It has been a bit since I have posted. As most of you know I have moved the plane tot he airport during my pending divorce and really can't work on it since the hangar it is stored in has no power or heat.
Anyways, this whole divorce thing started in the early summer and I had a window to do an AWESOME MOTORCYCLE TRIP, so I took it!
Here is the story if you feel like reading it.
It is being published in New England Biker Magazine next month. It's kinda long but it was hard to compress 33 days into a document. I hope you enjoy it.
I just got a motorcycle for my wife. Good trade, huh?
When 2008 began, I never imagined that I would ride a motorcycle to Sturgis, South Dakota. HELL… I didn’t even OWN a bike! If not for my soon to be ex-wife, I probably would not have done this.
You see, I had motorcycles growing up as a kid but when I got married she told me that I could have any toy I wanted so long as it wasn’t a bike. When she said, “I want a divorceâ€, I heard, “Honey, go buy a bike!†So, began my search. I immediately was drawn to the Harley Street Glide. The loot was too much with the impending lawyer bills so I ended up with a very lightly used Suzuki Boulevard C50 with 1,500 miles on it. It came complete with saddlebags and windshield. The bike was just the ticket I needed for my trip. Being an educator, I had all summer off and didn’t want to deal with that nagging bitch of a wife so, this trip was ideal! I figured that at the ripe old age of 41 I didn’t have many more opportunities to do this so this may as well be the year!
I didn’t know where I was going at the time. I am fortunate to have many friends in all corners of the world. When word got out that I was going on tour, the invitations to stay at houses all over the country came rolling in! I was flattered! It is great to have so many good friends at a time like this!
Being a private pilot, I started the trip at Plymouth, MA airport at my hangar on Sunday, July 20, 2008. It was a beautiful day to start my solo trip. I had plans to stop at the EAA Airventure Airshow in Oshkosh, WI and, of course… Sturgis Bike week! Aside from that, it was all to be spent with friends and relatives. I knew it was going to be quite a journey. I had no clock to deal with but knew weather could be an issue. My only link to the “real†world was my Palm Treo Smartphone, where I could get my email, check weather and phone people in the event of an emergency. I brought a tent, sleeping bag and a lounge chair with me. It all fit nicely on the back of the bike. I was good to go!
I planned on taking as many back roads as possible on my trip. Navigation was to be handled by my Garmin GPS that I had affixed to my windscreen. The suction cup held very well, but I did attach a safety wire lanyard to it just in case the suction cup let go. It later turned out to be the best addition to my bike! If I didn’t have the GPS, this trip would have been much more difficult.
On my way through western Connecticut, the GPS steered me through covered bridges and past farmhouses. The scenery was very picturesque! I spent the night at a friend’s house just north of NY City. I HAD to have a NY pizza while I was there. On my way west to Ohio (where my cousin lives) I remarked on how many road killed ground hogs I drove past. By the end of the trip I could identify every internal gizzard within the little beasts because they lay exposed to me every 10 miles!!! I could be a ground hog veterinarian if I chose!
I had no music at all for the trip. There was no stereo on the bike and I didn’t want to carry earbuds and a 12-volt charger for my phone along. Besides, I wanted to hear the engine hum along. It was music to my ears. When you are on a long trip like this songs pop into your head and you hum them for hours. Sometimes they are good songs that you like and other times you can’t figure out why on earth you are singing such a strange song? A regular tune I would hum was “God Bless the USA†and the other was the Beach Boys song about girls in different parts of the country. Not sure about the rationale behind the Beach Boys song? I dunno…
I really like afternoon naps. I am sure that if I were riding with others they would be angry with me for wanting to stop under a tree after lunch and taking a nap. I did that almost every riding day. It kept me alert and safe. I was always able to find a shady spot someplace to recline next to the bike and catch some shuteye.
