2025 Eastbound Trip 1 - Table of Contents

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2025 Eastbound Trip 1 - The Wrap Up

June 29, 2025

As I usually do I like to wrap up a trip with some data and some commentary.

Total miles ridden: 5,217

Longest day: 447 miles, Albert Lea to Clear Lake and then to Medora area

Shortest day:  222 miles, returning from West Virginia to Pittsburgh

Days traveling: 15 days riding, 15 days hanging out in Pittsburgh

Nights camping out: 12

Number of gas stops: 33

Total gas used: 100.43 gallons

Total cost of gas: $316.87

Average miles per gallon: 51.94 mpg

Cost of campsites: I didn’t keep track of those this time but to one night in a motel was $115

Note that the math shows that the average cost of gas was $3.16/gallon which I find interesting.  The average cost of gasoline since 1975, adjusted for inflation, is $3,21/gallon.  While people whine about gas prices, I contend that gas is about the same over time BUT we use less of it since our vehicles are more fuel efficient than in the past.  With my motorcycle getting about 52 mpg, it costs me 6 cents per mile.  The most expensive gas was $3.60 in Dickinson, ND, Union, PA, and Hickory, PA. The least expensive was in Center, ND at $2.79/gallon.  I note that there the only option was 87 regular which is what I run.

Now some thoughts and things I didn’t think of when I made the daily entries.  This trip was different is in that my wife and I camped our way across country but did not travel together.  She took the freeways as that is how she easily finds charging stations for her EV.  I like to stick to the backroads because it’s more relaxing and the scenery is better.  We’d meet up at the end of the day wherever she’s set up a campsite reservation.  We could keep track of each others location sharing that on our phones.

One advantage of this method of travel, for me, is that I could stow some of my gear in the car and not have to carry it on the bike.  For the most part this was extra stuff that I’d want to have for our extended stay in Pittsburgh so clothes, my drawing stool, etc.  I did keep everything I needed to be independent on the bike in case something happened and we didn’t meet up so I had all my camping gear with me.

The motorcycle performed flawlessly.  Except for that one incident where I had to use my OBD2 reader to clear a code caused by a rough railroad crossing, all I did was put gas in it and change the oil when I arrived in Pittsburgh.  It just runs and does that as fast as I dare to make it go.  I have grown into a much more confident rider over the years so I’m able to push the bike a bit more, especially in the twisty roads.  The cruise control is a feature I would never want to do without.  It saves wear and tear on my wrist which has some carpal tunnel issues.  The heated grips came in pretty handy when riding in the rain.  It wan’t that cold out but with wet gloves and wind it felt like it.

Oh, another bike related issue, when I had to use the OBD2 reader to clear that error code (Day 26), I found a nail in my rear tire.  It was small and very rusty and had gone sideways through one tread knob into another.  It didn’t look like it had punctured the tire.  Where it went between the two knobs, it had broken in two so I pulled the head out and left the other.  I didn’t want to create a problem where there wasn’t one.  Now that I’m back I’ll extract that little piece out if it is still there.  Since it was in sideways, I didn’t think it was a problem.  No photo because I didn’t want to make it famous.

Rain.  I must say something about rain.  I did not keep track but I’m guessing that about half the time I rode, I was in the rain.  Because of past experiences riding in those conditions, I’m pretty comfortable these days and feel that the bike handles just about as well as it does on dry.  This is largely due to the Michelin tires I’m using.  They just fell sticky to the road, wet or dry.

But staying dry in the rain is just not going to happen.  I mean I do stay mostly dry but I’m going to get wet.  Rather than a full rain suit I have a rain liner that zips inside my jacket.  The jacket keeps wet but I stay dry, mostly.  I have rain paints that pull on over my riding pants and I think I didn’t have them hiked up high enough and water came off the jacket liner and ran down above the rain pants.  Lesson learned.  I really don’t want to invest, carry, or wear a full rain suit.  I’ve also learned to tighten up the cuffs on my sleeves to keep the water from blowing in there.  I have gauntlet-style gloves for cold weather but just opted for my shorter gloves for this ride.  It’s inevitable that some water is going to get into the helmet although I was mostly dry there but some water will run down my neck.  If I wer a neck gather thing that might help that.

