2024 Trip 1 - Day 3

May 3, 2024

Every day on this ride has, so far, been totally different from the ones before.  While today’s weather was outstanding, the roads were flat and straight, miles and miles of flat, straight road.

I started the day at the campground in Blue Earth as most mornings go, organizing, packing, and such but today I included a nice, long hot shower.  These are free with the camp fee ($35) and it was wonderful.  I should mention that there is also free firewood and good, free wi-fi.

Here’s the shower:

On the way back to my campsite, I took a photo of the street.  This is the fairgrounds and it’s set up like a small city.

I sat in the tent and had my breakfast of oatmeal and a nice herbal tea along with a couple gulps of orange juice I still had from when I stayed in Faith, SD.  I could see my bike:

Once I got things loaded up I had the first setback of the day as the liner in one glove became inside out and I got tired of trying to refit it so switched to my lightweight mesh gloves.  It’s not that cold so they were fine.

The first task of the day is to get gas and then do a tour of the town.  First a photo of the water tower.

I’ll have to say, while I like living in a large city with all the amenities, Blue Earth has a really nice feel and I liked the look of it.  It has a nice and very clean downtown and many of the homes are wood framed with some craftsman and Victorian style.  There is a train that runs through the town and one would get used to its whistle and even adds a nice ambiance to the town.  When I looped the east side of the town I saw a huge building and it turned out to be a Seneca canning plant.  They are probably doing applesauce or other products there.  I’ll have to look that up but I’m pretty sure it’s a big employer in the town.

I sort of collect photos of my bike with county courthouses and this one is pretty awesome.

The visitor/welcome center is known for its 60-foot statue of the Jolly Green Giant so another photo opportunity presented itself.

Across from that are some EV charging stations but, alas, one is out of order.  Luckily I don’t need one today.

The route today is to a campground, Illiniwek Forest Reserve, on the Mississippi across from Davenport, Iowa, just north of Rock Island, IL.  The Google navigator tool was set to get there and to avoid highways (freeways) and so it took LOTS of backroads. I was traveling on the dark blue line.

I would ride 5-20 miles on one road, turn left and do 5-20 miles on another road, repeat, repeat, repeat, doing a sort of zig-zag heading me basically southeast.  This took me past miles and miles of corn fields that look plowed but maybe not yet planted.  Here are some random shots from along the way.

I stopped for gas in Radcliffe and it was the least expensive gas I’ve seen: $3.05/gallon.  My bike runs on regular which is a good thing since that’s all that I’ve seen available.  At this station a guy's faithful dog was along for the ride as he visited.

The route dumped me on 80 miles of US 30 which was like riding The Slab except that there was occasional cross traffic.  There wasn’t much joy in this.  In Tipton, Iowa I pulled off for lunch.  I wanted a salad and a piece of bread so it was a veggie sandwich at Subway with some lemonade.  It really hit the spot.  When I left there, the navigation software routed me back to Hwy 30 the long way so I got some backroads that had a few curves.  Finally.

The rest of the ride was more of the same until I came into Davenport.  It was Friday afternoon traffic, which really wasn’t that bad, but the software directed me through some depressed areas of town before it had me cross the Mississippi River on a cool bridge and dropped me into Rock Island, IL.  I ended up going north through the city on 5th Avenue, a long ride, before I finally got out of town and found the campground.  

This is the Illiniwek Forest Reserve and it’s really nice.  It’s a mix of primitive (no water/electricity) tent sites and regular RV site and the tent sites are right on the river.  It was $21 for the tent site and I a literally right on the river.

They have wi-fi here that is slow but it works so I’m hoping to get this posted today if my photos ever make their way from my phone to the cloud and down to the iPad I’m writing on.

Next up is to get dinner started but there is no rush because the late lunch,

Today’s ride was 345 miles.  

2024 Trip 1 - Day 2

May 2, 2024

The wind blew most of the night and the rain came early in the morning but my tent stayed up and dry.  It was chilly but stuffed inside my sleeping bag and floating off the ground on my air mattress, I stayed warm enough.  I slept pretty well, doing a lights out before 10 pm and didn’t get up until 5:45, a few minutes later than my usual get up time.

However, rain is predicted to last until 9am so I took my time getting the day started.  I read a book on my Kindle for a while and then started repacking some things while the rain pattered on the tent.  I had my “overnight oatmeal” mix with me that works just as well by adding water and waiting 30 minutes so I had that and the orange juice I’d picked up the night before.  About 8:15 it sounded like the rain was done so I got up and did all the usual morning chores and got the bike loaded up.

I got gas at the station where Hwy 212 goes through town and then headed south toward Howe.

The big change in plans, and I think I mentioned this in my previous post, is that I decided to get to Interstate 90 and ride The Slab to Blue Earth.  It’s almost 480 miles and with the late start and a time change I wanted to shave off a little time if I could.

