The end

August 21st

I drove till 3 am and then Ty and Duane took over.  Breezed right through the border back into the good ol USA around 7 am.  Down through Michigan, through Ohio, and then back into PA.  Arrived home around midnight.  From Dryden, Ontario to Lancaster, PA was about 1560 miles and took 26 hrs to drive.  

It was a little disappointing to not be able ride the whole way home on our bikes but after putting over 6500 hard miles on our bikes we were alright with hauling them home.  Tylers bike now has over 50,000 miles and Duanes is well over 30,000 which is a lot of miles on a dual sport motorcycle.

From the burning hot desert of New Mexico to the high peaks of Colorado to the rolling cattle county and snow caped Tetons in Wyoming to the cold, wooded mountains in Montana we saw so much beautiful country that is it hard to remember it all.  It was a trip of our lifetimes and one that we’ll never forget.

Thanks to all of you that were praying for our safety as I know we made good use of those prayers.  I have lots of pictures and video to edit yet so look for more pictures, video, and facts about the trip that the GPS has been keeping track of the whole trip.

Thanks for following along, I hope you enjoyed it  :D

Not quite the way we planned

August 20th

After searching at cycle dealers and hardware stores for a metric nut that would work we came up empty.  So we started crunching numbers on which would be the best way to get home.  We figured renting a uhaul would be best because it would allow for us to get home in time for all of us to get to work on Monday morning.  The closest uhaul place that was open and had what we needed was four hours away in Thunder Bay.   So I jumped on the my bike and headed to Thunder Bay while Ty and Duane would head that direction towing Duane’s bike.  I broke my record for longest ride without getting off as I rode 210 miles before stopping at the uhaul place.  Threw the bike in the back and headed back towards Dryden to find Duane and Ty.  Ran into them about 60 miles east of Dryden, they towed that bike over 100 miles.   Loaded the other two bikes up and headed back towards Thunder Bay around nine pm.

Canada's not being very nice to us

August 19th

Found some grub at an A&W and headed for Winnipeg.  Arrived at around 1 pm and found some wifi and plugged in with home while Duane took a link out of his chain because it was out of adjustment and still stretching rather rapidly.  Rode another three hours and pulled over for quick break and guess what?  There was oil dripping out the bottom of Duane’s cycle.  Crap!  The plan of attack was to just add oil and make it to the next town and then see what we needed and what our options were.  Duane went first so we could watch for oil leaking out.  Went about half a mile and his back wheel got shiny black, so I pulled up beside him and got oil spritzed all over me because what I saw wasn’t good.  There was oil just dumping out the bottom of his cycle!  I hollered on the radio he better shut her off if he didn’t want a sized up drz 400.  The next town, Dryden, ON, was about 40 miles away so we got out the tie strap we took for just this situation.  Tyler had a heavy-duty clutch in his 350 so we used that as the tow machine.  I headed into town ahead of them to see what I could find out about any dealers in the area and find a place to stay.  The dealer in town didn’t open till nine the next morning so we stayed the night in Dryden.  That evening we determined that the nut came loose on the sprocket shaft which allowed the seal on the shaft to come out which allowed the oil to find its way out.  The nut’s threads were a striped out which was all we really needed to get it running again, so that was our first thing to do in the morning.

Homeward Bound

August 18th

Up at daybreak and on the road shortly after.  Hit up a Tim Horten's for breakfast and kept on motoring East.   Around noon time we pulled into a visitors center just into Saskatchewan for a quick break.  Turned out it wasn't as quick break as Tyler's cycle had a breakdown.  The rear wheel bearings hard gone out completely.  The closest suzuki dealer was 200 miles away and couldn't get any bearings till Monday.  Well that didn't really help us as we needed to be home by then.  We started looking into renting a uhaul for the rest of the trip back and the two ladies in the visitors center overheard what had happened and the predicament we were in.  One of them says she thinks there is a machine shop about five miles away that has lots of bearings.  Even though we didn't think  there would be any way they would have the correct bearing we though it was worth a shot to check.  So Duane and I threw the tire on the back of my bike and rode down to the shop to see what they had.  Turns out they had all three bearings we needed and even did the work to install them.  We were surprised and very thankful, as we very easily could be bouncing home in a uhaul right now.  So after our two hour delay we were back in the saddle again and rode hard till around 11 pm where we stopped in Carlyle, SK.  The campground was full in town so we made use of the dugout in the ball field next door.  In spite of the bearing issue we still managed to get just over 600 miles covered for the day.