Humidity.  I experienced more of that on this trip than on other trips in the same region.  Hot, sticky, and not her wet ever dries out.  I probably dislike the humid y more than the heat.  It wasn’t too bad in the mornings when I’d go out for my runs but would go up s the day went on.  Of course, near the end of our stay in Pittsburgh, they started having a record breaking heat wave which was nice to escape from.

I had an assortment of little experiences that stick in my mind but didn’t write about when they happened.  I was on my way out of Pennsylvania and stopped at a rest area along a nice lake.  I’d gone around the restrooms to take a photo of the lake and when I came back to my bike a guy was looking at it and struck up a conversation, mostly about riding which he said he can’t do anymore.  He asked where I was riding from and I told him “Pittsburgh” and he said he grew up near there but now lives in southern Ohio.  Then, as he lights up a little cigar, tells me that the county he lives in has the highest cancer rate in the nation but he’d never live in PA again because as a commonwealth, they have more laws and rules than anywhere.  He also doesn’t like how the state accommodates “all those ‘Alphabet’ people.”  OK, time to hit the road.

Little towns.  Lots of them.  Sometime I wonder how that survive and what the people there do a for a living.  I wrote earlier about the depression economy in parts of West Virginia and I didn’t see anything as poor at that through Ohio to North Dakota but some little towns are quite quiet.  Some businesses building are closed.  However, in many of these towns there lots of beautiful homes and nice parks.  Hickory, PA was one of those.  There were some nice Victorian-style homes there that made me want to learn more about the place.  

Of course, many of the small towns survive because of the agricultural industry that surrounds them.  What’s great about these backroads tours is that one really does get a realistic picture of how much of the country is devoted to farming.  In the west we see lots of cattle operations but through the Midwest, it’s farming, mostly corn with a fair amount of soybeans.  Hundreds of miles of nothing but cultivated farmland.  Grain silos are everywhere. It’s quite beautiful.

Camping gear: what can I say?  After many trips I have whatI need and didn’t want for anything.  My MSR stove from the 1970s is still working fine.  One change I made to my gear was to add a MagSafe charger to my tank bag for charging my phone.  I’d been having trouble with the charging port before I left.  I cleaned it and even used a bit of DeOxit, but the cord had to be in just the right angle for it to charge.  For the ride to Pittsburgh I couldn’t use the MagSafe because I didn’t have USB-C socket on the bike and the adapter I’d picked up wasn’t rated for charging.  By the time I got to Pittsburgh, the charging port seemed to heal itself but my son gave me a proper adapter and I was able to use the MagSafe for the rest of the trip.  It’s handier to remove it from the back of the phone when I take it out of the tank bag than using the cable version.  Geeky stuff.

I’ll also mention that when I was at the reggae concert, it was well after dark and I was walking around on my way back from the stage when I stopped to pick up some little.  At first I thought “Wow!” But upon closer inspection, not so wow.

That about wraps up this adventure.  Right now have no plans for the next big ride but I know I’ll be doing some day rides in the weeks ahead.  I also have another oil and filter change on the agenda.

2025 Eastbound Trip 1 - Day 30

June 28, 2025

It’s going to be the last day on the road and that’s sort of OK.  I really like traveling and riding but I’ll certainly being do more of it this season.

I woke up at 4:30, still running in a different time zone, and started the daily routine.  After breakfast a storm moved in and it rained for 30 minutes of so.  After it past I finished packing up and got ready for departure.

On the way out, I stopped for a few photos.

The first stop in Glendive where the car will take on a charge and with the weather, I’ve decided to just ride the slab the 270 miles home.  I got as far a Beach, ND when the sky looked threatening enough for me to pull over and put on my rain gear.  I almost had it all on when the rain started.

