Grand Canyon

We're home.

Well here's the summery of our trip.

22 days, 22 states, and 7633 miles on the odometer.

We left the Desert View Campground in the Grand Canyon on July 20th. Once we saw the Grand Canyon, Zach was ready to get home. So, we decided to just go straight across I-40 toward home, and skip the gulf coast, that'll be another trip.

We rode close to 2000 miles in 3 days, 740 yesterday. We left Little Rock, Arkansas @ 7:30 am Central time, and were home @ 10:30 pm Eastern time.

Day 1: Left home, rode to Marrion, IL 584 miles. The biggest challenge was keeping Zach awake.

Day2: Marion, IL to Council Bluffs, Ia 563 miles. Gateway Arch, lots of corn fields, and one Missouri State Trooper.

Day 3: Council Bluffs to Murdo, SD. 413 miles. Rain all day, Sioux Falls(one of Zach's favorite stops), Corn Palace(Mitchell, SD)

Day 4 and 5: Murdo to Hill City, SD, The Black hills loop. 420 miles. Badlands, Missile silo, Crazy horse, Custer State Park wildlife loop, Iron Mountain Road, Deadwood, Sturgis, Mount Rushmore. Lots of fun and great riding.

Day 6: Hill City to Worland, Wyo. 303 miles. Crossed the Big Horn range on Hwy 16 between Buffalo, and Ten Sleep( one of my favorite roads).. We went through a canyon, and passed snow for the first time. We had planned on making it to Cody, but ran into a major electrical storm with high winds, and rain. So, we stopped in Worland, Wyo.

Day 7: Worland to Yellowstone. 238 miles. Cody, Chief Joseph Scenic Highway( spectacular road, and scenery), a small portion of the Bear tooth highway.

Day 8: Yellowstone Loop. 143 miles. Old Faithful, Geyser basins, Yellowstone Lake, Tower Falls, Mammoth Springs.

Day 9: Yellowstone to Choteau, MT. 285 miles. Got the bike serviced in Bozeman, the rode to Choteau. Almost ran out of fuel, luckily there was a station in Augusta. Found a city park to camp in of $8.00 a night. Cool little town.

Day 10: Choteau to Kellogg, Idaho. 359 miles. Glacier National Park, Road to the Sun(Logan's Pass) cool, no cold ride, but lot's of fun.

Day 11: Kellogg to Seletz River, Or. 511 miles. Long day, and then hit the rain just as we arrived @ the camp site.

Day 12: Zach's Birthday. Seletz to Crescent City, Cal. 258 miles. Started out cold and rainy, with lot's of fog. Coast of Oregon, and Cali, very beautiful. Camped in a local county park for $10.00 under a canopy of Redwoods.

Day 13: Crescent City to Gurnieeville, CA. 313 miles. Long day. Drove the Avenue of the Giants in the Redwoods, the drove through the Sonoma Valley with lot's of wine vineyards. Camped at the Creek side Lodge and campground. Nice Campground. There was one couple in the lodge, and we were the only people camping there. Zach and I were going to take a dip in the Russian River, but I slipped on a step that was covered in algae. I hyper- extended my shoulder, and hurt my right big toe. Zach just laughed 2 me. My foot hurt for about a week.

Day 14: Gurnieeville to Yosemite. 300 miles. Long day. Started out on Highway 1 driving the coast. Beautiful, but very tiring. Then the Goldengate, Very cool almost cold morning. Through San Francisco, and on to Yosemite. Once on the other side of the bay it got very hot, over 100 degrees for the first tine on the trip. We had the scariest momment of the trip when I dropped the bike @ the end of an off ramp. Nothing hurt but my pride. Don't know exactly what happened, we just stopped qiuckly, the bike was off balance to the right side, and it started to fall over, and I could not hold it up. The bike shut off, and I had to turn the key off to reset the ignition before it would restart. We pulled into the closest gas station, and took a nice long break before continuing. Made it to Yosemite, and found our campsite.

Day 15 : Spent exploring Yosemite, not sure of the milage, but not much. We rode to the Valley, then used the shuttle. Lot's of fun, took a dip in the Merced River(cold), Zach saw the black bear( which came to the camp later that night.