Stage two: COMPLETE!

August 17th

Cranked up the fire again this morning before we left and it felt great as it was a little chilly again.  Hit the trail around 7 and around noon time found some pavement which took us just south of Glacier National Park.  Took the road to the sun across Logan Pass in Glacier.  Very beautiful views of the mountains and a few of the remaining glaciers in the park.  Well worth the cost to travel through the park.  Popped out on the East side of the park and was only about 10 miles from the border between the U.S. and Canada.  So up to Canada we headed.  Went right across the border with out any problems and motored on up to Cardston, Alberta where we found a campground to spend the night.  As we crossed the border we completed the Continental Divide trail, which was what this whole trip was about.  It was an incredible ride through so many different landscapes and climates that sometimes it was easy to forget that we where in the same state or even country.  Our next leg of the journey we most likely be the hardest as we plan to be home by Sunday evening and have around 2500 miles to do in 4 days.

Haven't wrote this much since high school

August 16th

We awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of our bikes crashing to the ground and the sound of claws tearing apart the bikes.  As we lay there trembling in our little hammocks I realized that I shouldn't mislead you like this.

It was freezing cold in the morning, there was frost over everything, so we packed up as fast as we could and headed towards Dillion for some hot breakfast.  Found a diner and I drank more coffee in one sitting then I had  in all my previous years put together.  Weird what the West does to a person.  =)  When we hit the road again it had warmed up to 50 degrees and it felt wonderful!  Into the mountains we shot for the story of the day.  A big hill climb on Fleecer mountain.  What makes this hill challenging is it's length and the loose gravel the whole way up.  It really wouldn't be to hard without all the weight we had with our luggage and low offroad gears.  Duane headed up first and looked like a cowboy trying to ride a bronco.  The loose gravel had him flying all over the place.  He hung on though till just about the top, high enough that Ty and I could hardly see what was happening way up there, were he laid it over.  Ty tried next and puttered right up for the most part.  He had a low first gear and the best tire among us.  So that leaves me.  I didn't have a lot of confidence after seeing how the other bikes handled because my bike was geared higher and is much heavier making it hard to handle.  So up I went, about a third of the way, till the first real steep part, were the bike thought it knew best and started flying all over the place and ended up sideways on the hill and stalled.  Well anybody that rides motorcycle knows what happened next.  The bike and I started rolling down the hill, me first and the bike chasing me.  I managed to stop it after about three rolls and picked it up and nothing was broke at all.  These bikes are tough buggers for all we put them through.  Duane ended up coming back down and trying again and made it up about the same distance as before, but with Ty's help he got going again and made it to the top,  I headed back down the mountain and drove around and met them on the other side.  I wasn't going to push my luck and have something major break that would cost me the rest of the trip.

We carried on, on some nice dirt roads and make it into Butte MT(pronounced butt by Tyler :D) where we decided to change our oil again.  After riding around town for awhile we found a dealer and took care of that job in the parking lot.  Our GPS lead us into National Forest ground next were we found a nice place to camp and even had our first campfire of the trip on the last night of camping on the CDT.  We thought it best not to cook anything after last nights grizzly experience.  :D

Words really can't express, but I did try =)

