Yellowstone National Park is just amazing.  This is the second time I have been here and I was still at awe of the place.  First, it is huge...we rode 100 miles the first day and only covered half of the park.  Second, for some reason you never get sick of staring at steaming, gurgling, sulfur-smelling puddles of water.  Third, for some other reason you are willing to stand around for an unknown amount of time to wait and then finally watch water spurt out of the ground.  How amazing is it?  Most places we have been so far I took around 5-10 pictures.  Here in Yellowstone I took 165 pictures!  Here are some of my favorite:

I know...great pictures, but they don't even do the park justice.  We did have one incident with our bikes in Yellowstone.  We returned to our parked bikes after about 5 hours of seeing the geysers to find a hole in Tim's seat.  What the heck?!?  After investigating, we found a hole in my seat as well.  It winds up that giant ravens seem to like to pick at seats and pull out the stuffing for who knows what.  Look what they did to my seat!

After two days and two nights in Yellowstone we decided to get out before a predicted storm was going to hit.  We broke camp under cloud cover and hit the road.  We made it about 10 miles and then the sky opened up.  We pulled off and got our rain gear on then headed out the closest exit hoping for the rain to stop.  It was cold with a steady rain when we made it out to West Yellowstone, so we stopped for lunch.  As we were sitting there I saw a motel out the window. Before I even finished lunch I went across the street and rented a room.  There is always tomorrow to get to the next town.

Numbers Games
Total States Visited: 14 (New one: NONE)
Total Breweries Visited: 23 (New one: NONE)
Total Miles Ridden: 5,253

We woke up, had leftover pizza for breakfast, and hit the road.  Out next stop is Salt Lake City.  I was stationed there from 2000 to 2004 and this will be my first time back since then.  Tim has never been there, so I am looking forward to showing him around.  However, the thing I am most looking forward to is visiting with a few old friends of mine that I met in Utah when I was earning my MBA at Weber State University.  We haven't seen each other since I left in 2004, and to make it even more special, a couple of us are planning on surprising our dear friend Pam who has been battling cancer for the past year.  But first, we have to get there.  I thought a good place to start is Park City, up in the mountains that I used to frequent for skiing in the wonderful powder of Utah.

We made it to Park City around 1:00 after 274 miles of road time.  We checked into our hotel and headed to Main Street where we happened across Wasatch Brewing Company:

While walking around Park City we came across this "graffiti" that is supposedly an original Banksy:

I love this image of irony.  If you never heard of Banksy, I highly recommend the documentary "Exit Through the Gift Shop."  You can find it on Netflix.

After a night in Park City we went down to Salt Lake City to meet up with Melinda and surprise Pam with a visit.  We rang the doorbell and a very surprised Pam answered the door.  We spent the next 3 hours catching up with 14 years of stories and catching up.  By the way, here is a picture of a picture sitting on Pam's bookcase of us at our MBA graduation...it brings back great memories:

Tim and I planned on riding up Logan canyon that afternoon and camp in one of my favorited places, but it was now later than we expected, so Pam allowed us to spend the night at her house.  The next morning was a bit rainy, but we didn't allow it to ruin our day.  We visited downtown Salt Lake where we toured the Temple:

Next stop is Antelope Island.  An island in the Great Salt Lake with beautiful views and a herd of buffalo.

It was starting to get late and we still wanted to make some miles towards Yellowstone National Park, so we headed north.  Just before dark we stopped 90 minutes short of Yellowstone in Rexburg, ID at Beaver Dick Park where it cost us only $5 for a fine night of camping.

The next morning we woke up and rode in Yellowstone National Park.

Numbers Games
Total States Visited: 14 (New ones: Idaho, Montana)
Total Breweries Visited: 23 (New one: Wasatch)
Total Miles Ridden: 4,959

We woke up to blue skies and headed straight to Zion National Park.  When I was stationed in Utah we came down to Zion multiple times, so I was familiar with the Park that holds one of my favorite hikes, Angel's Landing, a 2.7 mile (5.4 round-trip) uphill hike that takes you to a spectacular views of the canyon below.  This was our first stop:

After this exhausting hike we didn't feel like hiking anymore, so we rode the shuttle to the end of the line and walked the short distance up the Virgin River, got back on the shuttle and rode our motorcycles back to our wonderful little patch on grass just up the road in Red Ledge RV Park.  Along with the hike, we rode 163 miles, making for quite a long day.

