Cross Country on a bike

I just arrived in New Jersey after riding Marc's bike to the new owner. I left after having BMW replace the battery there was no life left in the poor thing. Too bad! I guess that is what you get when you let a bike sit for so long not on a tender. Anyway, it is happily residing in a new garage in New Jersey after a real test of riding this week.

I left Seattle Wednesday morning in a brisk 45 F/5 C. Burrrr! to start my journey. My goal for Wednesday was rather ambitious. I wanted to reach Yellowstone by that night, about 800 miles/1200 km away. Needless to say. I didn't make it. The last long ride i did was in Europe at EP and I just couldn't make it. it did warm up to a beautiful temperature and was sunny. I just got tired and decided to stop. I am finding it hard to even remember where I was because i was so tired. Anyway, 600 miles East of Seattle. Maybe it was Butte, Mt. Yes that is it.

The plan was to get up and out early the next day to get to Yellowstone National Park and spend the day there. Well, when I woke up at 6:00 AM the temp was below freezing. So I waited until all the ice had melted from the bike and it had warmed up to 35 F/ 2 C. to get on my way. BURRRRRRRRRRR again but I wanted to get to Yellowstone. The ABS did not like the cold and would not engage for the first hour of my ride. When I stopped for gas the bike was then warmed up enough for them to function. I finally arrived at the West entrance of the park and spent the rest of the day tooling around inside the park. I saw so many animals including a bear, I think a black one. I have never been in that part of the country. It is simply magnificent. I took some pictures of course and I will send you a link later today. I am now trying to figure out how Duner could have left such a beautiful place and how I am going to get back there soon. I actually stayed in a cute little cabin in Mammoth Hot Springs in the park. It was kind of spendy but worth it because I was surrounded by elk. Pretty cool, a whole herd just hangs out on the lawn. However, one had to be very careful walking through the grass. Land mines you see!

The next morning was much warmer. My goal was to reach Mt. Rushmore. Seeing that I travel sans GPS I really only had a rough idea of how far that would be. I had also not really done the math to approximate accurately what time I would get there. What I thought would only take a few hours took all day. I arrived around 5PM. I must say though, I was very lucky the weather had been glorious all day long. Blue skys and coolish temps, perfect motorcycling weather. Everyone says that you just pull up to the mountain, see the four presidents, take a few pictures and then you leave. I have to agree,, that is exactly what I did, but it is still worth seeing. The best thing about this area is that somehow, South Dakota has managed to keep all the major fast food chains out of the towns in the surrounding area. What that means is that the towns have this very quaint feel to them, frontier like towns with an old fashioned saloon and all. They were a bit touristy but hey, what isn't now a days. However, I managed to find a very nice, very affordable hotel that cost less then the Super 8 Motel that I stayed in off the Highway in Butte. I had a great dinner at a place called Rudy's and then went to bed as i realized that the fun was over and I had to get some miles under my belt.

I woke early and was on the road by 7:00AM. I wanted to get to Chicago on Saturday. I drove 750 miles and was 180 short of Chicago. It was windy as hell Saturday and I was fighting a cross wind all day long. That can be so tiring. The best thing about traveling through MT, WY, SD, IO is that there is really nothing out there AND very few cops. So I was able to go about 90 mph/130kmh the whole day. I know this doesn't seem like much but here in the US that is huge and fast. I really wanted to arrive on Sunday in NJ. Stopping where I did meant that I would have a marathon day on Sunday.

I can now proudly say that I have an iron butt. You can all disagree if you want but on Sunday I rode 14 hours and almost 1000 mi/1600 km. I left Davenport, Iowa at 6:00 AM EST and arrived in NJ at 10:00PM EST. Lets just say my right hand is not so good today. There is a reason why people don't do that very often. Just call me the claw today. My right hand keeps falling asleep and i could barley bend my fingers this morning. I still can't believe that I did it. HAHA but now I have bragging rights.

The S was a trooper too. I just love that bike. It made it without any problems. It probably needs new tires though.

I found that traveling alone was rather nice too. I went at my own pace and speed, I got to stop whenever I wanted to and met some really cool people along the way. there is something to be said about being female, alone and riding a really sexy bike. :) It was a great trip.

Anyone know any jobs in Montana? I wanna go back!