Hi boys and girls! I am not sure what the issue has been but I have been unable to get this board to work for me for the past 3 or 4 months. The main page would come up, but no matter what link I clicked on I would get a 503 error. It has only started working for me just recently. Judging by all the new threads, it would appear this has not been an issue for others.
Any how, I just got back yesterday from my ride to see the eclipse. Sorry if others were interested in joining, but, as I said, I could not get the Valk web site to work so I did not know how to contact anyone.
My significant other and I had a fabulous 12 day ride, which covered 3555 miles. Amazingly, in 12 days we did not get wet, and in 3555 miles we did not get one flat tire (bike or trailer). Sorry to hear Ron keeps getting screwed. I do believe 3555 miles in a single trip is a personal record for me.
Our route took us from Mesa to Farmington; Farmington to Carbondale, CO; Carbondale to Laramie; Laramie to Hot Springs, S.D. We spent a couple of days in Hot Springs riding the Black Hills, visiting friends from Sturgis and Rapid City, seeing the Crazy Horse memorial and Mt. Rushmore.
While riding around the area we did the Needles Hwy, Iron Mtn Road and Custer State Park. While in the State Park a herd of bison decided to migrate across the road. It took us close to an hour to get through the herd. One bison decided to take exception to the trailer and started to head butt the rear of it. It got interesting to say the least....
Sunday, the 20th, was sort of a down day. We did laundry and then walked over to a site where they found 61 fossilized mammoth skeletons.
On the 21st we rode bright and early down to Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, Agate NE, to view the eclipse. Nebraska really knows how to throw a party. They had 5 or 6 parking areas set up with shuttle service to the visitor center. They took pity on me and let me park in the lot right next to the center. They provided free eclipse viewing glasses to anyone who needed them. They had food and drink vendors and plenty of potties at the visitor center as well. We got there about 5 hours before the show but people had lined up to get in at 5 AM, when the gates opened. I am guessing there were a couple thousand of our closest strangers attending the eclipse party. We chose this spot based on the weather forecast. The forecast was iffy regarding clouds, but, when I got up at 1 AM to look at the satellite data, there was not a cloud within several hundred miles.
After the eclipse was over, we rode up to Sundance, WY to spend the night and then visited Devils Tower first thing in the morning.
Afterwards we rode over to the Little Big Horn Memorial and saw the national cemetery, the indian memorial and the crosses depicting where Custer and his officers were found.
We spent the night in Red Lodge, Mt, and the next morning ran the Beartooth Hwy down to Cody and Lander, Wy.
From Lander, Wy, we headed down to Moab, UT, but first we stopped in Dinosaur, CO, to see the fossils at Dinosaur National Monument
Of course we stopped at Arches National Park and spent several hours seeing the sites.
After visiting Arches, we rode on down to spend the night in Chinle. We had planned on seeing Canyon de Chelly but the Navajo Nation was holding a big shindig in Chinle and they were shutting down the only road out of town at 9 AM for a parade. I guess the parade was a big deal because hundreds of people camped out over night along side the parade route. We made sure we got out just after sun up.
Again, absolutely no issues during the entire trip. My wife took hundreds of photos while sitting on the back of the bike. I am putting a digital album together but it will take a while to sort through that many photos. I will post a link when finished.