Numbers Games
Total States Visited: 12 (New one: NONE)
Total Breweries Visited: 22 (New one: NONE)
Total Miles Ridden: 4,209

We woke up after another lumpy night of sleep at the Hostel to rain.  Great...just in time for the 300 mile ride to Zion National Park.  We stayed in our "room" for as long as we could stand it and moved to the common area waiting for the rain to subside. It finally did, so we packed up the bikes and then it started raining again.  We gave it till the pour turned into a normal rainfall, donned our rain gear, and hit the road.  For the first time in a long time we road on an interstate (I-70 west to I-25 south).  The rain did subside after a bit, so the ride was not too bad.  I had heard that campgrounds at Zion filled up quick, so I found another RV park that allowed tents.

We arrived at Red Ledge RV Park in Kanarraville, Utah and was given a wonderful patch of grass to pitch our tent on.  I asked where the neared restaurant was since we hadn't stopped for lunch and she was like...hum...well...not close, but we had a barbeque here today and there are plenty of left over food and beer, just help yourself.  So cool!  What a great deal!

Numbers Games
Total States Visited: 12 (New one: NONE)
Total Breweries Visited: 22 (New one: NONE)
Total Miles Ridden: 4,046

We woke up to a cloudy day, but no rain so it should be a great day for a few hikes in Arches National Park.  We started with the Devil's Garden Primitive Loop, a 7.2 mile trail that leads to 8 arches:

Next, we hiked the premier hike at Arches, the 1.5 mile (3 mile round-trip) hike to Delicate Arch:

Finally, we hiked the one mile Park Avenue hike where the majestic red rock walls surrounded us like the buildings on Park Avenue, New York City:

After 139 miles of riding and over 11 miles of hiking we were ready for...you guessed it...a visit to Moab Brewery:

Numbers Games
Total States Visited: 12 (New one: NONE)
Total Breweries Visited: 22 (New one: Moab)
Total Miles Ridden: 3,736

As they say...plans are made to be broken, and broken they were from the very start.  We woke up and looked at the weather forecast which didn't look good for the mountains of Colorado, so we decided to stay one more day in Denver, much to the happiness of Barbra, Hanna, and Zoe.

Finally, on the morning of 20 August with the Weather Channel giving us an all clear, we headed out for the two day journey to Moab, Utah.  We made it to Pagoda Springs, CO the first night and found an RV park that allowed us to pitch our tent.  I know our plan was to make it to Gunnison National Park, but we the road to Gunnison was closed due to a professional bicycle race, so plan two was in affect. Luckily, the roads managed to take us to four breweries that day.

As you can imagine, stopping at four breweries took time, so when we left the last brewery in Del Norte, Colorado the sun was waning and it was a bit chilly, so when we left the brewery it was a bit chilly and I needed another layer of clothes. Why do I care to mention this detail of needed another layer of clothes?  You, will soon understand.

Anyway, we finally arrive in Pagado Springs, Colorado after 420 miles, and as stated earlier, I had researched and found an RV park that had some tent sites. We set up our tent in the dark and went directly to sleep. The next morning, I woke up and couldn't wait to hit the shower house for a nice shower, so I left the tent and went to grab the toiletry bag, and I couldn't find it. Hum...what, I have 5 or so t-shirts missing as well.  I think back and realize with a startle that when I opened my bag to put on that extra layer of clothes, I forgot to close the bag allowing the to toiletry bag, along with 5 of my favorite t-shirts to blow out of my bag while I rode down the road. So, as fast as we could, we hopped on the bikes and rode 60 mountain miles back to Del Norte searching the side of the road for anything.  120 miles and 3 hours later (round-trip to and from Del Norte) we found nothing.  What a bummer.  I will tell you one thing for sure, I will never make that mistake again!!