Eventually I got into Cleveland around 8PM. My cousin was awaiting my arrival. I was beat but it was sure nice to see a friendly face! I spent the week there with her visiting people and places and going to local bike rallies and meets. In the Cleveland area there is a chain of restaurants called Quaker Steak & Lube. QS&L has weekly bike rallies where all are welcome but the bikes get preferred parking in the main lot. The lot fills up with bikes, the beer flows and the music plays. It is quite a scene. Inside the bar they have motorcycles, snowmobiles and cars hanging from the ceiling. The bar is retro and lit up with neon lights in a 1950’s fashion. It is a pretty cool place! I paid more than a few visits there. While in the area I had some time on my hands so I visited some local airports. It is just something pilots do. It is amazing how you can walk up a perfect stranger and start talking when you have a passionate common interest, isn’t it?
The next stop was a friend’s place in Normal, Illinois. I spent the night there as we were arranging a rendezvous for the next day. I made my signature pizzas for dinner and wowed them with my tales from the road.
As I had mentioned earlier, I am a private pilot. In the event you are now aware, the Experimental Aircraft Association (for which I am a member) hosts an airshow in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. It is the largest airshow in the US. I now have been there 4 times. I have driven there in my Jeep, flown there myself and ridden in a big silver tube. I thought this time the bike would be the perfect mode of transport. I was right. I camped on the field and the weather was perfect. There is a Planet Fitness just up the road so I could shower and get in a workout before going to the show. I joined Planet Fitness to take advantage of all their gyms along the route. It worked out very well!
The airshow was everything I had expected, having been there three times before. This time it was more of a social event for me. While at the show, I met friends new and old. Sure, the aviation stuff was cool, but I needed a hiatus from the frustrations of life.
So many people reminded me of how lucky I am to be able to do this kind of a trip. I told them that I knew they were right. There were two kinds of people on my trip. Those that had done a trip like this and those that wished they had. The ones that did it told me their road stories. It is funny how their stories sounded much like mine but the people, places and mine were different.
In these modern times, it is difficult to find postcards. Sure, I sent multimedia messages from my phone and texted people along the way but a good old-fashioned postcard is hard to beat for nostalgia purposes! I picked up some postcard stamps but was hard pressed to find postcards along the way! Times they are a changin’! I bought postcards where I could and sent them back home to friends and relatives along the way. I also sent them back to the hangar rats at the Plymouth Airport. Those alcoholic friends of mine needed something to talk about while I was gone!
After 3 nights at Oshkosh, it was time to move on. Westward HO! I am getting pretty good at packing up the bike now. This is the best pack yet! I learned to plan ahead a little. The best bag was the dry bag I got at Dick’s Sporting Goods. It is the kind used for running river rapids and I stuffed my sleeping bag and one or two night’s worth of clothes in it so I didn’t have to dig too deeply through my large possibilities bag.
Once underway I pointed the bike towards Iowa. It was to be a long day of riding. That’s fine with me. It is what I came to do. Besides, I had nothing else on the schedule for the day! The weather has been absolutely remarkable and it was forecasted to stay that way for the foreseeable future! How bad is that? NOT!
I spent two nights at a friend’s house where I was able to do some laundry and have a great home cooked meal accompanied by some native Iowa sweet corn. Yes, it was some of the BEST corn I have ever had in my life! Now on my way to Sturgis I had no idea what was in store. The words of my friend Mike kept coming to mind. He would say, “You are a schoolteacher on a Suzuki. What can go wrong?†Too funny! He was so right.
I heard all about how they trash Jap bikes there and was worried about my ticket home. I stuck a US flag and my IBEW logo on the windshield because I am proud to be an American and I didn’t think it would hurt and might keep my bike in one piece. I couldn’t have been more wrong about the place. The people were cool and just happy to be in the wind! Nobody cared what I was riding. Some actually admitted that they were envious of my liquid cooled cylinders while in traffic on the way to The Buffalo Chip Campground where Kid Rock was to play that evening.