August 15th

The motorcycle dealer we planned to get tires at opened at 9 so we showed up just a little after and each of us found a tire that suited us.  Till we got the tires changed and some lunch it was about 1 in the afternoon.  We headed up through Idaho to Montana and into some of the most beautiful country we’ve been through yet.  We did a little detour on a mountain called the Gravelly Range.  The road went up through the valley, then climbed up to near the top at 9500 ft and came back down the top of the ridge making a 75 mile loop of stunning scenery.  Sadly we don’t have many pictures of this because Duane’s camera’s battery went dead and mine and Ty’s died.  Tylers died of old age and the other day I dropped mine at 60 mph and it didn’t survive.  90 percent of my pics were taken on the bike while moving right along so I guess it was just a matter of time till it hit the pavement.    Anyway it was a awesome ride way up in the Rockies as the sun was setting in the west shinning amber rays down over the rocky peaks stretching into the sky.  It was breathtaking to see and it did literally take our breaths away because of the height and the fact that it was about 40 degrees and windy enough to blow you off the road.   I did manage to ride to an old snow drift from last winter and make an snowball.   Till we worked our way down the mountain the sun had made it’s journey down below the mountains in the west.  So we headed up the valley towards Dillion, MT.  As the moon started peaking up in the East we cooked some soup and ramen noodles for supper and then drove a couple miles down the road from our food to camp because apparently we are in grizzly country.  I’m not to worried about them but better safe then sorry, especially since none of us are packing any heat because of wanting to come home through Canada.

Found the Tetons

August 14th

Not to much exciting happened today, which I guess is a good thing for us but makes a boring blog entry.  Had a lot of pavement today up to the Moab Junction just south of the toll gate to get into the Tetons National Park.  We decided we didn't feel like paying 20 bucks per bike so we headed south to Jackson Hole, WY.  Found a camp site just across the Idaho line and headed for there.  We settled in around six and plan to try and find a dealership that has some new tires as ours are wearing down much faster then we anticipated.  Looking to then get into Montana tomorrow.  

More flats =(

August 13th

Sleep in till eight and got loaded up and ready to go by about 9:30 and discovered that my back tire was flat.  Slightly frustrated we took the wheel off and decided to let the Yamaha dealer next door do the hard work when we learned they had opened up.  Hit the road by 11 and headed into the rolling high country of Wyoming.  The sand/gravel roads afforded fast running.  We saw a least 100 antelope through this section of the ride.  Several of which were very nice buck.  We made it up to Pinedale, WY and guess what I got.  Another flat in the rear tire.  The hole in the tube was at the same spot as the last one which made us suspicious of a piece of metal in the tire which was rubbing holes in the tube.  Turns out we were right as we found a small piece of wire in the tire.  Patched the tube and put it all back together and it was 7 pm already.  Headed into the mountains to find some National Forrest ground for some free camping and called it a day at around dark.

Ty blames it on the full moon...

August 12

Woke up to a frigid morning, there was a touch of frost on our bags.  We all have 20 degree sleeping bags so we stayed warm overnight but in the morning was another story.  It was cold getting ready to go and we had pretty much all clothes on and that did the trick as we stayed warm as we started riding.  Rolled into Steamboat Springs, CO around lunch time and did some shopping and connecting with home.  Hit the road around 2 and we decided to do an alternate track instead of burning up the paved road.  Well, that turned out to be a very fun one but it wasn’t with out it’s problems.   The trail turned into a very rough and sometimes single track path.  We were totally fine with that but our luggage kept getting in the way with how we would have liked to ride.  Our first incident came when Tyler tried to go around a slight turn and dumped it.  Nothing was broke so he picked it up and did the same thing 20 ft later and then realized that his front tire was flat, which was why he kept laying it over.   Half hour later the tire was fixed and we were rolling, I mean bouncing, down the jeep trail.  I was in the lead and came to a stream crossing.  I’m not sure what I was thinking because normally I am a very conservative  rider and am not into do anything to risky.  But I apparently didn’t think this over as soon as I went in the water was up to my motor and I was bouncing over large rocks and dumped right in the stream.  So a clean bike and two water filled boots later I was across.   The reason I’m not sure what I was thinking is because just up stream there was a small bridge that we could have fit across, Duane and Ty did after I dumped it in the creek.  So we carried on as the sun was falling.  Our next incident was with some very sticky mud.  I came to a spot on the trail that had some potholes in, which were full of mud.  Worked my way threw them but Tyler wasn’t so lucky.  He sank his back wheel in a pothole and it took all three of us to get it out.  Here is what it looked like.