Anyway, 220 miles and two breweries later we made it to Moab, Utah were we stayed in a hostel for $35 a night, which sounds like a good deal, but as they say...you get what you pay for, which in this case was a lumpy bed and horrible pillows.  Oh well, it is just a place to store our stuff during the day and sleep at night.

Tomorrow should be a great day, we will be going to Arches National Park which is so amazing as the pictures should show in tomorrows blog.

Numbers Games
Total States Visited: 12 (New one: Utah)
Total Breweries Visited: 21 (New ones: Eddyline, Ameica's, Elevation, Three Barrel, Riff Raff, & SKA)
Total Miles Ridden: 3,597

This 1 week planned break in Denver came just in time.  My cold got worse and worse each day in Denver and even now, the night before we are to hit the road, I'm still sniffling and sneezing.  Hopefully the fresh air of the road tomorrow will make me feel better.

While here we did get some chores done.  I failed to mention that when my speedometer hit 566 miles after the big 100,000 mile turnover, it decided to stop working.  The worst part wasn't that I couldn't tell how many miles we have gone or how fast we were traveling, but that my auto-cancelling turn signals stopped working as well.  for the past 2 weeks of riding Tim had to honk his horn consistently to remind me to turn off my blinkers.  While in Sturgis I called ahead and had the Denver Harley-Davidson shop order a speedo cable and had it installed the second day we were in Denver.  The big bonus of having this work done was that they washed my bike.  So cool since I haven't washed my bike in like 2 years.  The day I had my speedometer fixed I noticed that a strap on one of my saddlebags broke, so off to a leather repair shop to have that fixed as well.  This Denver stop wasn't only good timing for my cold, but also good timing for some minor repairs on my motorcycle.

It was a really great visit with Barbara, Hanna, and Zoe.  We did some hiking, ate some great food, drank some awesome wine, went to a beer & food festival, and even caught a Colorado Rockies baseball game where they actually managed to beat the Cincinnati Reds.

The only thing we didn't do, believe it or not, was go to any breweries.  This cold has really kicked my butt and I was never really in the mood.

Since we haven't ridden much this week I thought I'd post a self portrait of me riding down the road somewhere in Wyoming:

Oh...I don't know if you checked the homepage of this site lately (www.timandgerri.com), but our route map has changed.  We now plan on spending more time out west and less  in the Northeast...at least this is today's plan.  Who knows what it will be next week.  All I know is that we are supposed to be leaving tomorrow morning and hopefully making it 260 miles to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park for a night of camping under the stars.

After the brewery, we made it to Devil's Tower.  Here are some really cool picture of Devil's Tower, AKA landing area for Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

I don't know what it is about this place, it is just a rock jutting out of the earth, but we were mesmerized by Devil's Tower. 

After a great nights sleep in the tent, we woke and did a 5 mile hike around the tower and couldn't take our eyes off of it.  This place is a definite must for any traveling in the area!  We got back to camp around 11am, broke camp, and was out of there around 12:30.  Our goal for this night is to make it to Sheridan, Wyoming (only 173 miles) were we hear there are many breweries there and on the way to there.  Speaking of which, here are the breweries on the way to Sheridan:

We made it to Sheridan with time to check out the local brewery scene there...3 breweries in this small Wyoming town!!

Wow...what a day...6 breweries visited.  The next day we got up SLOWLY with the goal of making it to Laramie, Wyoming (300 miles) where we hear there are a few breweries to check out...but wait...on the way we found The Wonder Bar in Casper, Wyoming where Wyoming State Brewing Company calls home.  This would be a perfect stop for lunch.

After lunch, we checked the directions to Laramie from Casper and saw a shortcut through the mountains.  We headed up an incredible road that kept getting smaller and rougher till it turned into a dirt road.  We took the dirt road a couple of miles until we finally decided that our road bikes weren't made for this so had to back track at least 45 minutes...we weren't happy at the time, but it was a beautiful road and was really worth it now that we can look back on it.

