This is a bit of a strange situation: I’m writing about a motorcycle road trip eight years after it happened when normally I assemble such a post within a few weeks of getting home. I don’t recall why I never documented the trip at the time and can only say I regret not writing this sooner.
I am left with snippets of recollection along with some hotel bills, a bunch of photos with messed up dates and zero context, and a handful of emails exchanged with my brother when planning the trip. This means there will be gaps, errors, false recollections, and outright confusion. Strap in, folks: this will be a bumpy ride.
Planning: “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.”
My brother Colin and I started planning in November of 2015 for a motorcycle road trip in August of the following year. Such advance planning is not an indication of any great strategy: rather it is likely primarily a result of the cold winter months leading to fond thoughts of summer escapes.
The initial email discussion went something like this:
Me: I think when we were visiting that we talked about possibly going on an a motorcycle road trip next year (2016). I vaguely recall that we didn’t settle on a specific destination- do you remember the date?
Colin: We were both “testing” different scotches so my memory is a bit foggy however we talked about end of August. We did talk about the duration about of up to two weeks. Maybe a trip to the Blue Mountains (Tennessee / North Carolina)? Or down the west coast to the Baja Peninsula? We were vague in our discussions however my feeling was to go south and east as we have never been past Yellowstone,
Me (a couple of days later): Following up on our phone conversation last night: The 2016 Sturgis Rally is August 8 – 14… So that means we probably don’t want to be in that area until after the 15th.
Somehow our trip to the Blue Mountains morphed into a ride to the Black Hills where the town of Sturgis can be found. Not to attend the famous motorcycle rally (which is far too crowded to interest me) but rather to see some of the sights available in that region like Mount Rushmore and the Devil’s Tower. This would be my second road trip that included the Black Hills area, and I had enjoyed riding around the area previously.
Of course our trip wouldn’t end in the Black Hills: our route ultimately included Washington, Idaho, Montana, the Dakotas, Utah, Nevada, California, and Oregon. I don’t have an accurate recollection of the exact route we followed but something like the map below, that I created using our hotel reservations and GPS info from the few photos that had such data, is probably in the right ballpark.
I had to do some trickery with Google Maps to get the necessary number of waypoints: here’s the tricksy URL that should generate the map for anyone interested.
The trip there
Pre-departure (August 10-11)
Colin had arrived in the Lower Mainland a day or two before our departure, and so I have a few pictures dated from the August 10th of Colin visiting with my Mom with our sister Connie.
I recall asking my lovely wife, Irene, if she could park her car out on the road for the night so that Colin and I could get our bikes ready in the garage. I went through my usual unpacking and repacking of my ‘Oh Shit!’ saddlebag: the one where I keep all the stuff for unexpected events on the road, most of which never gets used.
Day 1 (Friday, August 12)
This was Colin and my first day on the road. We started from my house, and met up there on the 11th so we could get ready to go first thing on Friday.
We left fairly early on Friday and crossed the board to the U.S.. I think we crossed at the Pacific Highway crossing, but we might have crossed at Sumas to avoid the line ups.
Our destination for the day was Clarkston, Washington, a distance of about 700 km: I’ve looked at the pictures we took that day, and the GPS information they contain indicates we took Washington Highway 2 through places like Snohomish and Leavenworth. We generally avoid major highways and interstates and stick to scenic routes during our motorcycle rides, so most of our daily routes are ‘inefficient’ by intent.
Day 2 (Saturday, August 13)
On Saturday we made our way out of Washington and into Idaho. Our route included the ‘Valley of the Snake’, and I believe followed Highway 95. Our destination for the day was Boise, Idaho: a distance of about 450 km and five hours of travel time.
Day 3 (Sunday, August 14)
On our third day we set out from Boise destined for Livingston, Montana. I believe our route primarily followed Highway 20 in Idaho, but I’m not sure about our path in Montana. I think we stuck to Interstates 15 and 90, but I could be wrong. Our total distance travelled for the day was 826.5 km: I can be this accurate because I took a photo of my trip odometer for some reason.
Riding over 500 km in a day starts to put a strain on older guys like my brother Colin and I even with frequent stops to stretch. The farthest I’ve ridden in a single day was about 1,200 km, and I really regretted it. Riding a motorcycle has some physicality to it, certainly much more than driving a car. It also requires a degree of attention that lead me to recommend aiming for limiting daily distances as much as practical.
This stretch of our ride was also challenging for another reason: forest fires in the Sawtooth mountains in Idaho. One of Colin’s emails reminded me of this: I have recollections of the heavy, blinding smoke, but even more clearly the small ‘hotspots’ with flames right at the side of the road. The firefighters were working on it as we rode through: it was the closest I have ever ridden my motorcycle to an active forest fire.
Day 4 (Monday, August 15)
Monday’s destination was Red Lodge, Montana via Highway 212 aka ‘Beartooth Highway‘. This crosses over Beartooth Pass with an altitude of 3,300 metres (over 10,000 feet) and, if my mapping is right, was the shortest ‘leg’ of our outbound trip at under 200 km. Based on the photo timestamps it looks like we reached our destination by around 1:00 PM: a nice relaxed ride after the previous day.
Beartooth Highway is described as ‘the most beautiful drive in America’. I don’t know if I agree with that, but it definitely is lovely and worth the extra time it might add to your trip.