Well it was dark when we found pavement again and with my cold feet and last nights cold in the back of our minds we wussed out and decided to get another hotel for the night.  The closest hotel was in Rawlings, WY so we steamed up the road for fifty miles to Rawlings.  We got into our room about 10 p.m.

Its getting cold!

August 11th

Got going around 8:00 and headed up through the valley.  Ran on lots of gravel roads through the rolling foot hills of the Rockies which was all cattle country.  Later in the day we finally came to a road leading up into the mountains.  It took us up to over 11,000 ft. and we found a rocky trail going farther up the mt.  Being the adventure riders we are we headed up.  We managed to climb up to 11,900 ft till it got to steep for our bikes in the high altitude.  There was a storm brewing in the west so we thought it best to get down off the mountain and  as we came down in to Breckenridge, CO it was dumping rain down up on the mountain tops.  Rolled on to Dilion, CO and then up past Kremmling, CO to a national forest campground on top of the mountain which was 9,000 ft in elevation and very cold.

I threw up a bunch more pictures up.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150278106409556.349434.618059555&l=73eb0a29a3&type=1

Up up and away!

August 10th

Left camp, which was just outside Cuba, NM, about 8:30 and started climbing up through the mountains on a very wash boarded road which made for a very annoying ride.  A road that is wash boarded is when very small ruts develop from heavy log trucks starting and stopping and when on a cycle it shakes and vibrates everything including the driver.  We wound in and around the mountain range till eventually the road rose above 10,000 ft which was cool at the time. (we didn't know what was coming)  Bumped into a herd of Elk, several cows and a couple decent sized bulls.  Came to a small hill which was totally covered in rocks, normally we would have been ecstatic about a road like this, but with 50 lbs gear on the back the road presented a challenge.  But we made it through with no problems.  Kept pushing on through some of the most beautiful country one can imagine still at high elevation.  Eventually we crossed the New Mexico boarder into Colorado still high in the Rockies.  What we rode through next is really hard to describe with words!  It was awesome!!!  Winding around a dirt road up above 10,000 ft looking out into huge gorges, valleys, and up to the high peaks stretching into the sky.  Riding along totally enjoying ourselves we came upon a high mountain roundtop with a weather station tower on top.  Seeing a road winding up, we couldn't resist!  So up we went bouncing over rocks trying not to fall off the edge because it was a looong way down.  Burr!! It was getting cold and very windy way up here.  As we pulled up onto the top 1.8 miles of uphill later the gps read 12,660 ft!!!

We were pretty excited to make it up that high and it was very easy to tell the air was thin because walking around the top a bunch had us breathing heavy.  We headed down the round top and kept going down, down, around, and down and bashed into the feed store in downtown Del Norte, CO.  After asking around about camping we found out the liquor store in town let bikers camp in the lot beside the store so that is were we set up camp for the night since the next closest place was a good 45 min away.

Spinning in the sand.

August 9th

Had a great nights sleep at the Hidden Springs Hotel and packed up and hit the road by eight.  Had about 30 miles of pavement till our first sand road of the day.  Took that up through Pie Town, NM and after a bit started climbing up a mountian on a nice wide gravel road.  We climbed up to 9200 ft in elevation, which
was the highest yet for us.  Came down the mountian and into the valley which was like the desert, with sand roads, srub brush, and catus.  This was an awesome ride as we followed the valley for 110 miles through big washouts and around rock outcroppings along the caynon walls.  After fueling up we had another 120 mile
strech of a beautiful ride through the valleys of several mountians and then across a huge valley that aforffed us the ability to run about 65 miles an hour.  We saw two cyotes thru this run.  Got into town about 8:30, fueled up and headed into the mountains to find a place to camp for the night.  On the way up the mt. we ran into a herd of 5 or 6 bull elk.  Found a nice clearing and set up camp. Put in close to 300 miles for the day.

