Grand Teton and Yellowstone

Up early to get to Grand Teton! No problems, the miles fly by. I grab some picnic supplies in town to have lunch somewhere in the park.

The park is huge, awesome, and organized. I’ve never seen anything like it. The mountains are really something, the most intimidating, sharp, dangerous looking rocks I’ve seen.

After riding through most of the park, I eat lunch and move on to Yellowstone.

The traffic is pretty crazy, but since the park is so big, you can still get away from all the fuss.

Fast Fact:

There is a special force field at the entrance to every National Park which deactivates the turn signals of all mini vans. It’s true.

The park is full of wildlife…

(This was less than 15 feet from the road)

bubbling pools…

and geysers.

I’ve always known Yellowstone has these things, but its amazing just how… common they are in Yellowstone. I mean, you’re driving down the road and the ground just spits up steam along the side. It’s crazy. It doesn’t seem natural, more like something out of a sci-fi movie.

Another thing that you don’t appreciate is the sound. Each site has its own soundtrack, some powerful and some peaceful.

Definitely go check it out.

I hit the Continental Divide again, actually several times. Much like crossing from Wyoming to Utah, this road can’t make up its mind.

There were buffalo all over the place. After seeing them in action, I now have no respect for anyone who hunted them. Sure, they are big and can be dangerous, but they’re really dumb. Like ugly cows. If you are bragging about hunting buffalo, you may as well brag about hunting cow.

There was an entire herd of buffalo right next to the road. I am disappointed that more pics didn’t come out well. But I wasn’t about to stop either.

This cow, I mean buffalo, is getting in trouble with the law.

He really didn’t care that he was backing up traffic.

I had to rush through the park to get a camp site, it was Friday and filling up fast. I lucked out and got a good one, and then took off for the 80 mile round trip (this park is HUGE) to Old Faithful.

As I’m leaving the camp, I notice that my speedometer just stopped working. I easily find the problem, but it requires a part to be ordered of course. It doesn’t affect the drivability at all, but it is a huge pain. No speed indicator. Plus no odometer (they obviously run off the same sensor). Most bikes don’t have a gas gauge, so you have to use the trip odometer. Luckily I have my trusty GPS to keep track of miles and speed.

I made it there just before sunset, and of course, it wasn’t erupting. I didn’t feel like waiting the 90-120 minutes for it to erupt again, so I headed back to camp.

Except the bike blew a fuse again.

And the service station at the geyser closed 10 minutes ago.

This time, I really figure out the problem. and rip the cigarette lighter out. Literally. I throw it in the parking lot to die.

Finally I found someone who had a spare fuse (I had left all my tools and supplies back at camp). Unfortunately because of the delay, the road back was closed. Instead of a 40 mile drive back, it’s now an 80 mile drive.

Not a good day. It’s very late. I’m very cold, I was not expecting to be out this late, so most of my cold gear is back at camp.

Because I don’t have the right fuse in the bike, I’m afraid to use my high beams. I’m doing about 50mph when I notice a black object, with glowing eyes, and hooves… it’s a f---ing buffalo! And by the time I realize what it is, it’s literally 20 feet away. At 50mph. After some stumbling hooves and squealing tires we both manage to miss each other.

Don’t tell Laura. Or my Mom.

By the time I get back, my fingers are totally numb. It’s after midnight and I haven’t eaten. I fix a quick dinner and hit the sack.

An old trick I learned from Boy Scouts; when it’s cold, sleep with a ski mask. You could be warm and toasty in your sleeping bag, but your head is sticking out of it!

Fast Facts:

Odometer Reading: 8,458

Plus 110 miles after odometer stopped working…
Corrected Odometer:  8,568

Elapsed Miles: 4,922

Buffalo seen: 54

Miles driven in Yellowstone: at least 200

Interesting Question:

All day, heck, all week, I’ve seen groups of Harleys riding around. They ride in groups of 2-20, and they all have camping equipment strapped to them. But I’ve been camping pretty much every day, and I’ve never seen one in a camp site. Where do they camp??? I’m convinced that they live nearby and just carry their sleeping bags around to look hardcore.

Speaking of hardcore Harleys, a few days after this I was watching a Discovery Channel episode on motorcycles, and they covered the Sturgis rally. They interviewed a bunch of people that were like “we came all the way from Milwaukee” and the narrator was going on and on about how people drove hundreds of miles on motorcycles.

Pansies.

Arches

Up early so I can get back to Arches. It’s 20 miles away so I’m already behind, since I was hoping to wake up there. As I’m packing up my stuff, the Camp Nazi comes up to me and chews me out for coming in too late and leaving too early. He says my motorbike makes too much noise and that I came there just to wake people up. I tried to apologize, but as soon as I said the word “sorry” he snapped, “no you’re not!” Well. Not any more. Jerk. I almost delayed Arches another day so I could come back and wake him up the next night too.