I really wanted to see Kid Rock do his new summer song All Summer Long. I was never really much of a Kid Rock fan. I saw a biography on him at the gym a while back and I understood him a little better. After hearing the words to the All Summer Long song, I became a fan. I arrived at the off ramp at 7:30 PM. The bike traffic was lined up for miles! I have come all this way to see Kid Rock and now I am going to miss it? NO WAY! I plugged in an alternative route into the GPS and found some back roads. I asked the guy next to me on the Road Glide who was overheating if he wanted to follow me. He did and was very pleased to be moving again and cooling his cylinders! I arrived at the gate and paid for two nights not knowing what to expect. I setup camp and rode my bike down to the show. The place was PACKED! The music was LOUD! I was in OVERLOAD and I loved it!
Back in Wisconsin, a friend had given me a liter bottle of Captain Morgan’s that I stashed in my saddlebags. This seemed like the perfect place to crack it, as drinks were SEVEN DOLLARS EACH and small to boot! I ordered a Coke at the snack shack and spiked it with Captain’s. It was dark and I couldn’t see how much I was pouring, but I assure you… it was plenty! It also went down too fast. I made another one and the show came on. I sat on my bike and took in the scenery. Here I am, Sturgis 2008 on my Suzuka-Harley watching Kid Rock. This is what I came to see. My summer is complete now.
After the show was over, I pondered about where to next? Today is August 5, 2008. I had another night here so no hurry. Tonight Lynyrd Skynerd and Theory of a Dead Man play on stage. It marks Day 17 of my trip. I need to be back by August 22 to teach at Cape Cod Community College. That is my only commitment in the schedule. Not so bad really!
I took a little ride into Deadwood, SD for the day to see what this area is all about. It is really nice riding around here because the scenery is so different from home. I rode with bikers from all over the country. The guy camped next to me sounded like Larry the Cable Guy. I made him say, “Git ‘er done†for me a few times! He always complied.
I hoped to continue on to Colorado Springs but I was afraid that it would cut into my time if I had a malfunction. I chose to head back via the Badlands. This was a fantastic decision! If you have never been to the Badlands of South Dakota, you really owe it to yourself to go. It is like riding your bike through a Road Runner cartoon! There really are roadrunners out here in case you haven’t been here. They don’t go “meep meep†like on the cartoon, but I suspect that Looney Tunes gave him that sound because that is the sound your bike horn makes in order to scare them out of your way!
In addition to the roadrunners I saw antelope, mountain goat, bison, rattlesnake, prairie dogs and coyote. The scenery is just beyond belief. I cruised the entire park in 5th gear at 30 mph just to take it all in. I waved people past and didn’t care how long it took to traverse the area. Along the way I saw some paleontologists unearthing something called the “pig digâ€. They said it was some kind of pre-historic pig that died there when it was a swamp. They cast the fossil remains in plaster of paris and excavated it from the ground. Once out of the ground it is brought to a laboratory for further cleaning and then set up on display. This destination made the trip all worthwhile!
They said that I really needed to see Mount Rushmore while I was there, so that became my next stop. I climbed the road leading to the visitor’s center. Admission for motorcycles was $10 each. I could clearly see the figures from the road and didn’t feel like I needed to get any closer. My curiosity got the better of me and I paid my fee and entered the park.
Here at the park, my faith in humanity was restored. While resting on a bench and checking the web on my phone, I laid my GPS down on the bench next to me. After I was done surfing the web, I got up to leave. I didn’t know that my GPS was still sitting on the bench. As I was walking away a couple that was about my age asked if I had left something behind? It was my GPS! I never do things like that and it would have been a real hassle if I didn’t have it for the trip home. I was so glad they pointed out my error! They were on their way to California from Rhode Island. They were relocating because of work reasons. I told them part of my story and they were very interested. What nice people!
Upon leaving the park, it was getting late. I had a full day of sight seeing and no plans for the evening. I have a saying that comes to mind. That is, “I am a traveler, not a touristâ€. To me, that means I am always at home no matter where I am. On a trip like this, you need to be a traveler. I pointed the bike east and applied a generous handful of throttle. I chose to put some asphalt behind me so I took the big road and wound it up to a buck! Hammer down, eastbound with no place in mind. Now that is living!