A few pictures

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150278106409556.349434.618059555&l=73eb0a29a3&type=1

Dirt roads, fires, and no gas.

August 8th

Well the thunderstorm spared us but we where awoken to the sound of howling wolves (okay maybe coyotes) at 4 a.m.  They howled for awhile till I started to howl back at them.  They must not have liked my howling skills.  Hit the trail around 9 a.m. and ran dirt for awhile till it turned to pavement.  Then we came to every adventure riders dream, a dirt road with a sign reading "no services next 120 miles".  That is where the fun began.  As we were winding around though the mountains we happened upon a wild fire billowing white smoke in the air.  A few miles down the road we came to the Beaver Creek work station in Gila National Forest which was where they monitor the fires.  We learned the fire we passed was nine acres big and was being let go to naturally do what it wanted to do.  The man at the station entertained us for awhile with forest fire facts and information about how they watch for and contain them.  The ranger man gave us a few ideas for some scenic alternate routes and that is where things turned south.  Our previous estimates of how far our gas would last turned out to be a little off as I ran out about 20 miles from gas.  So we drained some out of Tyler's tank to get me going but it didn't last long enough, and then Duane ran out also.  So Tyler went to town to get gas which was supposed to be about 5 miles away, but was around 20.  Duane and I chilled out in the mountains till Ty got back.  Duane then had an issue with his contacts and could hardly see which had us a little worried about what to do.  So we decided to head to town and find a hotel to clean up at and let Duane's eye rest.  Found a nice little family run place with a restaurant that had killer pizza.  They even did our laundry for us.  Was good to have a evening of not riding after a hot dusty day.  Duane's eye is feeling pretty good already so we plan to get a early start tomorrow and put a big day in.

On thru El Paso to the border and the start of the CDT!

August 7th

We decided we had time to relax a little today and didn't get going till about 9:00 a.m.  We got to El Paso around 10:30 and hit up a Walmart for food and a few supplies for camping out in the great outdoors.  After topping off with gas we aimed our front wheels for the desert once again.  140 HOT and WINDY miles
later we stood peering into Mexico.  Took a few pics and started what we came for, the Contenetail Divide Trail.  As we pulled into a very small and mostly abandoned town of Hitachi we saw a Border Patrol officer sitting along the road.  Duane and I where working on my radio headset which was being a pain and Tyler decided to go chat to the BP officer about the forest fires in NM.  As they were chatting the officer remarked that is actually does kinda smell like smoke.  Turns out Ty's bike was on fire!!!  The plastic shield over the muffler melted down and caught his dry bag full of clothes and other things on fire.  Needless to say he has a few holes burned through a few things.  The first 75 miles was on pavement but then we hit the dirt roads through cattle country in the rolling foothills.  We were all very glad and excited to get some gravel under the wheels.  Rolled up a winding paved road to Silver City, NM and then took us by the Santa Rita copper mines which were very impressively huge. The route turned to dirt again just east of town.  We entered National Forest country after a bit and found a spot to camp.  As I right this I'm swinging in my hammock as the lighting is flashing in the distance.  Might be in for another interesting night!

