vacation 09 and those are the memories that make me a wealthy soul.

I have been home just over a week, memories of this trip still fresh in my mind. The day after I got home I took the VTX to the shop to be serviced, picked up my mutt "Abby" I was happy to see her again, she is a heathen, but she's my heathen.

My mind drifts back to the great roads we rode, the sights we saw,,,but most of all to the people we met and new Friends we made, The rancher in Worden Montana, Marco's who we met in Wichita, and Kelsey and Tammy and the rest of the Missouri gang. I want to stay in touch with , and hope to see all of them again. Perhaps next year we can ride the back roads of Illinois with Marco's, and maybe a trip to the Ozarks will give me a chance to swing through Stockton and see my new friends there.

But for now, there is still a lot of riding to do this year,

vacation 09,day 12 heading home

Not much to say about today,,We take the parkways to Lexington where we pick up route 68, this is a road I know well,,,route 68 to Maysville, cross the river into Ohio,,,pick up route 41 in Aberdeen, Go north through West Union and on to Peebles,,route 32 east to 23 north and we are home,,,,,I am tired, a bit sore ,,Happy to be home

vacation 09 day 12 Blue sky's

Up at 5:30, shower and get ready to go. The storms have passed, the sky is clear. We are quiet and try not to wake our host. A short note thanking them for their hospitality , and we slip out the back door. Roll the bikes out of the garage, and we start out the drive, I look back at the house and am sorry we did not get to say our goodbyes. But we have alot of ground to make up, we lost half a day due to weather and today we need to make up for that. 12 mile's or so down the road we stop at Hannah's general store/gas station/restaurant/video rental and hardware store,,,located next to the car wash/Laundromat...you gotta love these kind of places. We top off our tanks, and have breakfast before leaving. With the road closed we follow a detour, oh man what a ride,,switchbacks, ,,it was great. I see a turtle on the road, then another and another...hmm,,maybe I should slow down a little.

We work our way through the Mark Twain national forest, A nice ride. Just outside of Cape Girardeau we take a short break, and top off the tanks again. We cross into Ky. Oh closer to home,, we are tired ,,but push on to Paduchah Ky. There we stop for the night, go out for pizza,,and I get us lost going back to the hotel,,,Damn,,Sorry Steve,,,I am sooo tired.

Tomorrow we will be home, the plan was to tour the back roads of western Kentucky,,,but no,,we talk it over and decide to ride hard for home tomorrow.

vacation 09 day 11 Tornado warnings!!!

We wake early and start getting ready for the day's ride. A quick look at the weather channel tells me we may get wet. Oh well, not the first time. Time to load up and go, We take route 54 east out of town. 30 miles down the road we stop for a quick breakfast,not a good one,,but a quick one. The ride east out of Kansas was uneventful (boring). We stay on route 54 into Missouri, we pass through Nevada and into El Dorado springs Mo. There we stop at the El Dorado cafe. After lunch we see dark clouds rolling in, time to put on the rain gear. A stop to top off the tanks We pick up route 32 and head out. 32 is a nice two lane road, near Stockton we pull over to take a picture. A little red car stops and out jumps a young girl, I assume checking to see if we are broke down. I pull off my helmet to say hello, and let her know we are ok. She ask me if I know about the storm heading our way, I tell her we expect some rain. She looks at me,,"not just rain, there are some severe storms and tornado warnings out for this area" oops!!! No, we did not know it was that bad. She tells me we can follow her to her place and wait out the storm, thank God for the kindness of strangers. Once there, she opens the garage door and waves us in, turns on a local radio station and we listen to the reports. "My names Kelsey , you guys want a beer?" Hi Kelsey, I am Tom and this is Steve, yes a beer sounds good,,thanks. Steve and I set and listen to the weather report while our new Friend heads to the house to grab a few beers. This does not sound good, Tornado warnings, severe storms, damaging winds and hail. Heading right for us, not good.

Over a couple of beers we talk with our new Friend, she is quite a young lady. 22 years old,confident and sure of herself. She works at a local restaurant and wants to go back to school. She owns an old chevy truck, just restored,,a 72 or 73 model,I don't remember for certain. She tells us she lost her Father a year ago, you can see the pain in her eyes,, and my heart goes out to her. A little time later her mother Tammy gets there, followed by friends and family. When it becomes obvious the storms are not going to pass we ask where the nearest hotel is, Kelsey points to the ground and says "right here, it's the cheapest too." then turned and walked to the house. We turn to her mother,"Tammy, we dont want to put you out" Nonsense, its no bother,,you cant ride in this weather ,,and your Kelsey's friends. Then we had a cookout, hamburger, brats, hot dogs, one of the best meals of the trip. As much as I like riding, it was great to spend an evening off the bike and not in a hotel.