Day 5 (Tuesday, August 16)
The final day of our main ‘outbound’ journey took us to our lodgings at High Country Guest Ranch near Hill City, South Dakota. I had selected this particular accommodation with the intent of it being our ‘base of operations’ for several days. Colin and I splurged on a full-sized cabin with room for much bigger groups than just two grumpy old riders. But the extra space was nice as were the full kitchen and BBQ facilities.
The Black Hills / Sturgis area
Day 6 (Wednesday, August 17)
Colin and I visited Mount Rushmore on our first full day in the Black Hills area. From the photographic record it appears that we spent a few hours at the monument then spent the afternoon enjoying the view from the deck of our cabin.
I suspect we road some of local motorcycle-friendly roads on this day as well, but I have no proof of such activity. I touched on a couple of these routes in my 2013 road trip journal here: Iron Mountain Road and the Needles Highway are tremendous sight seeing roads worthy of a multi-day trip by themselves, both easily completable in a single day. All I can say is that I hope Colin and I rode these together on one of the two days we were in the area.
Day 7 (Thursday, August 18)
Our second day in the Black Hills area started great, but based on memory alone did not end well. The plan as I recall was to see the town of Custer, ride through some more of the local scenery, and make our way to the Devils Tower. Unfortunately for our plans and nearly for us, the weather turned foul.
As I recall it, dark clouds started rolling in by around noon. We recognized the signs of a possible thunder storm, but decided to take our chances and start on the ride towards the Tower. The Devil’s Tower is about a two hour ride from Hill City, and I think we only made it about half way before the temperatures dropped from the high 30s celsius to single digits. Heavy rain turned to sleet and hail, and visibility dropped to near zero as a result of fog. We experienced a white-knuckle ride back to our cabin where we spent the later afternoon and evening calming our nerves.
The trip home
Our journey home was far from a straight-line return trip. In fact, we went about as far out of our way as practical while still heading roughly in the right direction, travelling through big swaths of Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, California, and Oregon.
I had requested that we make sure to include Highway 1 in California so I could get a better look at parts of the California coast that I had missed on previous trips. Beyond that there are whole sections of this return trip that are missing from the photographic record I have available. My notes will be short as I don’t have much to go on.
Day 8 (Friday, August 19)
I have no pictures from this day. We apparently stayed at a Rodeway Inn this night, but all I have to go on is a ‘were you satisfied with your stay’ survey email with no actual indication of where the inn was located. All I can do is speculate that we stopped somewhere in Wyoming on Friday night.
Day 9 (Saturday, August 20)
On August 20th we made it into Utah, with Wendover being our destination for the day. The ride included travelling through or near Salt Lake city, and we spent a good portion of the ride travelling near the Great Salt Lake.
Day 10 (Sunday, August 21)
On Sunday we travelled from Utah through Nevada to Truckee in Eastern California. I only have a few pictures to work with from the 21st, most of them being badly over-exposed: I think Colin’s camera was experiencing some problems by this point in our trip. From what I can tell we mostly followed Interstate 80, passing through Reno before arriving in California, about 700 km in total.
Day 11 (Monday, August 22)
On day 11 our objective was Fort Bragg, California: about 410 kilometres. I’m pretty sure we stuck to interstate 80 for this, passing through Sacramento followed by Vallejo before heading north on the 101. We then likely would have cut over on the 20 near Willits to get to Highway 1 and Fort Bragg.
We could have alternately crossed over to Highway 1 earlier, for example near Bodega Bay. But I don’t have evidence for that from the photos, so I’m guessing here.
Day 12 (Tuesday, August 23)
On Tuesday we travelled from Fort Bragg, California to Coos Bay, Oregon. That’s a distance of about 560 km and well over 7 hours of riding. We passed through Leggett with a stop to see the Chandelier drive through tree before re-joining Highway 101. The 101 is very high on my list of scenic drives, granting scenic Pacific Ocean views for hundreds of kilometres.
Day 13 (Wednesday, August 24)
Our journey on Wednesday was from Coos Bay to Seaside, Oregon. This is another lovely coastal ride following Highway 101 covering about 400 km. It was a short enough trip that we had plenty of time in the afternoon to wander around Seaside before the sun set.
Day 14 (Thursday, August 25)
Colin and I went our separate ways on Thursday, August 25th. The photos I have from that day are all from Colin and appear to show him in Winthrop.
Conclusion
Colin and I enjoyed a fantastic ride in 2016 across eight U.S. states, seeing some absolutely gorgeous scenery. I treasure the experience, but sadly a lot of the memories have been essentially lost to the mists of time. I’ve attempted to reconstruct as much as I can with what I had available, but I know I missed a lot.
I have learned a few things from the experience of trying to journal a trip from eight years in the past:
- Never wait too long to blog about something: Eight years is too long for me to recall details. For example, I had clear mental images of riding through the forest fire, but I wouldn’t have linked those memories to this trip or a particular area without a random sentence in an email. The memories are precious and easily lost.
- Record / journal the trip daily: I could have recovered a lot of memories if I had just written a paragraph a day in even a paper journal.
- Use cameras with accurate timestamps and GPS: Every photo I had that included accurate GPS and time information was precious when re-constructing the road trip. My iPhone photos provided most of this data, but only accounted for about 10% of the pictures.
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