Day Eighteen: Iowa to Indiana!

Got up early 100 miles west of Des Moines to make it back to Vincennes in time for "ride night" with our biker buddies. We got into Vincennes 10 minutes before they were set to leave.

We didn't even have time to go home first so after quick hugs and such off we went back to Illinois for dinner. On the way to dinner we had the closest call of the several close calls we had over the last 18 days. The lead bikes stopped really quickly and one of the bikes went into oncoming traffic lane and a car spun around in a circle, I almost took to the ditch to avoid hitting the guy in front of me. Nothing like riding on unfamiliar roads and varying terrain for 7000 miles to just come home and crash. Thank God no one was hurt.

Our other close calls: I almost cleaned off a guard rail on a twisty road in California with my knee and Robby almost got ran into the median today by a car that didn't see him on I80, we are very thankful to be home safe. ;-)

Stats:
States -->Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, California, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and then back through Illinois and finally Indiana. 16 states in all!

Miles --> Chris has 7002 miles, Robby has 6950 miles. We have no idea why? We stuck together the whole trip. Robby said it is because Chris drives like a drunk. Chris says it is cause she swerves around pot holes that Robby drives right over. You be the judge. ;-)

Wildlife --> Robby said there was a lot, Chris didn't see much.

Haybales --> About a million and four different types. Actually five if you count the new straw bale snakes we saw in Idaho.

Skydiving --> One jump from a perfectly good airplane. Well, actually the plane didn't look so good after all.

Trees driven through --> One very large tree with a pre cut hole, not one we made by a crash.

Mountains climbed --> One very tall mountain with very rough roads! Pike's Peak was Robby's favorite thing though, so it was worth it, all 14, 110 feet of it!

Gas Stops --> approximately 54, we stopped getting receipts cause they were weighing us down.

Awesome friends that let us stay with them or use their house --> 5, thanks so much Bryan and Bea, Julie and Kelly, Brenda and Mike, Mike N, and Lenny and Kathy! You were all so very hospitable. Your sharing of your homes made our trip so much better, you have no idea.

Postcards sent to the kids back home --> Robby would answer this as, "Seriously? She bought them every time the kickstand went down!" I sent several post cards to my brother's kids and the little girl I mentor. Who doesn't love to get post cards!

Thanks for joining us on this adventure. It was fun to get texts, emails, and calls from several readers to let us know how much they liked it or to ask where the next one was. ;-)

Chris and Robby! CIAO!

Day Seventeen: Iowa

We just got to a hotel in Iowa at 2330, we are tired and cold soaked. Should make it home tomorrow. 6300 miles so far. Short blog cause fingers are frozen.

Day Sixteen: Riding around Sturgis and making new friends.

Late last night Robby and I went to Wendy's to grab a bite and I smelled my sweatshirt and said this stinks! He said it doesn't stink, that is the smell of freedom baby! I said it smells like exhaust actually. ;-) So for today our song is Bob Seger's Roll Me Away, one of my favorites:

We rolled across the high plains
Deep into the mountains
Felt so good to me
Finally feelin free

We got up and motivated early enough to have breakfast with some of our Knox County friends that are here...see photo above. We rode all day with them. Even though we stayed locally we did over 200 miles. Started out in Deadwood, went to Rushmore, to Crazy Horse and then to Sturgis to shop. A very large storm rolled in though and I beat feet to get back to the hotel. I lost Robby somewhere shopping and also the other boys, so I literally raced the storm back to the hotel. I lost by a minute and got a little bit wet. As soon as I parked I saw a lady saying it was gonna hail, to take cover. I did and left my poor bike out in the weather. It didn't hail, but the winds got up to 70 MPH. I called Rob and left him a message to not ride to stay wherever he was. He didn't get the message. He said the lightning was so cool and he thought he was gonna get struck a time or two.

Robby called about 45 min later and said he was here and he was downstairs. He was chatting with a Purdue grad that was giving him a hard time for being a dumb IU guy riding in the rain. I went down and met up with Robby and the people that we chatted with last night when we got in. We decided to go to the bar with them and talk some more since they were so nice. ;-) Found out they are from Texas, who doesn't love Texans? We just got back from spending a couple of hours hanging with our new friends. Robby found out that they lived in the same town as his idol, Marcus Latrell. Between the Purdue and Latrell topics we had some really nice chatting! ;-)

All in all (other than the getting wet) it was a great day of old friends and new ones.

We are gonna head out of here tomorrow afternoon and see how far we make it east.

Chris and Robby
ps. I found out that you can't leave comments and I can't figure it out. You wanna leave us one, send an email to us (jetgirl727@yahoo.com)

Day Fifteen: Bozeman to STURGIS!

We slept like rocks for 10 hours!! Got up and a had a message from an old high school friend that lives in Billings. He said he was going to Bozeman...and here we were in Bozeman and headed to Billings. I called him and we saw that it was not going to work out for us to meet up but we did get to wave at one another from across the interstate going 85 miles an hour! Great to see you David for a second or two. ;-)

I called my only other Billings friend when we went to lunch at the Montana Brewery in downtown Billings. She and I used to go there after our flights into BIL. Irony, she was in Bozeman!