I hopped back on the freeway and rode to the Tesla Chargers at Glendive.  The rain had let up so we chatted a bit and then I took advantage of having cell service again and updated yesterday’s blog which I’d written offline last night.

It was back onto the freeway where I hit more rain.  I just set the cruise control to 77 MPH and relax, listing to whatever I’ve selected on the sound system.

The car was getting another charge in Miles City so I stopped there, topped up my gas and used the facilities.  

It started raining again so I loaded up and took off again.

There really isn’t more to say.  The ride into Billings was event-free.  I caught up with the Tesla about 25 miles out and followed her all the way to our driveway.  I got the bike unloaded while she worked on the car.  I took my clothes bag down to the laundry room and just dumped everything into the washer.  Then I took the bike and parked it across the street in my other garage.  I’ll deal with washing it later.

It was a 290 mile day.  My next post will be my usual wrap up and summary with some commentary about this trip, started on May 30, and was 5,217 miles.

2025 Eastbound Trip 1 - Day 29

June 27, 2025

I covered some miles today. No touristing, just riding.  And since over 90% of it was in North Dakota it was long, straight roads.

We got up at our usual early and had breakfast.

We hit the road at 9 and I mapped at a route from where we were camped, Buffalo River State Park in Minnesota, to Buffalo Gap Campground near Medora, North Dakota.  Almost all 2-lanes in parts of North Dakota I had not yesterday visited.

The weather was fine, cloudy, dry, and in the 60s so I just had a sweatshirt over my t-shirt under my jacket that still had the rain liner to act a windbreaker.  The jacket and gloves had dried out overnight but my Levis were still wet so I switched to my armored riding pants since they were dry.

The ride took me north and the west.  Here’s a photo of what I looked at most of the morning.

A bit down the road I saw a crop duster at work and stopped to watch and to shoot some photos and video.

I hit a construction area and rode 7 miles on gravel.  Not fun.

I was running low on gas and found the village of Hope to solve that problem.

Now it was just more riding.  I set the cruise control to 66.  On my dash it shows 66 and next to that the gear I am in: 6.  I get 666 across my dash.  I’d say that’s some good luck if I believed in such nonsense.

I stopped in McClusky for a map check and shot this photo.

On I rode.  In the helmet speakers I was streaming music by the Scottish band, Camera Obscura, and it really helped in eating up the miles.  Their lead singer/songwriter, Tracyanne Campbell  is great and some of their songs are real keepers like “New Year’s Resolution” and “Williams’s Heart.”  Just brilliant.  After a bit of that I told Siri to play WESA (Pittsburgh) and listened to the news.  Quite depressing.  So I asked Siri to play AL Stewart, another genius, and also Scottish, singer/songwriter.

In Washburn I stopped for gas but the dispenser would only let me pump premium and wouldn’t let me cancel so I took 2 gallons and figured I’d top up with my 87 regular down the road.  It was time for a lunch break so I rode down to their Riverfront Park which is right on the Missouri River.

I shed some laters as the temperature was quickly rising and got back on the road.  I stopped in Beulah and topped up my tank.  The navigator app kept telling me it found a shorter route but I knew that I wanted to stay on ND 200 and get to 85 south.  Near Halliday I stopped for a map check and a couple photos.

Now I rode to Belfield, got gas, and did a map check.  I saw that the car was already at the campground.  The map showed that the 2-lane road from here has 7 miles unpaved.  No thanks.  I hopped on the freeway for the final 24 miles.

I found our camp spot, that same one we were in a few weeks ago on our way out eastbound.  I got the bike unloaded and the first order of business was to get on a t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops.  It was warm.  The next item of business was to consume a beer or two.  One advantage of traveling with a car is that I can keep the cooler in the car stocked with beer instead of finding a place that sells it near the day’s final stop.  Every state has different liquor laws so one never knows where to buy a single beer.

It was a 447 mile day. 