Around 7:30 I became concerned with where I was going to lay my head for the evening. I fingered the GPS querying places to stay. Weather was fine and camping wasn’t a problem. Wall, SD was about an hour up the road. Wall is an interesting place. Google it up if you get a chance. It is much like South of the Border, if you have ever driven the east coast. The roads are littered with signs indicating its presence and your distance from it! I pulled off the highway at the Wall exit and toyed with the idea of camping at the airport. Being a pilot, I could probably talk my way through the gate if I had to. The airport was closed for the night. The rotating beacon was pretty much the only light available. From it I could see a man-gate in the fence leading to the flight line and the hangars. I helped myself and motored my bike though the fence and up to one of the hangars. Once behind the hangar I was out of sight from the road and there was a sill cock for water. The area was grassy and I could easily pitch my tent there. Hmmmmmm, pretty cushy digs for the right price to boot! This is a good plan B, I think. I thought that I would cruise the town and see what else there was to offer. I came across a campground not far down the road. It seemed nice and had clean facilities. The problem is, there is nobody here to register with. Some fellow bikers said I should just pay in the morning. I agreed, so I pitched my tent and hit the hay.
Rolling eastward again I chose to take the back roads now instead of the highway. I cruised past prairies and cornfields galore! I didn’t know we needed so much corn! It was sweet relief when I came to the Missouri River. I hadn’t realized how much I missed the water! I saw a sign for a marina and I just had to stop in. Time now was about 5 PM and there seemed to be a regular crowd at the bar. It was happy hour and outside of New England that means two for one drinks! I sat down ad chatted with the locals. Of course, they were interested in my stories and inquired about where I was bound. I wanted to get farther east tonight because the next day I wanted to return to Normal, Illinois. This was a long haul and it was wise to shrink the next leg as much as possible. The locals suggested Yankton, SD. It is much like this place, right on the MO River and has state camping available. Sounds good to me! I paid my tab, plugged Yankton into the GPS and made my way down the road.
I made Yankton right about dusk. The campground they suggested, Lewis and Clark, was absolutely huge! The place had over 500 sites and with this being a Thursday, there was lots of room for my bike, tent and me. I checked in for one night and set up my camp. While I staked my claim my newfound neighbor, Dean stopped by on his bicycle. He announced that he was here with his family and just wanted to chat. Being from New England, I initially found this odd and suspicious. I came to my senses, loosened up and chatted with him for a while. That was a good thing too, because I would later need him.
I was hungry and wanted a beer so I once again queried the GPS for establishments. It returned Ben’s Brewery in Downtown Yankton. Now how bad can that be? I rolled up and parked the bike right in front of the place and as luck would have it the only seat at the bar was next to the prettiest 2 girls in the place. Heather and Christine were celebrating Heather’s second to last night of being single because on Saturday, she was to wed. This was ironic, here I am celebrating my impending divorce and she is about to tie the knot. It was too funny really. As we had a few beers, the girls asked me what my marital status was and I couldn’t lie. We had a few laughs and I wished Heather well on her nuptials.
When I woke up the next day I took a dip in the Mo River and went in town to do my laundry. While bored to tears and watching the movie Grease I realized that I needed to stay another night in this town. After all, it is Friday, the weather is nice and the people are very welcoming to strangers. I hurried back to the campground to sign up for another night. Therein lies the rub. The campground is full for the weekend! It seems that all the locals book the place every weekend in the summer months in advance because it is the only place around to go boating. I then remembered my buddy Dean. I offered Dean some money to let me slide my tent over to his campsite but he wouldn’t take it. He then rounded up his son to help me move my tent over to his site! Too much hospitality, I am not used to this. He then went on to ask if I wanted pancakes in the morning and offered that there is always extra batter. What a great guy! I now had digs for Friday night, and for free to boot! I am getting hungry thinking about pancakes, time for dinner. Hmmmm, I think I will go back to Ben’s Brewery again! It served me well last night.
