some other wayward travelers. I finally gave up and just left the raingear on the last 120 miles. Found a nice motel for the night. Went to the park next to the Peace bridge to Canada it crosses the mouth of the Niagara River Basin which feeds Lake Erie...awesome pic of the sunset...:Had a minor setback..turns out the little netbook I bought crashed so no pics for now...will keep ya posted...Thanks to all the followers out there!

The Route is set!

Here are the stop points for our route(let's see and hope how close we are during the journey)
Day 1--Niagara Falls NY --Lakes Erie and Ontario
Day 2--Mackinaw City Mi --Mackinac Bridge and Lakes Michigan and Huron
Day 3--Duluth Mn. Lake Superior
Day 4--Belfield ND
Day 5--Great Falls MT
Day 6--Missoula Mt--Glacier Lake National park http://www.motorcycleroads.com/routes/RockyMtn/MT/MT_1.shtml
http://www.motorcycleroads.com/routes/RockyMtn/MT/MT_7.shtml

Day 7--Cody Wyoming --Yellowstone National Park (Old Faithfu)
Day 8--STURGIS!!! -Devils Tower and the badlands
Day 9--STURGIS!!! -Mt Rushmore Deadwood and Crazy Horse Statue
Day 10--Bigelow Ia, -Is this heaven --no its the ride home
Day 11--Milwaukee -Harley Museum
Day 12 --Ohio/PA Line or HOME!!!!

Bike Service

I took the bike (I call her Anni-short for Anniversary..ok so it's bad but I like it) for her service at Tramontin.
I told them about the rough idle and bad 32mpg and they looked it over and said it was all fine. The computer says everything is running great...so why don't I believe the computer? Guess I'll.try some dry gas and pray the long day 1 ride gets me more than 32!

The big change

After much debate I've decided to modify the route. I have agonized over and over and just couldn't make it work. The new route takes me through some beautiful Montana scenery. Motorcycleroads.com was the inspiration for this decision, the pictures of the curves in the road and the snow on the mountains in the middle of July were enough to sell me.I had said all along I wanted to go from NJ to Washington State..does Spokane count?

The Countdown begins...6 to go

With only 6 days to go, I am finalizing the route, reservations and securing last minute items. This still seems so surreal. While I am excited, I am nervous that I might have missed something..this is supposed to be fun...isn't it?

Hello and welcome to my blog. I’m kind of new to all of this, so please bear with me.
About me: I am 42 years old, married with 4 kids. 3 steps and 1 amazing son named Jack. (Hence the name Jaxdad)
I am about to embark on a 2 week motorcycle trip to the west coast and back. My wife and best friend Diehnee has been supportive, she told me to go for it.
So with less than 8 days before my departure I am getting all ready to go. I’m not new to touring on a motorcycle; in fact I have traveled quite far over the years.
Most of my trips have been with some close friends. While I understand that they are unable to make the journey, that doesn’t dismiss the fact that I am going to miss not having them by my side. I guess it’s that comfort factor of being with friends you know, love and trust. This time, I am riding with someone new and I will admit I am a bit nervous about it. His name is Mike, a fellow paramedic and partner from work.
I have had a dream of doing this ride for a few years now, I have stressed over what I wanted to see, roads to ride, pictures to take and what stops to make.
I have been gathering equipment based on experiences from both my trips and friend’s trips. I just hope that I am prepared for the journey. Some of the locations I want to see:
Niagara falls, The Great Lakes, Mackinaw City(for my friend Jeff…you know why), Vancouver BC, Seattle space needle, Devil’s Tower, Mt. Rushmore, STURGIS, the Harley Davidson Museum and home…sounds pretty aggressive huh…we shall see. So welcome to my blog, I hope you will follow me on this journey….