I had planned to go to the aviation convention in Oshkosh which would have precluded my going to Camp XS 1998. I found out only one week before Camp that the trip to Oshkosh was off so I immediately decided to go for it. This was to be my first long trip on a bike and I found I had a lot to learn. I wanted to see some sights along the way. My mission was to go to Grand Teton and Yellowstone Parks, the Custer Battlefield in Montana, Gillette and Sturgis. The rest I would play by ear.
I made my plans to leave early Saturday morning but it took a lot longer to change all the oils, replace brake pads, and reinstall the hard saddlebags, luggage rack, and foot pegs in preparation for the trip. I also had to pack (way too much stuff as it turned out.) I finally got on the road at 3 p.m. I had hoped to make it to Salt Lake City on Saturday, about 800 miles from my house but due to the late start I settled on Las Vegas, only 350 miles. My route took me on the 118 to the 405 to the 5 to the 14 to Mojave, 1 & 1/2 hours. Stopped for gas and something to drink. It gets hot in the desert. Then route 58 to Barstow and I-15 to Las Vegas. Coasted into the gas station in Baker and the engine stopped at the pumps-out of gas. I was surprised as it was only 135 miles from Mojave and I usually plan on 170 miles to tanks dry. The big thermometer said 114 in Baker! Drank a lot more water. On the road again and into Vegas about 9 p.m. About 5 hours total driving time. Spent the night at my sister's house.
At this point I had learned 1) your wrists start hurting; 2) if I had the Chaparral catalog I would have ordered a throttle lock and had it delivered to Dale's so that I could have installed it for the return trip; 3) crossing the desert on a bike is an entirely different experience than in a car.
Planned an early start but didn't get going till 11 a.m. I had to set up my sister's computer. Stayed on I-15 for 450 miles to Salt Lake City and got a hotel room for the night. This was 200 more miles of desert before finding green in Utah. An interesting ride through Arizona for about 30 miles, lots of twisties through deep canyons. Learned: 4) stop at next available gas station after 80 miles. This gets rid of concern about running out of gas and lets me walk around and stretch. I used this rule the rest of the trip. It sure cuts into you average speed but makes the ride bearable. 5) I had thought before that what was the big deal of riding 1000 miles in a day as I had done that often in my car. NOT the same thing on a bike.
I had several instances of good luck on this trip. While stopped for gas I started talking to another guy at the pumps with a pick up truck. I told him I was heading for Yellowstone park. He was just coming from there. He still had 3 days left on his week pass to the parks so he gave it to me. Saved me $20.
Monday I drove up I-15 to Idaho Falls and then cut east to Jackson Hole Wyoming. About 1/2 way between Idaho Falls and Jackson there is a "Y" junction and either one takes you to Jackson. I noticed that all the cars were going on the route that according to my map was considerably longer. I asked at a gas station why the cars didn't take the shorter route. "Because there are 10% grades on the short route."Â You know which one I took. You end up at a beautiful overlook high above Jackson hole going over that pass.
When I got into Jackson It started raining. I still had 60 miles to
go to get to Yellowstone Park for the night. Went through Grand Teton Park
on the way. Here are some pictures of those striking mountains:
 Grand
Tetons #1
 Grand
Tetons #2
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Lesson 6) make a reservation for a camp site at Yellowstone. There
were no spaces left by the time I got there so I contemplated just walking
out into the woods and pitching my tent. Ran into a lot of mosquitos. Went
back to the camp grounds hoping that there might be a cancellation of a
reservation. Second piece of good luck. A guy drove up and asked if anyone
needed a small camp site, just room for a tent. His buddy had not shown
up so I bought the site from him. He had three Harleys on a trailer and
was also headed for Sturgis.
Tuesday I drove around the park and saw Old Faithful. I was not that impressed with Yellowstone. The part I saw was mostly just trees bordering the road. It looked like northern Wisconsin. Not too many places where you could get large vistas. I had planned to leave the park through the northeast gate, drive over the Bear Tooth Pass and drive 160 miles to Billings Montana for the night. However the engine started making a racket and I thought that there was something seriously wrong inside the engine. I called the 800 number for Ryder trucks to see about renting a van to get my bike back to California. The Ryder agency was in Cody and the agent asked me why I just didn't take the bike to the Yamaha dealer in Cody to get it fixed. I didn't expect to find a Yamaha dealer in a town of 6,000. She gave me their phone number. I called and told the dealer my problem. He said if I could get it to Cody he could look at. It was 90 miles and he closed in 2 hours. He also gave me the number of a tow company in case the bike stopped completely. Well traffic was slow and there was construction on the road so I didn't get to Cody until 6:20 and figured I had missed the dealer. But (here comes good luck again) he was still there talking to his mechanic. "You must be the guy with the XS1100 with the engine making bad noises." He had me start it up and he listened to it. "No noise coming from your engine- it is just a bad muffler." What a relief.
Had a steak for dinner and went to the rodeo in town and to a motel
for the night.