On the way through the patio at Ben’s someone yells, “Hey Boston!†What’s up with that? Who knows me here? I recognize the guy from last night. I never met him but it seems that he overheard my conversation from the previous night and wants to talk. No problem, I am here for entertainment. It turns out that, he is Ben. Yes, the owner of the bar. He was sitting on the deck with his entourage having a few. Who was I not to drink with him, so I did! We sat there until last call, 2PM. Around this time his girlfriend Brooke tells me the cops cruise this one street at closing time just to pick people up for OUI’s. In a town of 1,800 people they have 5 cruisers trolling one street for people who have had one too many… and here I am with out of state plates on a bike and no helmet!
I ask them what my options are. They offer to put the bike in the back of the bar for the night and I can spend the night at their house. WOW, such hospitality! I am not used to this at all. As things turned out, the bike wouldn’t fit into the bar and I just parked it in the lot behind the bar and walked to their house down the street where we proceeded to have a few more. Did I mention that I had a long trip to Illinois ahead of me?
At 3 in the morning CJ, the bartender had the bar all closed up and stopped by Ben’s house where we all sat on the porch. Not much later, their neighbor arrives home and he calls her over. She is Miss South Dakota, and looks the part! She was really cool and pretty too. I really enjoyed chatting with them and was truly sorry to have to leave but I needed to be moving on now that the cops had settled down.
I rode into Dean’s campsite at 5 with the engine off but painting his pop up trailer with my headlight on the way in. I felt badly and hoped it didn’t wake him. I am sure it did. After a quick 2-hour nap I was ready to go. I hit the showers, packed up my tent and greeted Dean who was now awake. Dean wasn’t concerned that I woke him and asked when I wanted my pancakes he promised me. What a great guy! I will always appreciate Dean, Beverly and their kids for their hospitality.
This was a long day of riding. Cruising past the cornfields of Iowa the grasshoppers were in season! They were in the street and when they sensed the bike approaching, they would leap into the air. They collided with my knees, shoes, fenders, headlight… Hell, one even made it up into my helmet once! Soooo weird!
Now, back in Normal, Illinois my buddy Chad and his wife Brittne liked my pizzas so much, they wanted them again. The next day Chad and I went to his airport for breakfast. His airplane engine was all taken apart on the table and we went over the finer points of powerplant technology. If not for my friends this trip would have been so much more difficult. I value them greatly. I also met so many new friends along the way that I will never forget. A trip like this is one that you will remember for life. I am so glad that I had a window in which to do it in.
I hit many of the same places on the way home as I did on the way out because they were so great. All tolled the trip was 7,500 miles in 33 days. I passed through 14 states and it cost less than $2,000. All in all, a really cool experience and I would do it all over again in a second if I could!
I had packed foul weather gear but never really needed it. I suppose that if I didn’t have it I would have experienced torrential rain. My oilskin drover stayed in the bottom of my low bag the entire trip. Occasionally I would wear my gaiters to keep the spray off my feet. Speaking of the gaiters, I lost one pair on the way home and had to stop by the Harley dealership in Cleveland to pick up another pair. That cost me $50 extra dollars! If you found the gaiters, use them in good health!
Coming through Providence and getting on route 195 eastbound really made me feel like I was home. I especially felt at home when I smelled the salt air, an aroma I had missed for a month! That is the thing about bike… you are in the wind. The sights, sounds and smells are much more prevalent. You hear the tires on the truck next to you. You see more of the sky above you and you smell everything along the way be it good or bad! I would smell campfires, skunk odor, antique car exhaust (remember that smell?), bacon cooking at campsites, decomposing road kill, and that “inner city smell†that all cities seem to have. I don’t know what it is, but they all seem to have it. You know the smells that I am talking about if you have ridden at all.
My last night was spent with some friends in the New Bedford area. We dined on linguine and clam sauce and went out for a few cocktails afterward. I must say that the end of the trip was bittersweet. This evening in Massachusetts marked the end of the trip. It also was a good feeling to be home safe and sound in the company of close friends.
Upon arriving home I was greeted by my dog Wyatt. He is an Australian Shepherd a few months over 4 years old. He was thrilled to see me. He was quite a sight for my sore eyes. I am looking for a sidecar for Wyatt so that he can ride with me on these trips in the future. Maybe next year you can read about my story with Wyatt in the sidecar?
CJ
CJ
CJ