I cannot say enough nice things about Tammy, Kelsey, and everyone else that was there that evening. They took in two road weary riders, gave us food and shelter,,and made us feel welcome and treated us like family. I will stay in touch with them, and hope to see them again

vacation 09 day 10 Get the heck out of Dodge

Cheyenne Wells CO.

We wake early, load up and head east on route 40, 18 miles later we cross the state line into Kansas. We roll through the town of Sharon springs, where we pick up route 27 south to Syracuse. The temps are in the low 40s this morning. In Syracuse we stop at K cs diner for a bite to eat. I stop at the library to go online, pay a few bills and check my email. It was a good way to kill some time while the temperature warms up into the 50s. Back on the road we take route 400 east, a two lane that goes through several small towns. We pass through Ingalls, and the huge stockyard there. What a smell. Riding along a Truck pulls up behind, I can see he is in a hurry. Route 400 has passing lanes every so often, we come to one and pull into the right lane. I slow down to about 60 mph and let the trucker by, he notices the gesture and gives us a short toot toot of his air horn and a big friendly wave as he passes. Another 10 miles or so and another truck pulls behind us, but there is no passing lane this time, we move to the right side of the lane to give him room to pass. He chooses a poor time to pass, oncoming traffic has him pulling back into our lane WAY TO SOON!!! I know I cannot get on the brakes because of the cars behind Steve might not be paying attention (don't want to get him run over) but this truck is coming over fast. Thank goodness for wide shoulders, I swerve right and am now running 70 mph down the shoulder of the road"what an idiot"

A short time later we come into Dodge city, we are making good time and decide to stop at The Boot hill museum, It was a good decision. The museum sits on part of the original Boot Hill cemetery. They have recreated Front street, and have characters in period accurate costumes. We stroll into The Longbranch Saloon for a Sarsaparilla and watch the dancing girl perform. We even have a run in with a few desperado's on our way out. Where is Wyatt Earp when you need him? A stop to top off the tanks and its time to,,, Get the heck out of Dodge..

2 1/2 hours later we arrive in Wichita Ks. Get a room and shut down for the evening. Here we meet a fellow named Marco's, A great guy. He and his wife and their two dogs are moving from Tuscon to Rockford Illinois. We hang out and drink a few beers with him. He is a teacher and rides a harley. We talk about getting together next summer and riding the back roads of Illinois.

vacation 09 day 9- Rain and dust storms

Grand Lake Co.

9 am, I hear Steve yell "Hey man, time to get up,,check out is in an hour." I am not ready for this, I need more sleep. Grab a shower, load the bike and we head out. We take route 34 to route 40 . Riding along on 40 I see white stuff falling,,,snow!! you gotta be kidding me. In Empire we pick up I 70 East. We are going to take I 70 to Limon Co. where we will pick up route 40 towards Kansas. In Denver the sky turns dark and the rain pours. We pick our way through Denver traffic at 70 mph, east of Denver we are in front of the storm and making good time. A short stop for fuel in Byers and we are back underway. We pass through Limon without stopping for fuel,,big mistake. We roll through a couple of small towns without finding an open station. Reaching the town of Cheyenne Wells on fumes we locate an open gas station. Taking a break we chat with the owners and have a diet soda. When we walk out to leave the wind is blowing so hard you can barely stay upright. Tumbleweeds are blowing past us and there is a huge brown cloud of dust enveloping the town. Walking back inside they just say "dust storm" we find a hotel, the owners take us in and make room for our bikes in the carport to protect them. A quick burger for dinner, and its time for bed.

vacation 09 day8,up with the sun, gone with the wind

Casper Wyoming.

We are up early, it's 46 degrees and dry, hot dog!!!no rain. We plan our route, 220 to 487 to 287, two lane all the way to Colorado. It is a great morning, route 220 follows the North Platte river for miles. We turn south on 487 "The sand massacre trail" The scenery is incredible , we see antelope and rock cliffs and tall bluffs, its an amazing site. We come to route 77, that was not part of the plan, but the road looks to good to pass up. A Two lane that winds it's way upward,,oh yeah,,that looks like a great road , we make the right turn and up we go. Route 77 runs through open range country (translation,,livestock crossing the road, oh yeah,,cattle)

Back on 487 we come to the town of Medicine bow Wy. population 267 . We stop for a coffee break and a visit to the Medicine Bow Museum. The ride today is great, we roll through Rock river and on to Bosler. Bosler Wy looks like a ghost town, we stop for a picture at a long closed store front and are on our way. We arrive in Laramie low on fuel, and hungry. A short stop for lunch and fuel and we are on our way to Colorado. The ride from Laramie to the state line is awful, the highest winds we have encountered yet.