2025 Eastbound Trip 1 - Day 28

June 26, 2025

Another day of adventure.  After spending an unplanned night in a motel, I am happy to report that the tornado did not materialize in Albert Lea but we did get some massive rain storms.  When I got up at 5am the rain had left behind a dense fog and I could barely see across the adjacent highway.  The weather app indicated more rain between 7 and 8am, heavy at times, so I took my time getting the day together.

About 7:30 I packed and started loading the bike.  Whatever rain had thought about showing up had changed its mine so it was time to hit the road.  Rather than travel northwest toward the campground I’d stay in tonight, I headed south on I-35 for a bit more dark touristing.  While back in Pittsburgh I’d gone to Andy Warhol’s grave and visited a few cemeteries, I don’t really consider myself a “dark tourist” but when I saw how close I was to Clear Lake, Iowa, I just had to go.

The weather was actually pretty nice and I enjoyed hitting the freeway speeds first thing in the morning.  The navigator app gave me some wrong information and I ignored its command to exit the freeway and continued on to the next ramp, county road 300.  I rode it for a half mile and then did 3/4 of gravel roads.  I generally do not like being off pavement but these weren’t too bad.

I arrived at my destination, the parking lot from where I would hike to site of the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, the Big Bopper, and their pilot in 1959.

There is a memorial at the start of the trail

The hike is about 1/2 mile through an easement that the property owner has granted.

The memorial at the site is quite nice.

I hiked back and then rode the 5 miles to the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, where Buddy had played his last show the evening before the crash.

That was it for my tourist excursion this morning and well worth the effort.  Now to head to the campground which is somewhere north, east of Fargo, ND.  I charted a route all on backroads that the app said would take me about 7 hours.  Before leaving I got gas at a station on Buddy Holly Place.  I saw two other nearby streets named of Valens and the Bopper.

I stopped for a break in Emmons, MN.  When I looked at the map I saw that I was on the state line so I walked back and took of photo of the bike while I was standing in Iowa and it was in Minnesota .

And a photo of the town.

I stopped in Alden, MN because the clouds up ahead told me I would be needing my rain gear.  It has a pond in the middle of town.

Just down the road I pulled over for an another milestone on the odometer.

Here’s what’s up ahead.

And then I hit the rain.  Lots of rain.  I rode in a steady, sometimes heavy, downpour for the next 1-1/2 hours.  While not a preferred riding condition, this bike is just excellent.  I cruise along at or slightly about the speed limit and it feels just like it does if the weather was clear and dry.  The only times I slowed down was when it got really heavy and visibility was an issue.

After a bit the rain would let up and then the temperature dropped.  It was about 60° and with the wind I’d generate riding, I started getting cold.  I was mostly dry but my jacket gets wet (the liner inside keeps me dry) but then it acts like an evaporative cooling system.  The PinLock thing in my visor prevents it from fogging up.  But, of course, my gloves are soaked.  I countered that by turning my grip heaters up all the way.

Here’s radar map of what I am riding through.

Somewhere along the way, when the rain had let up, I pulled over and dug a couple extra t-shirts out of my bag and put them on to help warm me up a bit.  That really did help.  Here’s a couple photos from that stop.

I stopped for a break, and lunch, in Hutchinson.  4 years ago when I rode cross country to Pittsburgh, I’d camped here overnight.  I passed Hwy 212 just south of town, the road I took from Billings to here back then.  The lunch break help warm me up.

I stopped for gas in Hoffman, MN and it was raining again.  It’s just the way it’s going to be today.  I went through Fergus Falls, a very nice place, and stopped for a map check.  

It wasn’t far to the campground from here.  I stopped for another photo along the way.

I’d left the rain behind and arrived at the campsite just in time as my wife had already set up the big tent.  We hadn’t seen each other since yesterday morning so we caught up on our adventures while we had salads and chips and dip for dinner.  I’d made hot cocoa to warm me up and it worked.  I had a nice IPA for afters while I wrote this.

It was a 408 mile day.