The ride out of town took me through alternating flat and rolling countryside, some of it farmed and some of it ranched.

I rode Hwy 73 south to where it joined Hwy 34 and took that east for quite a ways.  73 turned off south and I stayed on 34 to Pierre, SD.  Although I’ve never been here before, with a tight time frame I only had a quick look and stopped to get gas.  There was a car at the next island with the license plate “Quiet.”  When he fired up those fart cans, it was anything but.

It was about 30 miles to get to I-90 and the crosswinds out of the west were tough but I’ve had so much practice dealing with them by now they don’t really bother me.

Once on I-90, it was, well, The Slab.  The wind was behind me and I just set the cruise control to slightly below the speed limit and let the miles go by.  I did stop at rest areas a few times to stretch and once to eat the other sandwich I’d brought.  Traffic was light and there were no unexpected events.

The wind was blowing but, lucky for me, it was coming from behind me.

Another gas stop, this one in Mitchell, SD.

Another rest stop, this one as I entered Minnesota..

I arrived at the campground at the fairgrounds in Blue Earth and was welcomed by the host and his wife.  Very helpful and friendly.  They’d had serious rain earlier and he suggested a site on higher ground so I took site #1 and got things set up.  

 

Dinner.

It was a pretty good day.  I covered 487 miles.

BTW, I have only seen three other motorcycles on the trip so far.  I saw two dual sport bikes yesterday and Harley cruiser today.

2024 Trip 1 - Day 1

May 1, s024

Today starts this season’s first big adventure.  The plan is to ride to Pittsburgh, PA, meet up with my son, and we’ll ride east and take the Skyline Drive through the Shenandoah National Park from north to south.  From there we’ll travel south on the Blue Ridge Parkway, check out the Tail of the Dragon, and then tour a bit of eastern Tennessee before heading back to Pittsburgh.  From there I’ll head back to Billings but will take a different route than I did in 2021.  Also, back on that trip, and a few others, I stuck to 2-lane roads but this time, I’ll take whatever road works best, still with a preference for 2-lanes over riding “The Slab.”

Yesterday I rounded up my stuff and got it mostly packed and then loaded it on the bike this morning.

I was pretty much ready to go about 8:30am and saw this on the weather app.

Hmmm, it didn’t look like it was raining, maybe just a few drops, so what the heck.  I pulled out of the driveway at 8:51am.

By the time I got to downtown Billings it was definitely raining but the bike is handling great and I’m glad I had new tires mounted a couple weeks ago.

I went through downtown and got on the freeway and headed toward Hardin.

I should note that this was NOT a big picture-taking day as conditions really didn’t lend itself to that.

I got on I-90 and went up the big hill.  The rain started getting heavier and I was regretting not donning my rain gear by default.  By the time I got to the top of the hill, the rain turned to snow and it snowed pretty heavily for the next 20 miles.  I kept an eye on the air temperature and it was dropping and finally stuck at 35°.  The snow was melting on the road but starting to accumulate in the passing fields and on my windshield.

When I got to Hardin I pulled off and got my rain gear out.  I have a rain liner that goes in my jacket between the shell and the thermal liner.  The shell was wet but water hadn’t reached the liner yet.  My rain pants go on over my riding pants.  My riding pants are the armored type and pretty solid and I had their thermal liner in.  I had Levi’s on under that. So, I was really pretty warm and dry considering the conditions.  I’m wearing my insulated waterproof gauntlet-style gloves and running my grip heaters on 11.  ;-)

I got back on the freeway and rode to the Bighorn Battlefield.  I needed a comfort stop and wanted to figure out why my visor was fogging up.  I have a PinLock liner in the visor that came with the helmet and it really has worked well in the past keeping fog at a minimum but when I looked at it, the bottom seal was loose.  I’m thinking that maybe it has shrunk a bit or something but I didn’t want to sort that out today.  I fiddled with the hinge on the visor until I remembered how to remove it and then removed the PinLock liner and put it in the rear pocket of my jacket.  Wow, clear vision again.

One thing I know to be true is to have a system for everything when traveling.  This goes here and that goes there.  When I was ready to take off I couldn’t find the key to the bike.  I didn’t panic but it took a full search of pockets before I found it.  I now have a designated coat pocket for the key.

I got on Hwy 212 and headed east.  This is a pretty nice 2-lane except that it is a shorter route from Rapid City to Billings than taking the freeway so there is LOTS of semi-truck traffic.  When they go by in the other direction, about half of them put out a blast of wind that is scary, especially the cattle wagons.

The rain picked up and the other side of Busby, when the elevation increased, it turned to snow again.  I kept my speed just under the speed limit and because of that I was passed by everyone else.

Then, all of the sudden, coming out of the mountains, the sky cleared and there was sun.  This was in Ashland where I stopped for gas and another comfort break.  A woman at another pump was from Pennsylvania so we chatted a little.  She’s headed west and asked me if she could take a selfie of us as she likes collecting photos of people she meets on her travels.