Awesome thunderstorm and on to Alamogordo

August 6th

When in Liberal we looked up a campground in Guymon OK, which was about 30 miles to the southwest.  As we left Liberal we knew we were in for an interesting time as there was a nasty looking thunderstorm flashing and banging in the southwest. So we headed towards Guymon with one eye on the sky and the other on the road.  We stopped for gas about 20 miles out and I asked a local what he thought and he said we had a fifty-fifty shot on making it.  So off we went as fast as we felt comfortable going.  I'm sure the truckers were getting a kick out of us as it was clear what we were trying to do.  As we were flying towards town the storm got blacker and blacker with more lighting then I've ever seen in a storm before.  About five miles from town big droplets started pelting us, and we saw an abandoned warehouse not far off the road so we beat it into that just as the winds really started to pick up.  As it was pouring down rain we decided to forget going to the campground and just set our hammocks up in the shed as the poles were just the right distance apart.  So we got to listen to the pounding rain roaring on the tin roof as we attempted to sleep. We were up and out on the road at daybreak.  After the short ride through Oklahoma we had a short shot through Texas before reaching New Mexico.  We ran route 54 down to where we hit interstate 40 which would have taken us to Albuquerque but we didn't feel like buzzing along on the boring highway so we picked a route out that would bypass 40 and join up with our intended route farther south.  I am really glad we did that because we got to see a lot of the county side which was mostly just desert (it felt like the desert to, intense heat!).  We ended up coming across route 82 which took us up to 8,200 ft in elevation before dropping back down into Alamogordo NM at 4000 something feet in elevation. The neat thing about that was that coming across the dessert it was well over 100 degrees and as we climbed the mountain it kept getting cooler and cooler till it was actually cold at the top (it was drizzling and cloudy so that didn't help).  Then coming down the other side the sun burst out again and it was back to 100 degrees down in the desert town of Alamogordo.  That ride through the mountains got use excited to get started on the CDT.  We changed our oil in Alamogordo and found a real campground for the first time this trip just south of the city.

Running hard and more rain =(

After leaving the McDonalds we had a very pleasant ride through Indiana and Illinois to St. Louis.  We really wanted to ride right though downtown but we took a wrong turn and routed around the city and then ended back in it after rt. 50 wasn't marked (or we were getting sleepy, but I won't admit to that).  Anyway we spent about a half hour in the suburbs till we found 50 again.  After St. Louis, 50 turned into a motorcyclists dream road.  A two lane rd with long sweeping turns through the rolling wooded hills of Missouri.  50 then turned into a four lane highway and we put the hammer down and made it to the East side of Kansas City, MO.  Found a place to rest our heads at about 11:30.  Total miles for the day was 710.
Awoke at daylight, found some grub and rode on.  Right into a thunderstorm!  Put on the rain gear and off we went again into Kansas.  The sun then came out and started cooking us dispute the 50 SPF sunblock.  That is about all that is interesting that happened in KS because motorcycling in KS is kinda booooring.  We are currently in the Southwest part of the state in the town of Liberal but we are about ready to head south for another 100 miles till we find a place to camp.

Dancing among the rain showers

We left Lancaster around 10:30 and headed for rt 50 in WV.  Ran the superslab to Keyser, WV to 50 which was a gorgeous two lane road up and over and around the mountains.  We rode in and out of light rain showers all day but never really got wet.  Stayed on 50 till about 70 miles from Cincinnati where we found a place to "camp".  Other then being attacked by a ferocious bull dog we had a restful night of sleep on the pavement.  Up and rolling at 6 a.m. towards Cinci and out the other side into the land of no diners where we had to resort to a McDonald's for breakfast.  Turning into a beautiful day. 

And we are off.  See ya Lancaster!

Getting ready to roll...

Well the old wheat harvest blog is getting revived but not because I'm joining the harvest again.  So what am I about to embark on that is worth the bother to poke out on a keyboard for you all?  Here is the run down.

Tyler Breneman, Duane Charles, and myself are preparing to take a 20 day motorcycle trip across this great country to the the Rocky Mountains to ride the Continental Divide Trail.  The CDT is a network of public roads that follows the CD as close as possible.  It was first developed by the Adventure Cycling Association for bicyclists.  The majority of the route is on dirt and gravel roads and is the longest off pavement bike route in the world.  The route we are taking on our motorcycles is adjusted slightly since we need gas every 200 or so miles.  

We plan to leave this Wednesday, August 3rd from Lancaster, Pa and head for Antelope Wells, New Mexico.  Our goal is to make it to Albuquerque, NM by late afternoon Saturday the 6th so we can change our oil at a Suzuki dealer in town before they close.  The Sunday we'll head for the Mexico boarder and begin the CDT that will take us to the Canadian boader.  We then plan to come home via Canada.  

Here is a screen shot of our projected route.  The green line is the gps tracks I got from the good folks on ADVrider.com.  The red line is the actual continental divide.

That is all for now but hopefully I'll be able to keep updates coming on a regular basis.