When the Good Luck Tour San Diego to New York was done we put our bikes in storage in Asbury Park, New Jersey in a friends community bike space. When the following Fall came around I flew out to New Jersey and retrieved my GL1000 and rode it back.
This was the route I was hoping for.
Flying into the New York, New Jersey area ready to ride.
My bike hasn’t moved since last Oct. I feel like Indiana Jones finding the relic in the AP Moto Club garage in Asbury Park Charging the battery, new gas and see what happens. It took some runs up and down the alley to get it going. Then I remembered that the kill switch was reverse, for safety reasons. I turned the switch to off and it started up immediately!
I was waiting for friends Luke and Melissa to come down from NY but they seemed to be MIA so I packed up and headed out. I was ready for the road. Shortly after I left I got a message from them that they had arrived, so reluctantly I turned around and headed back. It was good to see old friends and we ended up staying up late and having a good time. The next day I was so tired I slept most of the day.v The waves were going off in Asbury Park so Luke wanted to catch a surf.
Street art in Asbury Park
I headed out the following morning for Niagra Falls. There I was greeted by some new friends in Port Colborne @weekendculture on the Canada side, who offered me a place to stay for night plus dinner!
From here I headed to Toronto to check out the city and visit Town Moto. This tiny shop was so well stocked with everything a motorcycle enthusiast would need, I was impressed. Had few beers at Bellwoods Brewery and then sought out to get a new rear tire for bike as it was bald from the previous trip.
The local Honda shop got me all sorted out and the next day I was ready to head north again.
I headed to the Bruce Peninsula National Park. I got there a bit late in the day and there were no more ferries across Lake Heron so I camped out in the National Park. I took a nice hike in the morning to see the surroundings, it was a beautiful place.
I caught the ferry and I finally felt like I had started the trip after days of false starts. The Northeastern Manitoulin Islands are suppose to be beautiful riding roads but I ended up taking the shorter route to get moving west in Canada. I made it to Ste Marie where I got a hotel for the night before crossing over back into the US in the morning.
From here I picked up HWY 28 going west spanning the length of Lake Superior and ended up in Duluth, Minnesota. It was good day of riding through all these small towns. I got pulled over by a policeman in one of these towns where the speed limit was 45 and sometime 35mph. When you are going cross country and doing 80 to over 100mph at time this speed seems like a crawl and you could very well fall over. My speedo had stoped working the day prior and so I explained that my speedo didn't work, so he let off with a lower speed ticket to pay right there.
Still heading west in Minnesota on HWY 200 I went through Lake City and experienced the hardest downpour I had ever seen. Luckily I was a gas station when it started. They had a little cafe so I spent about an hour waiting it out before getting back on the road.
I crossed over into North Dakota, my destination was Jamestown but it was getting late, cold and I was getting pretty sleepy. I pulled off about a half hour before Jamestown and got a nice hotel.
Jamestown is where my family were from before they migrated to California. I wanted to see my grandfathers house he grew up in.
It was really nice to see the house I had always heard about as a kid. I cruised around Jamestown and headed west again. It was bitter cold on this day and I was about to head south through South Dakota to Sturgis. Through South Dakota there are sections where there no gas stations and no internet so with the bitter cold I decided to wait a day and do it the next day. Instead I found a hotel and took a hot tub.
The next turned out to be beautiful and much warmer. I visited Sitting Bulls Memorial and did some touristy stuff.
Rolling around in the Black Hills was pretty epic.
I was on top of the world heading into Wyoming and looking forward to seeing Yellowstone for the first time. Weather was perfect and I hauled ass to Sheridan, Wyoming and found a place to stay. On the way there was animal life everywhere I looked.
That night I looked at the forecast and it was not good. It called for days of rain, wind and snow over the passes! I decided that I would go south instead and skip Yellowstone after all. The weather just did not look like it would lighten up for days to come. I headed south to Casper, Wyoming and it was a treacherous ride. It was raining and the wind gusts were intense. My body position was leaning fairly hard into the wind, but when I would go under the highway underpass the wind would let up for just a second and almost send me out of control. After what seems like an eternity I reached Casper. I spent the night there and high winds were still not he forecast so I called it. It hurt to have to do it. but I rented a box van and put the bike in and drove the rest of the way.
I stopped in Salt Lake City and visited a friend but then after that just headed home. It was such a let down. Yellowstone is still on the bucket list.