So, I had 125 miles of lousy weather and it was exhausting.  In Broadus I parked by the courthouse and ate a sandwich I’d brought and had a little break.

Hwy 212 continued on and took me through a small corner of Wyoming before entering South Dakota.

I stopped for gas in Belle Fourche and was keeping my eye on the clouds to the south.

With about 90 miles left in the day, it should have been easy, but about 30 miles in, I was riding up a hill and there was a piece of farm equipment being towed down the hill.  Just then, over the rise, a car coming from the other direction attempts to pass the farm equipment in a no-passing zone.  Luckily a motorcycle doesn’t take up much room and I was able to head to the shoulder to avoid a head-on collision.  That was close.

Once I’d calmed down from that, the wind picked up.  A lot.  It was coming from the southeast and my guess it was ranging between 45-60 miles per hour.  It was hard work keeping the bike from drifting.  Then I hit more rain.  I slowed to 45 mph and battled both the rain and the wind for 15-20 miles.  The rain finally quit but the wind hung on all the way to my stop for the day in Faith, SD.

Faith has a campground in their city park where I’d stayed in ’21 so I knew it was worth doing again. $10 a night with 110 electric, a nice bathroom with sink and flush toilet, and nice spots to set up in. Before stopping at the campground I went to the grocery store for orange juice for tomorrow morning and beer to go with my dinner.  The beer selection is quite limited.  It was either Coors Lite or a mixed beery blonde from a brewery in Sturgis.  I got the blond and it’s OK.

The wind is still an issue but I got my tent set up no problem.  I gave it extra security by lashing it to my bike.

When I travel like this, I bring backpacker meals that only require boiling water.  Firing up my stove in the wind would be a problem but luckily there’s a picnic shelter.  I boiled the water, prepped the meal, and then settled in the tent with Pad Thai and a mixed berry blond.  Camping is about “roughing it” and tonight I’m roughing by going without an IPA.

It was a 376 mile day.

A pie ride but no pie today

April 25, 2024

After seeing this story in the local news, Klo’s Kitchen: 17-year old opens bakery in heart of Harlowton, I thought it make a good excuse to ride there to check it out.  I texted Keith and he responded in the affirmative and we met up at my house this morning and were on the road by 9:57.  While just going for a ride on a day promising beautiful weather was enough of a reason to get out, I also had another task to attend to in Harlowton and that was to check out the city park for camping and their EV chargers.

Keith led to way to Lavina on his Gold Wing under gray skies that provided a few spits of rain, but only a few.  The highway was relatively quiet and we made it past Acton and Broadview easily with the air temperature at 60-62°.  The bigger treat was an almost total absence of wind.

We stopped in Lavina for break and I grabbed a few pictures.

The sky to the south looked like rain and when I checked the app I saw this:

After looking at the radar map we were pretty sure that it would be going south of us, which it did.  If it didn’t I was prepared with rain gear.

I took the lead and we rode the highway to Harlowton at an easy 67 miles per hour.  We pulled into town and I decided that we should check out the city park first.  We stopped at the sign to check the rules.

While were parked there, the owner of sprinter-type van that was parked at the far west end came up the road to pay her camping fee.  We chatted for a few minutes and I learned that she is full-timing the van life and had just spent the winter near Yuma, AZ. She came to Montana to help some friends and has decided to stay in the state for a while, even getting an appointment for a Montana drivers license.  We said our goodbyes and circled the west end of the park before I pulled into one of the RV camping spots to inspect the EV charging option.

It looks like it has what we need should we come here in our Tesla Model Y.

I met Keith at the restrooms and I must say that it is one of the cleanest public restrooms I’ve ever visited.

I did take a few more photos.  It looks like they may have had a problem in the past with livestock using the playground.

We exited the park by taking the road to the southeast entrance which quickly connected us to Central Ave,. The Main Street of Harlowton.  This took up past Galley’s brewery, which was, unfortunately, closed but a short ride to the end of the street brought us to Klo’s Kitchen, the bakery.  We parked across the street next to the train museum.

The interior is simple and very nice.  I asked about pie and was informed that pies were sold out.  I made due with a piece of apple blossom cake that was quite good and a heck of a deal at $3.00.

We sat by the front window and had a good view of our bikes and the train museum.

It was time to hit the road and after a quick stop at Ray’s for gas, I led us the 45 miles back to Lavina.  We took a bit of a break before Keith led us back to Billings.

We went directly to Keith’s place where we were joined by his wife, Bonnie, and after a bit, another friend, Greg.  We sat on the back deck and enjoyed the nice weather.  Greg just picked up a new Honda Transalp so there was lots of motorcycle talk rover pretzels I’d bake that morning and, of course a beer.  We did end up in Keith’s basement for a few games of pool before calling it a day.

My odometer indicated that it was a 186 mile ride.