We made it to Laramie with plenty of time to check out the brewery scene there:

Numbers Games
Total States Visited: 11 (New ones: Wyoming, Colorado)
Total Breweries Visited: 15 (New one: Miner, Gillette, Prairie Fire, Clear Creek, Sanford, Black Tooth, Luminous, Wyoming State, Coal Creek, Altitude, & Library)
Total Miles Ridden: 2,937

We left Fargo on Sunday, 3 August with the thought that we would make it to Sturgis that same day...that was until we stopped for lunch at a really good pizza place in Bismark, ND and then realized that there was a brewery in town as well.

As we were ready to leave the brewery it started pouring, so another delay in getting to Sturgis.  Looking at the radar it looked like the storm was going to pass through pretty quickly...1 hour later we were still watching the rain fall from Laughing Sun's window (there are definitely worse places to be stuck).  Finally the heavy rain ended, so with a bit of a drizzle falling, we donned our rain gear for the first time since we left Florida 8 days ago...not too bad of a run!

Finally, after 300 miles of riding on I-94 we were happy to get off the interstate and head south on US-85...little did we know what was in store for us.  This road was made of concrete slabs with a gap between them that felt like we were running over a stick every few seconds.  Plus, the road was in the middle of wide-opened ranges making it very windy.  When cars, or even worse, trucks passed us head-on, we had to hold on tight and close our eyes because of the serious draft they made.  Needless to say, as soon as we got to Bowman, ND, 60 miles down that horrendous road, we were ready to stop for the night.

The next morning the weather was much better and with only 135 miles to go to get to Sturgis we were off.  A couple of hours later we made it to Days End Campground in Sturgis, South Dakota.  We setup the tent and headed straight downtown to experience Sturgis.

As they say, pictures are worth a thousand words, so here are pictures of what Sturgis is like:

The reason the Sturgis rally is better than any other rally's out there is that the area is AWESOME to ride around.  The Black Hills of South Dakota is one of the most beautiful areas I have every ridden...even if it rained every day we went out riding.  I did really poorly pulling off the road to take pictures of the "beautifulness" of this area, but I did stop for Mount Rushmore and Sitting Bull:

And of course we stopped for a few breweries.

After 3 days and 2 nights in Sturgis and the Black Hills area we decided to call it a day and head to our next destination of Denver to visit with family for a week or so.  We headed back to Days End Campground for the last night under rainy skies.  The dirt road that lead to our campsite left quite the mess on my bike and me!

Numbers Games
Total States Visited: 9 (New ones: South Dakota)
Total Breweries Visited: 4 (New one: Laughing Sun, Sick & Twisted, Knuckle)
Total Miles Ridden: 1,804

We had a very nice visit with Jodie, Clint, and Troy.  One of the best things was having my very own kitchen to cook in. I have no regrets on our decision to live a life on the road, but one thing I do miss is having a kitchen to cook in.  Breakfast was served promptly at 10 am and dinner was on the table by 8 pm.  Nobody seemed to care about the time, and nobody complained about the cooking, so all was good.  After 3 days of too much food, just enough beer, and not enough time with family it was time to head north to Fargo.

We left the cabin with the goal to meet our motorcycle club brothers in Mount Vernon, Illinois (420 miles) for the night.  We stopped in Tennessee, just 1 mile short of the Kentucky boarder for gas and lunch.  I thought I'd send a text to Birdawg letting him know our progress and figured he would see it when they stopped for a break on their motorcycle. 

The next day we rode 400 miles and landed in De Forest, WI for the last night on the road before hitting Fargo.  Finally, on Thursday, 31 July we made it to Fargo ready to have a great time with our US Military Vets brothers and sisters from all over the country.

Of course, we also had to check out the local brewery scene at Fargo Brewing Company.

The next day we were out of there and on our way to Sturgis, South Dakota for the annual Black Hills Biker Rally.

Numbers Games
Total States Visited: 8 (New ones: Tennessee, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota)
Total Breweries Visited: 1 (New one: Fargo Brewing Company)
Total Miles Ridden: 1,300