Let's see a show of hands that thinks your vacations are never long enough! Maybe it depends on whether you are getting rained on or not. Well out here in Idaho we don't have much rain in the summer and I had pretty clear sailing all the way to Wisconsin and back.
Yup, I did the big drive east. I'd been contemplating doing a bike ride back home to Wi. for years and it came together this year as the national BMW rally was in West Bend, Wi. I combined that with a family reunion just thirty miles north in Fond du Lac. I dreaded the thought of high heat, humidity and mosquito's. I just really lucked out with moderate temps and NO mosquito's! I even had a tailwind both ways.
I took "Junior" my old R65. It is more economical to ride and a bit more comfortable than the newer one.
Besides seeing old friends and making new ones at the rally I really enjoyed the entertainment as they had 16 different musical groups performing and many of them were of a German theme as that was the theme of the town and the rally. I especially enjoyed the rendition of "Hogan’s heroes" played by the German orchestra!
One amazing thing at the awards ceremony was this 77 year old grandma who won the long distance award. She rode over 100,000 miles in one year! That is definitely a "granny on the go."
This was the first time I slept in a barn. The 4H horse barn. I had my own stall. It looked pretty clean, But no one told me I should put down plastic first and so I kept smelling this funny smell which I finally figured out to be horse urine. But I still had fun.
I wouldn't say it was fun but on the way back I finally met up with thunder storms and had to drive right between two of them! When the storm got right in front of me it was time to quit for the day and lucked out finding a nice campground in a small town in the middle of Montana. Besides that a guy I new from the rally was already camped there. I found a clear spot near the sign that said: "no horses" which had residue of Equines that couldn't read signs and I set up my tent.
I suppose you've heard about all the fires in Idaho this year. Well my next three motorcycle events took me south toward the fire areas. Fortunately we were able to avoid the big fires and most of the smoke. We could see them burning from a distance. Looked like giant atomic bomb clouds.
While we were in Elk River, I’d. we saw the largest western Red Cedar tree. It was 12ft. In dia. and about 3,000 years old! We took in some nice views of the Snake river canyon while watching a few spot fires on the other side of the canyon.
A few of us made it up to a few lookout towers on the tops of mountains. It was very challenging to get up those 4WD roads especially while carrying all your camp gear on the bike. I got bounced off the trail twice on the way up to one lookout.
All that bouncing and dust kinda takes a toll. That's why most of our days end up near a hot springs where we soak away the dust and sore muscles--ahhhh!
Coming back to camp one afternoon a storm caught up to me. The wind started whipping up and I heard a huge "crack" and I looked to my right and a huge dead tree was falling over! I sighed relief that it fell away from me. But then I was spooked and kept an eye on the trees ahead of me. Turns out one guy came around a corner and there was a tree across the road and he ran into the branches before stopping.
The food they served us was excellent as usual. Mike served us a huge Pialla dish two nights that was very enjoyable. At the Stomp we had some great steaks also.
More steaks were in the offing at the Nakusp hot springs rally in British Columbia. They must have been marinated as they practically melted in your mouth. Nakusp is a nice little town on a beautiful lake in the mountains with two very nice hotsprings nearby and great roads.
I entered the field events and managed second place again against stiff competition. I won $50! Does that make me a professional field eventer?
Continued on the next post as it wouldn't all fit on this post!