Day 16: Yosemite to Vegas. 381 miles. Started out crossing the Tiago Pass 9950 feet in elevation, the highest point we travelled. Then it was down into the desert for us. Temp was about 117 -121 going into Vegas.

Day 17: Vegas. no riding. Spent washing clothes, and exploring Vegas.

Day18: Vegas to Williams, AZ. 242 miles. Hoover Dam(took the Dam Tour) 118 degrees on the Dam. Rode Route 66 from Kingman to Seliegman.

Day 19: Williams to Grand Canyon Desert View campground. Only 85 miles, but had a great time in the Canyon, and took a free photo workshop. Camped in the park. Our trip was pretty much over @ this point. Zach was ready to gert home, and I could not convince him to take the gulf coast route. So we made a bee line to home.

Day 20: Grand Canyon to Vega, TX. 651 miles. Stayed in the Bonanza Hotel on Route 66, $40.00 and nice clean little hotel.

Day 21: Vega to Littlerock. 624 miles.

Day 22: Littlerock to home. 740 miles. Our longest day of riding.

Thanks to everyone for their prayers, and well wishes. Thank to the VTX cafe members who followed us, and gave Zach birthday wishes. Thanks to Ray for the use of his Zumo GPS.

I'm going to post some more pics from the Canyon, and will upload some onto my Facebook page.

I think i'll take my wife somewhere next week, I don't have to be back @ work unitl August 5th.

Then they burn your photos on a CD. You can take around 400 pics. The walk last about 1-2 hours.

We're @ the Grand Canyon. We're going to participate in a free digital photo workshop sponsered byu Cannon. They give you a digita SLR camera to use.

Desert, and Vegas

Yosemite

A cold dip in the Merced River. Felt pretty good, cause the temp in the valley was over 100.

More Pics later, going to get dinner right now.

Golden Gate, and California Coast.

Redwoods

Our camp in theRedwoods

Looking up from out tent.

Zach in a treehouse, inside a redwood.

Roosevelt Elk in the redwoods.

These trees are big.

Zach at a reststop, he is out. I scared him when a woke him up.

Oregon

Zach sittng on a sea wall outside Gracies Old Sea Hag(our breakfast stop). This is in the smallest port in the world, Port Depoe, Oregon

Fog @ the Lighthouse.

Clearing a little.

Vegas

One word, Hot.

Well we made it to Vegas. We haven't had cell or internet for several days.

We spent the past few days in Oregon and California. The Golden Gate Bridge was impressive. Very cool and breezy that morning. We didn't stop in San Fran, but rather kept going to Yosemite. Once on the other side of the bay it got hot.

2 days in Yosemite. Zach saw a bear while he was following 4 deer near our campsite. Later that night the bear visited the camp. The folks all around us started shouting, and blowing air horns to scare it away. It left and all was well.

We rode about 400 miles today to reach Vegas, temp 114.

Right now we are standing in front of the Bellagio watching the fountain show.

I'll try to post some pics soon.
We'll stay here tomorrow, then it's on to the Grand Canyon.

Guerneville, Ca

We met some guys @ breakfast this morning, and they told us about this lodge with a campground in Guerneville. So we made our way here today. Tomorrow, we'll head down the coast to San Fran, then on to Yosemite.

Well the rain finally stopped, and the fog lifted, so we were able to see some of the southern coast of Oregon. Were caming in some redwoods just inside Cali.

Rainy Day on the Oregon Coast.

Very cool, and wet today. Had to stop and layer up. We've made it down to Coos Point, headed for Cali, hopefully to see some redwoods, the find a campsite.

We're on the Oregon coast, eating Breakfast @ Gracies old sea hag. Thanks for all the Birthdays wishes for Zach. Headed to the redwoods. Rain, rain, rain.

Oregon

We decided to skip Mount Rainer, and head toward the Oregon Coast. We are eating lunch in Hermision, Oregon. We may get there today, not sure. Just depends on how we feel, got about 300 more miles to go.

video from Glacier

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