Four Borders Ride

Misfit

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Posts: 2143

Colorado Springs Colorado

Four Borders Ride

« on: October 03, 2016, 09:15:50 PM »

Took a ride with Deadpan Dick the other day. I guess that you could call it the last leg of the four borders ride. It all started at the end of last March when we rode south to the Gulf of Mexico while attending the GOTF in Pearland TX. Later on in June we rode east to WV to another gathering called InZane. After Inzane we decided to ride to the east coast since we were so close. After we were headed back from there and riding across NJ I called Dick who was a couple of bikes ahead of me leading our little group and said, yo Dick we just hit the second border of the US together this season. I think we should try and catch the other two before the summer is over and we will have ridden to all four borders together in the same season. I hadn't even finished my thought and Deadpan said I'm in. We decided to make the trek just after the Darby Hager The Horrible Memorial Ride on Labor Day weekend.
Day one. We left my place at 7:00 am Sept 16th. We rode to Great Falls MT by the end of the day. It was 35 degrees when we left and we clicked off 900 miles by days end. We may have pulled off the perfect stop on this leg. We rolled into a gas station in WY and filled or tanks. Pulled up to the store and as we walked in we each grabbed a hot dog off of their gourmet dog roller. Dick headed to the head and ate his lunch while he peed. I ate mine while waiting in line. It took us just under 10 minutes fill our tanks, fill our bellies, and empty our bladders. Back on the road and running 85 heading north. That day was spent pushing across CO, Wy, and a good ways through MT.
Day two was a more relaxed pace. We ran through Glacier NP.

Awesome place. Pictures just don't do justice. After the park we stopped in White Fish MT for lunch. Just as we sat down in the cafe the rain began. Bummer. We rode in the rain for the rest of the day. On into Alberta Canada. We headed for Banff NP and toured it for the rest of the day.

We had planned to stay in Banff for the night. Neither one of us did our homework on this place. Way to Rich for us. Leaf lookers everywhere and hotel prices through the roof. Headed east from there to Canmore in search of an affordable room. Stopped in at a Quality Inn down the road a ways and they wanted $350.00 for a single room. Not for us. Continued east into Calgary and found a crappy room in the red light district for $80.00. A bargain it seemed. Earlier in the day Dick lost his headlight. What was weird was that I lost my high beam at the same time. We had to ride through the rain in the dark all the way to Calgary with one low bean and our Moto lights. I'm not sure what they use on the roads up there but it sure leaves a nasty mess on a motorcycle. Ended up with 700 miles for the day. Had a late supper at some funky place.
Day three we found a car wash and did our best to de scum our bikes.

We then looked for a place to buy a couple of headlight bulbs. No luck. It was Sunday and everywhere we went was closed or opened late. Decided to roll on. We rode back towards Banff and the gas there was $6.00 a gallon and there was a waiting line to get to it. We were getting hungry since we skipped breakfast. There was only one choice for food and gas in Jasper, we had to have it so we bit the bullet and took on fuel. Headed inside to get some lunch and a hamburger cost $17:00, hot dogs were $8.00. Needles to say we skipped lunch also. We then took a tour through Jasper NP.

I think I liked it better than Banff, but both were worth the price of admission. It snowed on us for part of this day. Rode out of the park, into BC, and on to Blue River. Not sure but may have only made around 400 miles that day. Still no place open to buy a simple H4 bulb. We got a room and finally something to eat. It rained off and on all day but the skies were clearing as the sun set.
Day four we woke up to rain, and ate breakfast at the hotel. There was an older local in the restaurant and I asked him when he thought that it might stop raining thinking that he might have some insight. His answer was, "when it gets cold enough to turn to snow." We were thinking that it was cold enough already since it was in the low 40's. Rolled West in the rain still in search of a bulb or two. I can't remember the name of the town that we finally found one but it was between 6 and 8 hundred miles since we started our search. Things are a long ways apart in Canada. Rode through Kamloops and on to the US border.

Rain continued. Crossed into Washington at what might be the loneliest border crossing there is. It was kind of weird. Anyway we were back on US soil and headed to Winthrop WA. Stopped at the first place we came to for a room. Nice place and the proprietor offered us a hose and some towels to wash our bikes. Went into town for supper and ate at the oldest saloon in the state of Washington. Cool place called Three Fingered Jacks.

