On Our Way

July 1, 2010

Well, as Gene said this morning.. today is the official start of our vacation!! We traveled 7 hours yesterday and 425 miles..made it to Chamberlin, SD and spent the nite at the Bel Aire motel..as Frank Howard always used to say..”It’s good enough for who its for!” We really miss that man! 

I’m typing in Word and plan to copy and paste into blogger when I get internet access… needless to say..the Bel Aire did NOT have it  We hope to make Butte, MT today or at least Billings. We met a couple last nite that said the Black Hills and Idaho were 100 degrees yesterday..ugh..maybe that Alaskan cool will feel good 
Actually, the day was beautiful.. cool even.. temps in the hi 60’s.. saw our first wildlife of the trip.. antelope along the highway and a dead wolf along the interstate!
We got to Bozeman, SD today..about 7:30 pm and 700 miles..found a very nice, clean and large lst floor room at the Microtel Inn for $69! After a LIT, a shower and a little email.. to bed.
One really good thing: we found out on the news that we had just missed a very severe hail storm that happened in Bozeman before we arrived.. we had noticed that one side of the Microtel had terrible hail damage all along the siding.newspeople were saying that it was the worst hail storm they had seen in 30 years!!! Our poor bikes would not have faired well

July 2

Left Bozeman about 7:15am.. 450 miles to Spokane-temps in the 50’s..arrived at my brother, Nick’s about 2:30pm PST. He had taken the day off work, not knowing when we would arrive and had put a wonderful pot roast on for our dinner. Since we really hadn’t eaten much that day, when sweet Debbie arrived home from work, we hungrily ate a wonderful meal..It didn’t take much to convince me later on that a trip to a real ice cream store would be a good idea.. We passed Jason and Melanie’s home (Nick’s son) on our way and noticed that Saul (their other son) and his family were there..so we decided to crash their party after our HUGE ice cream cone..It was really wonderful to see Jason n Melanie’s four children, Zoe, Aurora, Selah and Jason, and Saul and Chris’s Cynthia and Isabelle. What a wonderful , happy family they are..the cousins were enjoying each other and the Brothers were enjoying a beer outside while discussing Politics and other things they can’t change
After a delicious breakfast of huckleberry pancakes and eggs (huckleberries handpicked). We loaded up, leathered up and took off toward Canada and Cranbrook BC in 58 degree weather.. the sun occasionally came out.
At the Canadian border, we were told to pull over while they did a background check and figured they’d probably make us unload everything like the car next to us.. fortunately.. we checked out okay and were on our way in 15 minutes or so.
The ride to Cranbrook was beautiful..along mountains and a gorgeous river.. giving us a peak at what we hope to see on this trip.
Visited the HD here to get Gene’s dip dot and found a friendly motel across the street from a steak house..the office said since we were riders.. we got $5 off our rate!!! It’s nice to be liked..
July 4th
HAPPY 4TH TO ALL OUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY.. so sorry we are missing Nick and Debbies 4th with all the family..but we are excited for our trip and are on our way at 8:00am.. woke to a bright and sunny day..hope this is how the rest of the trip goes..cloudy and cool just doesn’t cut it 

Well, here we are in Jasper..its been an interesting day..certainly not sunny and warm like I thought it would be.. rode through rain and temps of low to high 40's.. yes..that is 40 plus rain..got to Banff and after having a cup of coffee and gassing up, decided to move on toward Jasper. Banff is pretty touristy and we weren't in a touristy mood!! Another 4 hours to Jasper along the beautiful IceFields Parkway.. it certainly was gorgeous in spite of the continual rain and low temps (we did have peaks of the sun and the temp would rise to mid 50's at times) Thank goodness and Gene for my heated jacket. It sure made a difference!

The Icefield is absolutely beautiful ...with tall big mountains and a rushing river and lakes of a color hard to describe.. perhaps tourquoise would be an apt description..

On a good note, we had a wolf cross the road in front of us and saw a bear just a few miles outside of Jasper.. both were awesome to see. The bear was a cub..I kept wondering where Mommy was! I was not able to get a photo however. By the time I dismounted and got my camera, he was behind the trees.

On a sour note, the clear storage container we'd bought and filled with food for camping, plates,glasses, S&P, nut, chips crackers and peanut butter and a whole bag of snack protein bars that Nick and Debbie gave us before we left..STOLEN from the top of our trailer as we went inside a motel to check on rates.. Geeze..so disappointing!!
So... Gene is outside locking up everything tight and covering the bikes. Makes us nervous for the rest of the trip:( After paying $150 for the room tonite, Gene says we can't afford to eat!

So... guess I'll enjoy my LIT, watch some TV and find something cheap to eat..Dang..
But Gene and I are doing well. Feeling pretty good and looking forward to the road ahead.