Crossing into Colorado we have our eyes set on The Rocky mountain national park. My goal, to ride the Rockies and take a picture on the Continental divide. We arrive at the park late in the day, around 4pm. The smart thing to do would be get a room and ride tomorrow, not us, that would be too easy. The Rockies are beautiful, but snow capped and cold at the top. A two lane with no guardrail make the ascent a bit scary. We stop several times for pictures. I saw a sign saying we were 2 miles above sea level. The wind was making it hard to ride in a straight line, and did I mention it was cold,,thought so. We make it to the Alpine visitor station and chat with a few locals, they inform us of how little daylight we have left and we should keep moving or we would be on the mountain after dark. (that would be bad,,real bad) We continue on, about 5 miles down the road we find the Continental divide, stop for a picture and head down the mountain.

We come to the town of Grand Lake, its getting dark so we get a room for the night. It has been a great day and I am in the mood to celebrate. We strike off on foot to a nearby bar for a cold one. While there we chat with the locals and enjoy the evening, I ended up going dancing with the barmaid, A cute 28 year old named Tara. We danced the night away, back at the hotel around 4:30 am. I know I am going to pay for the late evening.

vacation09 day 7 Pompeys pillar

Ballentine Montana

We wake to a steady rain and 40 some degree weather, grab the rain gear, suit up and away we go. Our first stop, Pompeys pillar national monument. We ride the 8 mile there, take a picture and head towards Billings. Our plan is to ride I 94 to Billings, where we will pick up I 90 south into Wyoming. On I 94 the rain starts coming down hard and the traffic is heavy and running along at about 75 to 80 mph. I look in the mirror, Steve is there, a few miles down the road I check my mirror,,,no Steve. I ride into Billings, call and leave a message on his voicemail. " Steve, I lost site of you in that mess, if you get this call and let me know where you are and we will hook up on down the road,,,remember I 90 south. I will stop and check my messages once an hour until we hook up. I top off before getting underway. About 60 miles later I stop at the Crow Indian reservation, check my voicemail,,"hey Tom, I lost site of you in that mess too,, I am at Hardin, stop if you get this." I check the time, he called about a half hour ago and is behind me. I start to call him back when I hear his bike going down the highway. I grab my helmet, fire up the VTX , and I am in hot pursuit . I get the bike up to 80 mph when I come into construction, one lane for 18 miles or so,,and I am behind a guy who is driving 35 in a 50 mph zone. I come out of the construction and it's back up to speed. I ride about 10 miles when I see a bike alongside the road at an exit. I slow down, yup,,it's Steve. I pull in behind him, we laugh about the incident and make plans to get on some back roads for awhile.

In Wyoming we are riding along route 16 when we see Big Horn Mountain. Its beautiful, snow capped, and we are going to ride up it. We ride into buffalo WY. ,,get directions and head for Big Horn. It is a nice diversion after the morning we had. After Big Horn, we ride route 196 to Kaycee Wy. The town is undergoing major road construction, that's an understatement,,the road has been stripped down to dirt and gravel. We top off again and head out on an old two lane that turns into gravel then into a dirt road. Hmm, It lead us to the triple T ranch and now we are surrounded by sheep. Ok, now what. We decide to take interstate 25 down to Casper where we will call it a day.

vacation09 day 6 back on the road

Rapid city S.D.

Up and out of the hotel at 7:45, a quick stop to top off the tank and we head south to ride the Black hills area. We take route 16 to route 79 and pick up Route 36 west to Custer state park, there we turn onto Iron mountain road. In all of my travels, of all the roads I have ridden this is my favorite.Beginning in Custer State Park, the Iron Mountain Road is most popular for its series of pigtail bridges which bear a corkscrew shape, and its three single-lane granite tunnels that perfectly frame the faces of Mount Rushmore in the distance. The pigtail bridges enabled road engineers to reduce elevation without needing to build a switchback. The road comes off the bridge, makes a circular turn, and continues below the bridge. Definitely an experience, even for well-seasoned travelers Next we pick up Needles highway,with a short stop at Sylvan lake state park. The Needles Highway curves and winds through 14 miles of magnificent rock formations called 'needles.' One of the most prominent rock formations on the Highway is the Needles Eye, reaching 30 to 40 feet in the air with a 3 foot wide slit.

As we exit the park it is nearing lunch time and we are hungry. We pull into a picnic area at Stockade lake, make some sandwiches, grab the chips..time to eat. We are about ready to leave when a deer wonders up to the picnic are. She did not seem to care that we were there, was able to get some nice pictures of her.