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Wednesday, went to the Cody museum which is something not to be missed. It has a g*n collection which can't be beat and collection of indian artifacts and a collection devoted to Buffalo Bill Cody. I could only spend one hour in the museum because I had to get to Montana and Gillette this day. Half way to Greybull the speedometer stopped working so I just had to drive at 5,000 rpm for the rest of the trip. I crossed the Big Horn mountains between Greybull and Sheridan and this was the prettiest piece of country I would see on the whole trip. Bighorn mountains. View of valley from Bighorn Mountains
I hit I-90 north of Sheridan and turned left to go to Montana. When you cross the state line there is a sign telling you that the speed limit is "reasonable and proper." I cruised at 6500 rpm (about 100 mph) up to the Custer Battle Field and it didn't take long to get there. You can read all the books about a battle but you really can't get an appreciation for what went on until you get you feet on the ground and see the terrain for yourself. Spent 3 hours and back on the road at 6 p.m. heading for Gillette. About 9 p.m. I pulled off I-90 in Gillettte and stopped at the gas station to ask directions. I then noticed that my head light was not working so I hurried along to find Dale's house before it got completely dark. Pulled into his driveway in the dark and met Dave and Joe working on their bikes and sipping on brewskis. Lois was nice enough to feed all of us and several hours later the rest of the group arrived, returning from their trip to Mount Rushmore. It was good to finally meet all these people that I only knew from the list.
The next day we went out for breakfast in Gillette then the group rode to Sturgis. One of the interesting things about this trip was the complete reversal of the bike to car ratio--everwhere you saw bikes and only rarely did you see cars. It was like being teleported to another planet where they don't have cars.
Saw some interesting sights in Sturgis including the "Great White" ridden by JP. That evening Bobbobybob, Joe, Mike and several others went to Deadwood S.D. for dinner. Good looking old town, picture book perfect old western town. Had a beer in the saloon where Wild Bill Hickok was slain with his "dead man's hand." Then we rode back to Gillette to camp for another night.
 Picture of Deadwood , South Dakota
Next day we rode around Gillette, had breakfast, watched maintenance on Master Ho's Honda. (Just where is the gas tank anyway?) ( Master Ho )I knew that I had a long ride ahead of me as I had to be back in the office on Monday and it was already Friday. I said good-bye to all and hit the trail around noon. Drove to Rock Springs, Wyoming and stayed in a motel with a swimming pool which is a really good way to loosen up after a long ride.
Saturday was to be the longest day on the road, from Rock Springs to Las Vegas, about 700 miles. Started out about 8:00 and got in about 12 hours later. I spent about one hour touring Fort Bridger which was on the way. I was well on my way later and about 20 miles north of Scipio , Utah (smack in the middle of nowhere) when I saw dust being kicked up of in the valley off to the left about 5 miles. Then the wind hit! It blew so hard from the left that it actually blew me off the road into the weeds! No matter what I tried I couldn't stay on the road or the shoulder. Fortunately I got it slowed down enough by the time I ran off into the weeds that I was able to get it stopped without problem. I decided to wait out the storm and put the bike on the kick stand and the wind blew it over! I left it laying on its right side, put on my rain suit and hunkered down in the lee of the bike to wait for the rain storm to end. I eventually moved further down the hill because I was concerned that the wind would blow a semi off the road and on to me and I held on to the grass to keep from being blown away. The wind must have been over 50 knots and it started raining like hell. I remembered the words of my meteorology professor "high intensity, short duration." He was right. 45 Minutes later the wind had dropped enough for me to try to right the bike and get back on the road. It was still gusty and each high gust made me think that it would happen again but it didn't. I got to Scipio and stopped at a gas station where there were 4 other bikes waiting out the storm. I called the flight service station and got a weather briefing that indicated the thunder storm area should end about 30 miles further down the road. So I got back on the road put up with the gusts for the next 30 miles and for once the weather man was right and I drove out of the bad weather area.
I got to Mesquite, Nevada as it was starting to get dark with another hour to drive to Vegas. I had had trouble with my head light as it would occasionally go off and I would have to wiggle the connector on the fuse block to get it to go back on. I was concerned that I would be driving in the pitch dark down the interstate in the middle of the desert and the light would go out so I decided the thing to do was to stay between two cars so that if I lost my light I would still have enough light to get safely stopped on the shoulder. This wasn't easy to do. It seems that there are two groups of drivers, 1/2 going 90 and the other 1/2 going 55. I didn't want to go 90 in this situation and I sure didn't want to go only 55 either. Anyway, I eventually got to Vegas and went to dinner with my sister and had a few stiff drinks to start with.
Finally, it was Sunday and the last day on the road. It is usually 5 hours from Vegas to my house and I go through Mojave California. By this time I was so sick of driving across the desert that I stayed on the I-15 to San Bernardino so I could get out of the desert 1/2 hour sooner even though it made the trip longer.
I learned a lot on this trip especially how fatiguing it is to travel on a motor cycle. Next time I will plan shorter days which I think will be more enjoyable. I still don't know how J.P. does it.
Total trip was 3370 miles in eight days on 114.242 gallons of gas for an average fuel consumption of 29.5 miles per gallon a
