First Cross Country Trip!

Hi y'all,

I haven't introduced myself, but I'll do it here. I've been riding for about 4 years, but been working on all of my cars and motorcycles myself for much longer. My bike history goes (not in order) from a Ninja 500r, Grom, S1000r, VFR800 (8th gen), GSX-R600, and now the bike I've wanted since I started riding: a 5th gen. I bought one about 5 months ago, put a couple thousand miles on it, but was involved in my first wreck when someone turned into me. Luckily I wear all my gear, and it all got replaced along with the bike. I had a cross-country trip planned with a friend when this wreck happened about a week before.. I had been prepping the bike and getting ready for the trip, but I then had to go out and buy another and prep it in a short amount of time.

I'll save you guys the pictures of the work I did, but it was pretty much just doing everything you normally see on the forum, down to torque checking all major bolts and using dielectric grease on every connection.



Now on to the trip! Started in Cincinnati, then went west across the most boring 2.5 days I've experienced to the Badlands.




Next, we went through the Black Hills for a few days and saw Mt. Rushmore. It was cool to see, but the roads were way more interesting.



Big Horn National Forrest is definitely somewhere I'll visit again!




A couple national grasslands later, we arrived in Yellowstone. We did all touristy things and did a few hikes.



After Yellowstone, we headed north to a town Bozeman, where we had the chance to bath in some hot springs for the whole night, one of the great experiences from this trip! We then followed the roads to US 12 out of Missoula that has the famous "Curves next 99 miles" sign at the beginning, a great sight to see!



Next, we hightailed it to Portland to visit some of my family and spent some time with them. Portland is such an odd city.. Everyone there seems to try and look so wealthy, but they come out from sleeping in tents in the morning. Otherwise, we had great food, hikes, and experiences.




Heading to the coast now, we went straight west, then south. We were on out way to San Francisco where we had some friends to meet. On the way down though, we saw some great views, had amazing food, and tried to enjoy the roads. California was honestly such a disappointment in terms of road quality. We wanted to enjoy the road and views, but couldn't trust the road to not be in complete disrepair long enough to do so. Overall though, it was definitely worth the visit.

 

After spending time riding all around and trying to deal with the >100 degree temperatures in the desert, we made it to some family of my friend. From there, we went to Yosemite and were about to do a couple small hikes and see the main attractions.




Next was Lake Tahoe and Salt Lake City, which is are of my top places to visit now. We only stopped for a night, but the city is surrounded by mountains to explore!



After Salt Lake, we moved quickly to a city north of Denver to visit more of my family. We were able to find great roads and hikes in Colorado, so much so that we extended to trip to explore more.







Lastly, we went across the middle US again to get back home. Surprisingly, I wasn't sore or tired. My bike fits me really well, but I was definitely happy to not be getting back in the saddle for a day or two. This trip was 100% worth the experience, but I'll probably take a plane and rent a bike next time. The main point of the trip was to visit family we hadn't seen in years, and we were able to do that and get so much more too. It totaled around 7000 miles in 5 weeks.

Of course I have so many more pictures and videos, but I can't do everything here. If you have any questions about the trip or my bike, feel free to ask!