Missed R3 but managed 2,313miles in a week

I was disappointed to be unable to attend the R3 gathering in CA this year but family obligations required me to travel east instead.

I pulled out on Tuesday May 10th around 9am or so. Here's me in the garage eating toast and checking over my stuff one final time.



My tank bag has the camera, GPS, phone, carmex, compact extra bright flashlight, and notebook. Passenger seat has a duffel with my weeks clothes and factory service manual all wrapped in a plastic garbage bag (in case of rain). The trunk and cases have:
shoes
clear visor
rain suit
first aid kit
long johns
clorox wipes
baclava or whatever that greek pastry is you wear on your head
neck warmer
snowmobile gloves
snowpants
air compressor/emergency roadside light (GPS and compressor run off 12v power point that plugs into my battery tender pigtail)
tire plug kit
volt meter
multi screwdriver
full metric wrench and allen wrench set
crescent wrench
basic plyers
cell phone charger
external camera flash
camera charger
syringe to refill Scottoiler chain lube

Finally, I have a 1.5litre Camelbak water bladder strapped on top of the duffel.

 

This is my first real roadtrip on this bike of more than 100 or so miles from home. She's had plenty of 250 mile days but always within that 100mile range of home.

The bike was resurrected from the dead last year using a California motor. I've put a several thousand miles on it locally where it's been very reliable with the exception of the usual charging issues and front wheel bearings. I also replaced the CA cams.

http://vfrworld.com/forums/3rd-4th-...9-new-project-bike-hits-stable-90-vfr750.html

http://vfrworld.com/forums/3rd-4th-...0-more-power-neutered-california-3rd-gen.html


As I'm heading out of the northern Colorado area, I have 49,423 miles on the clock. The motor is reported to have had around 12,000 when I got it but who knows.

Thunderstorms are forecast for South Dakota and Minnesota today. High heat but clear skies for all of Nebraska. I dread the idea of chewing up miles on the superslab but need to cover as much ground today as possible.

 

HaHa!! I remember that. Good one stosh ound:

 

Still day 1

So the 1st 100 miles goes pretty easy. After 200 miles I'm starting to get pretty sore and drowsy. The weather was real nice and I stopped in North Platte NE for a power nap under a park tree. Grabbed lunch at a Wendy's I think and hit the superslab again. What a drag. By this point I'm wondering if there's any way I can make Iowa like I planned and I'm looking for any/every excuse to stop.

Here's a pony express station from back in the late 1800's. It's in Gothenburg NE.

 

End of day 1 - IOWA!!

I did finally make it to Missouri Valley IA. About half way between Sioux City IA and Omaha NE. Flippin 100deg heat in May was brutal. Just north in MN they had tornado watches and the Twins baseball game got hail delayed.



With the questionable neighbors of this cheap no-tell motel, the name of the joint being "Rath Inn" (even the name inspires confidence that this is the place ax murderers stay the night), I decide to move my shit indoors.



Finished the day at 50,001 miles on the clock. Averaged between 37-40mpg and paid between $3.75-$3.95/gallon.

10.75hrs on the road with 8hrs moving and 68.2mph moving average.

 

Windsor, CO to Rice Lake, WI - Google Maps

There is a Google map of the approximate route on the way out. The return trip was a bit different.....

 

Family member loosing the battle with cancer. Figured I could at least enjoy the journey. Such is life, no doubt we've all had someone go through it or will in time.

It was good to visit and see a smile on her face. She's refused to throw in the towel and quit the fight but it doesn't look good. So we'll write old fashioned letters and send pictures to give her as much pleasure as possible in her final days. The rest of us will go on living. If it's His will, maybe we'll see a miracle. We'll just pray she doesn't have to be in pain.

 

Day 2

Woke up to thunderstorms moving through. The Rath Inn had complementary waffles and some nasty coffee. I didn't get a lot of sleep between the storms, the strange motel, and my sister texting me all night about when I'd get to town. Apparently, "I'll get there when I get there" has no meaning to her.

The morning storms moved northeast and were dying out. I dawned the rain gear and chased them for a few hours north on I29. It got colder and I had to add a layer about the time I hit South Dakota. Shortly after that I had enough of the slab and decided to find my way on some random state highways. Fortunately, in the midwest, most roads run east/west and north/south so it's pretty tough to get yourself into trouble.

By noon I was in Luverne, MN and eating my favorite meal - chicken fried steak and eggs. My cell phone is kicking my ass right now but here's an image provided by our friends at Google.