But I had to get moving.

Arches was amazing. There are rocks. And arches. And I didn’t see the Roadrunner or Wile E. Coyote. But I did get to see this:

Cue “Lubbock in my rear view mirror”

Ok, that was way too many pictures, but it was pretty cool. I want to come back sometime when I have something I can take off road. They have some awesome looking back roads. Technically I was on the perfect bike for it, but loaded down with all my gear, and running behind schedule, I opted to stay on the pavement.

Now, off to Salt Lake City!

I came here just to get some pics of the Salt Lake LDS Temple. It’s kind of hard to photograph since it’s surrounded by tall buildings in downtown, but it is quite beautiful.

I tried to get it, but it is closed to visitors. I tried to talk my way in, but when I couldn’t do the secret handshake, they turned me down.

The size of the complex, the attention to detail, the obviously huge amounts of money and power, I haven’t seen anything like that since Catholicism in Europe.

Many of the other buildings in the complex are open, but I had gotten the photos I needed. Besides, I was starting to think I was in a department store – everyone was in a white shirt, tie, and nametag. It was eerie.

All in all I recommend it, the gardens are beautiful and the tour guides are friendly and knowledgeable.

Ok, enough of that, on to Grand Teton National Park!

Cross into Wyoming:

And back and forth between Utah and Wyoming like 8 times. What a stupid road.

And Idaho?

I didn’t even know I was going to be in Idaho. Am I on the right road?

Not 10 miles down the road, a fuse blows in the bike and I’m stranded on the side of the road. I think I find the problem, get a new fuse, and on the road again.

50 miles down the road, a fuse blows in the bike and I’m stranded at a gas station, that closed 5 minutes ago. Luckily I picked up some tools during my last breakdown, so I fix everything up nice and tidy. There should be no more wiring problems, everything is awesome.

15 miles down the road (in the middle of NOWHERE, and in the pitch black) the fuse blows again. Since it’s electrical, there are no headlights. I’m 13 miles from the nearest streetlight, it’s pitch black, and I’m doing 75mph. Not fun. But I safely stopped, replaced the fuse, and decided to stop using the suspect circuit.

The problem was with the cigarette lighter, I had plugged in an inverter so I could charge up the laptop (so I can write these genius updates for you all) and something with that was killing fuses left and right. Ok, no inverter and no laptop, I’ll just stick with the normal GPS charging. To top it off, when I unplugged the laptop, I found that the battery had disconnected, so it hadn’t even charged at all the entire time.

It’s been a long day.

With all the breakdowns, I’m still a few hours from Grand Teton. Add to that my frustration, the cold, and the fresh impression of the Camp Nazi, I decide to just stay at the first place I can find. Luckily, I happen upon another National Forest and find a camp ground.

Odometer Reading: 8218

Elapsed Miles: 4,572

Lessons Learned

People in Utah are ultra helpful. Which is great if you need help (broken down on the side of the road). But when you don’t need it, it can get a little annoying.

Cheap electronics should NEVER share a fuse with anything.

The “engineer” at Bell who “designed” the cigarette lighter I bought should be shot. Then fired. And I just happen to know an engineer that can take his place.

Trout fishing

After spending a night at the friends’ cabin, I got a tour of the mountain. There were hawks, chipmunks, ground squirrels, deer, and lots of lakes, streams and wildflowers. Gorgeous.

I heard someone mention that it was illegal to feed the wildlife, but they were just too @#$%ing cute! Only Kim Jong-il could say no to that face.

My dad and I went fishing. The pond is about 100 feet from the front door of the cabin, and is full of trout. It’s really not even fair, the trout practically line up to sacrifice themselves.

I got 5 in less than an hour, and most of that time was spent wrestling the fish off the hook or un-tangling fishing line.

I was able to meet my mom at the Grand Junction airport for a very brief hello before she headed up the mountain to the cabin, and I headed out of town to Arches National Park in Utah.

Cross the border.

Unfortunately, when I got to Arches at 10pm, it was totally full. I should have guessed, since it’s such a popular park, but I figured that a Wednesday night wouldn’t be such a problem. So instead I back tracked about 20 miles to Canyon Lands National Forest where I got some awesome star gazing done.

This one’s for you, Crystal. I thought it would turn out even better, but I think next time I get to try, it will.

For those of you who are like “WTF is that?” – This shows the horizon “in front” of you, stretches up over your head, all the way to the horizon “behind” you. Yes, it is the Milky Way.

Ok, this post may not have been humorously entertaining, but until the editors at Maxim buy the blog to run a story about how a real man vacations, you’ll just have to live with a reduced humor level. I have like 4 days of updates to write, so there’s not enough time to spice up everything.