We hit the road running for North Dakota. We could have headed through Wyoming straight for Sturgis, but we had the time and neither of us had ever been to North Dakota. It was only a little over 100 miles out of the way and this ride is all about adventure, so off we went for the land of hay bales and oil wells. It was very windy across Montana and the Dakotas today. We had VERY straight roads today so the wind just made our "how long can you ride with no hands contest" more interesting. Robby won by the way. He rode through most of North Dakota with no hands. :-)

We posted all 3 photos we took today cause Dan O said our posts are too boring without photos!

Covered 600 miles again today. We are at 5532 now. Still having fun and still laughing with and at one another. :-)

Chris and Robby

Day Fourteen: Boise to Bozeman

We got up bright and early and took up in a convoy with Lenny and Kathy to McCall, ID to pick up their son John from camp. It was a very scenic drive but short on bathrooms. ;-) We got to the camp and then John rode with me to the first restaurant we stopped at in McCall. It was too packed so since it was stressful to have a check airman's son on the back of my bike I asked him to ride with Robby. Better for my career I think. :-) We rode to a neighboring town and had a nice brunch with the Burliles.

Robby and I took off north to Montana all along rivers the entire way. It was like being in the movie "A River Runs through It." Very pretty ride. We did stop at a gas station and ran into a real biker gang. Right when I pulled into this two pump station these 10 guys stared at me. It might have been the Celine Dion playing on the radio or just the audacity of being a girl not riding on the back, not sure. They were scary. Robby said they all had guns on them. There was a rider there (not with the gang) with one of those BMW, high clearance bikes that had Japan plates. He is doing a 4 year tour of the world. Everywhere! It was insane. He started his tour in 2007! And we thought we had been out a long time cause the moon was a sliver when we started and now it is almost full. We are wimps. We also ran into yet another guy that was riding from coast to coast on his bicycle...crazy people I tell ya.

On this beautiful and very curvy road we got behind these two RV's that slowed us all up a lot. One of them pulled over in the slow lane to let us pass. The "bounder" RV decided he was fast enough apparently. Robby didn't agree with him and passed him in a spot that I would not. I don't like passing on corners even if you can see. There was a straight away and I started around him and he turned on his left turn signal! I backed off and he then waved me around.

About 20 miles down the road we pulled over and took photos of Welcome to Montana and Robby got this look on his face and said, oh no, we have to go now. I turned around and much like Robin Williams in RV when he sees the Gornicke's coming down the road, there was the Bounder rolling down the road. We didn't make it in front of him, but got around him in short time this time around.

Hit the interstate at Missoula and hammered down for Butte. We got there and we were not tired yet, so headed for Bozeman and this is where we are now. ;-)

600 miles today, total is up to 4910 miles so far. More than two thirds finished now! STURGIS tomorrow! Hope we don't run into our gang friends again.

Ciao!

Day Thirteen: Skydiving in Boise!

Day Thirteen and most people would be freaked out about the 13 and not jump out of an airplane, but not Robby!

We got up early this morning after staying up late last night and chatting with Lenny and Kathy to head to the Harley shop to get our oil changed (it has been over 4000 miles afterall!) Then we were off to the drop zone! Lenny has made so many jumps he is a pro at this. He is not a tandem jump master though so Robby got strapped to a guy named Kevin who Lenny assured us was a great guy with lots of experience. Lenny did go up with them and jump out at the same time. The video that they shot from the Kevin's arm camera was awesome! Lenny was right there floating along with them. I stayed on the ground and took several photos of them coming in and landing. Since I have broken one ankle and severely sprained another I chickened out! ;-) A couple of photos are attached above and most are on Facebook.

We got our bikes and headed back to the house to chill. Yesterday wore us out. We had awesome steaks and Robby has finally found a beer that is almost as good as Busch Light. His new love is Alaskan Amber, but you can't get it in Indiana. I guess I am going to have to start being his beer mule on my Alaskan routes like I am the tea mule for his mom from Iceland. ;-)

Gotta go to bed, we are off to Butte, Montana tomorrow! Lenny and Kathy are going to pick up their son John tomorrow north of here and we are gonna convoy (Rubber Ducky) up to McCall with them and have brunch before parting ways. We have had a lovely time at their house. It is wonderful to recover from our death march just chilling out (well after leaping from a perfectly good airplane--Robby.)

Til tomorrow!

Day Twelve: The Death March

We left Fortuna, CA and headed north to Eureka in the 1/10th of a mile fog along the coast. It was a chilly 53 degrees, but soon heated up to 103 near Redding, CA. We got stuck in construction delays and curvy roads for miles on end. There is no good road from the coast to Boise!

We rode for 14 plus hours and logged a little over 700 miles today. I feel it right now. We would feel a little worse except that we ran into a bicyclist that started in Connecticut and was now on the Oregon/Cali state line! Wowza!

We did find the most desolate road in the country today! Highway 395 north from the state line of Oregon for the next 100 miles is nothing land!!! It was insane. We passed about 5 cars in over 100 miles. It had a stinky lake that stretched for 20 miles. PLUS, Robby said he had no radio station for 100 miles either. Not a road I wanna go down again.

We saw many beautiful sites today, but no time to photo. We took two photos at state signs and that was it. We ended our ride pulling into Lenny's garage and he had beer in hand! Good times.

We will be here for a couple of days, Robby is gonna jump out of a perfectly good airplane tomorrow! Insane!

Ciao.