After breakfast/lunch/dinner/heartattack I headed onto the superslab again to highway 60 diagonal toward Mankato (Little House on the Prairie fans anyone?) This is where Garmin and I had a misunderstanding. I wanted to go up highway 169 along the river for some nice twistie action. Then land at my dads work in Minneapolis at quitting time to visit with some old coworkers. Long story short, Garmin took me toward a random waypoint northwest of the cities. I traveled north on 15 crossing over

and found myself in Hutchinson. Hot as hell by now and I stripped off all the extra layers.

Highway 7 east into the cities was a great twistie ride. I made it to the sisters house in Brooklyn Park by 4. My mixup with Garmin ruined my chance to see old friends.

Saw the seven year old nephews baseball game. That was quite the comical experience.

Ending odometer reading of 50,451 for a 450 mile day. Total time 9hours 5minutes 6:53 moving and average moving speed of 62.1mph (not bad for mostly state highways)

unfortunately, that's the last day I kept details on time/speed. Paid $3.89-$3.99/g for gas and averaged 34-37.5mpg

 

Day 3

Woke up in the middle of the night thinking someone was breaking in the window above the couch. Turned out to be sister's cat going into convulsions. Lucky for me I managed to throw the thing across the room so it could hurl on the linoleum and I got to clean up cat puke at 2am.

That was about as interesting as day three got. It rained all day long. I spent the day napping on and off (a.k.a recovering) on the sister's couch and playing video games with my 7yr old nephew. Oh, I did do something productive, the sis' roped me into fixing her air conditioner.



Day 4

Raining and cold again. Yet I'm still excited to hop on the bike. Even if it is for just a short ride up to the folks house. The plan was to leave the bike at the folks house and then the sis' and I would ride together north of Duluth to visit with our aunt.

About got into a bit of road rage with some guy. It was fishing season opener traffic headed north which totally sucks ass. As the cars in front of me were coming to a stop for a red light on the state highway, I was riding/weaving on the left side fog line. Trying to get a view of a white Crown Vic a few cars up. There was a turn lane there but I wasn't taking the turn lane, I was keeping pace with my space in traffic - just weaving back and forth over the edge. I always stop to the side of the car in front of me anyway.

Well, so finally the guy in the truck behind me blows his horn and sticks his head out the window yelling, "learn how to ride that fucking thing!" I didn't bother to turn around or even try to respond with words but couldn't resist letting him know he was "number 1".

That caused him to yell some more expletives. To which I casually notified him that he was definitely number 1 while not bothering to turn around or acknowledge him in any further way.

That's about as interesting as it got. Once the light changed and I got through traffic, he tried to keep for a little ways but eventually his balls ran out.

Ending odometer 50,518 for a whopping 61 miles. Another fill-up that morning at $3.94 for 40.3mpg.

 

Day 5

Saturday's not just cold, it's fucking cold and raining, yet again. Not to mention 35mph winds out of the northeast. Gotta love the midwest in spring. Now I get to battle the wind all the way into Wisconsin.

I had plans to do a flight with my dad today but the weather didn't cooperate. I waited out the worst of the rain and bundled up for the trek into Wisconsin. One of my friends went back to school in her middle-age and was having a graduation party. Really, this is WI so it was probably just another excuse to have a bonfire and beer party. She nor her husband had any idea I was coming. It was great fun to crash their party all bundled up like the Michelan man and unable to say a word, everyone staring at you and wondering, "who the hell?"



Finished the day with 50,644 on the clock for 126miles. Another fill-up at $4.09/g and 35.8mpg. Guess I was a little heavy on the throttle hand plus the wind. Even so, I enjoyed some great twisty and hilly Wisconsin roads.

 

Day 6

Spent the night at another couple friends house. We got up and had to go pick up a horse trailer in the morning. That turned into pulling porcupine needles out of a dog's nose. Visited there until noon. Went and saw my old house and rental property to see how the tenants are doing with the place. It's like a curse I've been trying to sell for years.

Back to the graduate's house for another visit and leftovers. Then head back for dad's by 4pm. More Wisconsin twisty roads and the weather is beautiful for a change - except for the wind. At least this time the weather was nice enough for me to stop and get some photos for proof.






I get back to dad's in record time. We have dinner, the wind dies down, and we head for the airport.

Ending odometer 50,773 for 129 miles. Another fill-up at $3.99/g and 39.9mpg.



Sunset flight over Princeton, MN

 

Little did I know how much of an adventure day 7 would turn out to be

 

all my readers have shown so much patience waiting on day 7!

I pulled out of my folks drive at 6:30am Monday morning. Finally sunny and NO wind - Amazing. However, it's 35degrees and I have every stitch of clothing on.