First Peak

On the road early, 6am, trying to get to Pikes Peak as soon as possible. Just a few miles down the road, I got distracted by Capulin Volcano. I decided I may as well go to the top of this one too, since it’s on the way.

Unfortunately, the rangers at this park are not nearly as ambitious as I, for they didn’t open for another two hours.

Just down the road, crossed into Colorful Colorado.

Much like the groundhog celebrates my second favorite holiday, I noticed my shadow and was very impressed. Bonus points of you know my favorite holiday…

I made it to Pikes Peak, and on the way up I decided I wanted a photo of me crossing the timber line. Here we are approaching it.

And then here’s me aiming wildly and managing to capture the actual Timberline sign.

It was a tense drive

But I made it!

I even had someone take my photo. Yes, I did check it, and yes, again, they had screwed it up. This pic is the third try. I figured this guy knew what he was doing, since he had a DSLR on him also. Oh well.

This is the end of the famous (or infamous?) cog wheel train at the top of Pikes Peak.

Now that I have the main objective done, it’s time to meet my father at his friends’ cabin. It’s a long drive, but very interesting. I even managed to find a Continental Divide marker along the way.

It’s hard to tell from the photo, but my rear tire is trying to roll to the Atlantic Ocean, while the front tire is trying to roll to the Pacific. Good thing I had the kickstand down.

As I said, the drive definitely kept you on your toes…

I missed the Buell, but this was still fun.

I passed several small towns that made me think of South Park, especially the way they describe it… how come trailers in NM or TX just look dumpy, but in CO they are acceptable?

The views were also great.

Finally made it to the cabin, it is really nice here. I am definitely tempted to extend my stay here.

Second Major Concern:

The bike is a little under-powered under normal conditions, then you add my fat ass and all my gear, and you feel lucky to keep up with traffic. But now I’m driving around at 10k, 11k, and 14k feet. The bike is even more winded than I. There were a few times when I was just hoping to make it to the top of the hill, and for about one hour I just had the throttle pegged at 100%. After a consultation with my home-base support crew (Thanks, Sam) I’ve decided to just live with it, since the rest of the trip is at more reasonable altitudes.

Fast Facts

Odometer Reading: 7,514

Elapsed Miles: 3,868

Bugs on windshield: 768

Bugs on visor: 247

Days without rain: 0

Night after Lubbock

Ok, I need to update on my part of the trip after I left Lubbock. A few hours down the road, in the middle of NOWHERE in the panhandle of Texas, on a two lane wanna-be road, a State Trooper (what is he doing there anyway) decides to pull me over. I am pretty sure that he thinks I’m on a sport bike, but when he sees that it’s a crappy dual-sport he lets me off with a warning for doing 75 in a 70.

Pass into New Mexico with no further interruptions, except of course for the obvious, a little piece of my soul was lost that refused to leave Texas for New Mexico. Understandable.

Just when I think I’m going to make it to Colorado before I need to stop, the entire horizon in front of me explodes with lightning. Luckily there is a rest stop here, and not just any rest stop. These picnic tables have not only a roof, but three walls and a porch too!

I throw the bike under the porch, roll out my trusty sleeping pad (don’t leave home without it) and hit the sack. Er… table.

Fast Facts

Law enforcement encounters: 2

Citations: 0

Warnings: 1

Nights spent illegally sleeping in public: 2

Day in Lubbock

Today was a lazy day in Lubbock. Got to sleep in, get some errands done (pick up new tarp, straps, etc), and Laura even helped me manually adjust the preload for the rear suspension, which is quite difficult when the adjustment mechanism is broken. It’s amazing what you can get accomplished in an apartment parking lot with a few ratcheting straps and some sweat.

Also got to eat lunch at the World Famous Giorgio’s Pizza on Broadway and L in Lubbock. If you haven’t been here, you haven’t lived.

And Bahama Bucks for dessert of course!

After a quick dinner I’m heading NW towards Colorado Springs. I probably won’t make it all the way there tonight, so I’ll camp somewhere around the Texas Panhandle, NE New Mexico, or SE Colorado.

On the Road Again…

New bike’s initial odometer reading: 6,349

Getting out of Dallas took a little longer than expected, but after all the setbacks I’ve had I’m pretty happy with everything.

Thanks to Nicole for coming to help me pack and see me off.

 

I had some nasty rain on the way, but after I got through it there was some nice cloud cover. I had to stop near sunset to get this photo:

Rolled in to Lubbock around 11pm, Laura had some great home cooking for me, and it was a treat to throw my clothes in the dryer instead of sleeping in a tent.

On this, the first leg of the trip on this bike, I’ve found a few things I need to adjust. Front suspension, rear suspension, and I lost some baggage straps and my tent tarp. I should be able to get that straightened out in the next couple days.

Odometer reading: 6,703

Total elapsed miles: 3,057