Time to leave, Steve wants to go to Montana, lets roll...We head north with a fuel stop in Deadwood. Steve says we should be at Pompeys Pillar in Montana in 2 1/2 to 3 hours. ...8 hours later we arrive,, Its getting dark, we are tired and hungry and in the middle of nowhere. We pull into the Town of Ballentine ,population,,336. The only hotel in the area is a trailer that has 4 units, well we don't have a choice. We ask where we could find a hot meal,,"let me make a call" says the clerk. We here her say " I got a couple of hungry bikers here, you open?" once off the phone she tells us the fella on the other side of the highway has a small bar and owns a George Foreman grill,,he'll fix you a burger. OR you can ride over to Worden, next town over,,they have a couple of places, The Dark Horse Saloon and Eatery is a fine place. We choose the Dark Horse,,great decision.

At the Dark Horse we have the best meal of the trip, The people are friendly the food is great and the beer is cold,,perfect!!! An older couple at the next table , a rancher and his wife tell us they have two daughters, both work at the pentagon. One is an Officer in the Air force. We chat with them, and they offer us a place to stay for the night, Steve thanks them for the offer, but tells them we already have a room. We take a ride through the town of Worden before calling it a night. It has been a long day. Just as we settle in for the night we hear,,,WOO,,WOO,,a train whistle,,CLOSE!!!! great,,but I am so tired I have no trouble falling asleep.

vacation 09 day 5 rain rain and more rain

Today we wake to pouring rain and cold temps, we decide we do not want to ride in this. I decide to take advantage of the day off and do laundry. I gather up my clothes and head to the Laundromat. I get there, take off my rain gear and pull my laundry out of the plastic bags I use to keep them dry. While I am waiting on the washing machine the lady who works there strikes up a conversation with me. She had an interesting story, she was moving from Kansas to Washington when she stopped at this laundromat to do laundry and the owner offered her a job. That was 15 years ago, she likes the area so well she just stayed.

Well my laundry is done and I am bored to tears at the hotel, I go to the lobby to see what I can do in Rapid city. I ask the lady in the lobby what there is to see close to the hotel? "well,,A and A salvage has a museum, you might want to go there" A salvage yard, hmm,,I have my doubts but get directions anyway. Talk about a jewel of a find...I pull in and it is a salvage "junk" yard. ok,,lets check it out. I was amazed, if in Rapid city South Dakota,,,Go see this museum. You will see everything from old motorcycles, cars, a WWII half track,,even an old biplane.

vacation09 day 4 a busy day

Winner South Dakota

We are up and out early today, west on 44 we head for the Badlands. As the temperature seems to drop, we pull over to get some winter gear on. While at this stop we meet a couple on a Goldwing trike pulling a pop up camper, complete with an electric heater in the camper. They are from Maggie Valley N.C. where they have an rv park. We tell them we will be through there in September when we ride the Blue ridge parkway,,they invite us to stop and see them,,I hope we have time to drop in and say hello.

Back on the road we follow them towards the Badlands, when one of the strangest things I have ever seen happened. We have all seen birds fly close and thought we would hit them,,but they always soar away. I watch this bird fly low and turn upwards, but not fast enough. I am watching him get closer and closer,,then THUMP!!! he hits my windshield, I duck my head to the left and see his body fly over my right shoulder, a quick look in the mirror and I see him hit the ground. Steve pulls alongside me and yells,,bird killer!!! We had to laugh, that was was of the strangest things to see.

We top a hill and the Badlands comes into view, incredible,,the scenery is beautiful,,I have never seen anything like it. We ride into the park and stop often for pictures. We even hiked on Saddle pass trail. At Burns basin overlook the VTX hits the 10,000 mile mark, that many miles in just 1 year,,,that's a lot of riding.

Next stop, Wall drug in Wall South Dakota. We make the ride to Wall where we have Buffalo burgers for lunch. From there we decide to head to Rapid city , get a room and then ride south to Mount Rushmore and Crazy horse.

Once in Rapid city I go to a bike shop to buy a new helmet. I needed to replace mine before the trip but put it off. Now the face shield will not stay in the down position so I have no choice. From there we get a room and head south to Rushmore. Mount Rushmore is quite a site, we enjoy our visit and take plenty of pictures. From there we go to the Crazy horse memorial, stay longer than we should. As we leave it is getting dark and cold. Oh well it is only a 40 mile ride back to the hotel,,how bad can it be?? Well when it began raining we found out.

It has been a long and busy day, we hit the hotel tired and irritable , sleep comes quickly tonight.