I headed southwest toward South Dakota. Turns out South Dakota is the only state I know that has a numbered state highway that's gravel. I think I ended up doing about 20 miles of gravel on highway 34 from the state line to Interstate 29.



South Dakota must be the 2nd most boring place to live next to Nebraska. Along the highway they had "Points of Interest." And since frequent stretching is required, I looked at a couple of them. One was for "A tree stood here once" and another was for "a woman opened a library here a long time ago". If you see "Point of Interest" in South Dakota - trust me, it's not interesting.

34 across to 37 and south to Mitchell. SuperSlab from here west to Kimball where I found this interesting building. However I couldn't find a small diner with chicken fried steak.



West some more to Chamberlain and the giant lake/river crossing. But no chicken fried steak. I only found one diner and it had no windows overlooking their parking lot.

(stolen google image photo)


Motor on.... On to Murdo. The SuperSlab has me about to nod-off. Pull over here and grab lunch, no chicken fried steak. Power nap in the diner booth and trade a few text messages with the wife. It's only about 5 pm and too early to call it a day although I've done about 450 miles so far.

The previous night I reviewed the map of South Dakota and was looking for some new area of the state I hadn't traveled yet. Massacre at Wounded Knee caught my eye and I thought it would be an interesting thing to see. Many times I've traveled south out of Murdo down to I-80 in Nebraska. This time I decide I'm going to run south just a bit and head west to see the sight.

I might not have thought that all the way through.

South to White River and fueled up at my most expensive stop of the trip $4.19/g. This is the edge of the indian reservation and I've been through here before. For some reason, it still didn't register in my brain that the WHOLE southwest of South Dakota would be indian reservation. This is probably one of the largest single reservations in the country. And now it's about 6pm.

The scenery was awesome with wide open hilly countryside and no development. The visibility was so good, I literally rode 30 miles at triple digits and slowed down twice for unidentified on-coming cars. I'm beginning to realize that gas stops might be hard to come by. And a decent motel, even more.

I made it to Wanblee and the gas station didn't look like a place I would want to stop. Continue on and make Kyle. Whether I want to or not, with 129miles on this tank I have to stop. I must be an oddity in these parts because everyone's checking me out, including the reservation police. Fortunately he didn't want to have any conversations with me. I'm acutely aware my conceal carry permit is probably not recognized in the sovereign nation.

Go to check my paper map again to make sure I'm still on track. Open my trunk to find a 20oz bottle of Pepsi has exploded and soaked everything. And as if I wasn't enough of a spectacle on the res, here I am emptying my trunk and dumping out Pepsi at the gas station. I can't get out of here fast enough.

West to Sharps Corner and south to Porcupine. But, check this out - they have the highway DESTROYED. Both lanes and the entire road base are completely ripped up. I'm not riding on gravel, now I'm practically dirtbiking it across the prairie. It took so much concentration to to keep the rubber side down, I went right past Wounded Knee and never saw it.

Eventually I make it to Pine Ridge on the border of Nebraska. Several of these indian towns had hand painted billboards on the edge of town declaring them a "dry town" with a message about keeping drugs and alcohol away from their kids. I believe Pine Ridge is a dry town too because when I crossed the boarder into Whiteclay Nebraska - it was like something out of a movie.

No way in hell I'm stopping for a photo but thankfully I was able to find some on Google Earth. Buildings fallen down and drunken men wandering down the street and others drinking on dilapidated porches.
(stolen Google image)



Hammer down and get the hell out of here. Now I've decided I'm probably only four hours from my own bed and stopping doesn't make much sense. That might have been a bit optimistic. I'm roughly 700 miles into the day now.

That was about the end of the excitement. I did come across this recreation of Stone Henge in Alliance NE. Had to stop for a quick picture but daylight was running out quickly. The official website for Carhenge For some reason this makes me think of TOE.



I ended up making it home at 11:45pm. Froze my ass off in the last two hours but have no idea what temp it was.

Beginning odometer reading 50,773 and ended at 51,736 for 963 mile day.

I averaged 34.5 to 41.25 mpg and paid $3.74 to $4.19/g

Grand total miles for the week's trip - 2,313.

Bike ran flawlessly, until the next day. The next time I pulled the bike out of the garage, the fuel pump had froze up and the bike got a week off until I could replace it.

 

That's the truth. Cool old ghost towns and remnants of farmsteads that haven't been lived in in 50 years. I often wonder what brought the people there and what drove them away.

Those places rarely have a "Point of Interest" sign to draw your attention or tell you what happened.