Best fish and chips I have had to date. They were out of pie though so we walked across the street to the Winthrop Emporium and had an ice cream cone.

Nice folks in this town.
Day five we rode highway 20 out of Winthrop. What a great road. Our friend Clint Peters stayed at my house the weekend before we left and showed us that route. A very scenic 130 miles or so. Rode through more glaciers and the water in that area was an emerald green color that was hard to take your eyes off of.

Very cool ride. Thanks Clint. After that road we needed to make some time so we jumped on I5 and headed south through Seattle and on through Portland. Continued south to Grants Pass OR. Made about 600 miles that day.
Day six. We were headed out of Grants Pass early and came across a corpse in the middle of the road under a white sheet. That evening Dick looked up the news and we found out that it was an 83 year old dude that was out walking that morning before the sun came up wearing dark clothing in the merging lane. We continued south and west to reach the coast near Crescent City CA.

Here I stuck my boot in the Pacific Ocean completing the four borders.

It was cool to do it with such a great traveling partner and good friend. I am very thankful that Deadpan showed up for one of our local rides a few years ago. Since then I think Dick and I have ridden between 15 and 20 thousand miles together. There is no better cross country riding partner for me. We have the same riding style and pace. It just works. On top of that Dick is a lot of fun to hang around and easy to room with. I'm never bored riding with Deadpan Dick. From there we headed for some big trees. I have always wanted to see the great Redwoods. We spent the rest of the day riding around the massive trees. What a cool experience.

The most amazing one we found to me was called Chimney tree. It's not at all a huge tree but good size never the less. The odd thing about this tree was that the entire center of the tree was burned out in 1914. The tree is 80'-90' feet tall. The circumference is 50'. The diameter of the room inside of the tree is 12'6".

You can walk around inside of this tree and if you look up through the center of the trunk there is a 3-4 foot hole out the top of the tree. The entire tree is hollow.

The tree is still alive! From the outside it looks like a normal tree with leaves and branches but the whole tree has been hollow for over 100 years.

Amazing. If you are ever out that way you should ride the Avenue of the Giants. You will not be disappointed. We ended the day in Willow Creek CA.
Day seven. Our original plan was to head east from CA across the NV dessert and back home to end the trip. We had scheduled ten days to ride. We had covered a lot of ground up to this point and decided that if we were to just head home we would be home early and be back to work. This thought did not sit well with my navigator. Dick pulled out his tattered atlas and decided that if we didn't lolly gag that we could see some more cool stuff. Hum. Ride across a dessert and go back to work, or follow Dick through some more mountains. It didn't take long to make up my mind. With that we took off to the north and east back through OR. Instead of the NV dessert we found the OR dessert. We had been through some beautiful parts of the country with more stuff to look at than imaginable. Now we were blasting across miles and miles of nothing but scrub brush. We did see what we believe to be the worlds largest mud hole out there.

Other than that nothing over three feet high for probably 150 miles. You gotta take the good with the bad. Deadpan had a plan and we were rolling towards better roads. We ended up in Ontario OR for the night. I have lost track of daily mileage totals but if you like to ride Dick is the dude to ride with. We averaged 10 hours a day over the 10 day period of moving time according to my gps. That is not what most would consider a vacation but we were having the time of our lives. It rained on us eight of the ten days that we were out. Other than the last day the temps ranged from 33 degrees to 54 degrees.
Day eight. Dick was on a mission. We were talking about riding 12 through ID on our way out to the west coast but we stayed north across Canada instead. So today we were making tracks to highway twelve to ride Lolo Pass. I read someone's post referring to Lolo as 99 miles of Deals Gap. This appealed to both Dick and I.

I was not in the least disappointed with this road but whoever referred to it as Deals Gap has obviously not ridden the Dragon. Deals Gap is a much more technical road than Lolo Pass. However the scenery along Deals Gap does not hold a candle to Lolo. Lolo is a beautiful ride along the river with easy sweepers coming one after the other. The sign say winding road next 99 miles but I believe that might just be to the state line. They continue on into MT and may total closer to 125 miles. Next stop Missoula MT. Here we had possibly the best piece of pie of the trip at Ruby's Dinner.

Well worth the trip. After a late lunch and a slice of pie we rolled towards Butte MT. While eating our lunch we decided it would be wise to reserve a room in Butte, so we did. As we got into Butte and checked into the motel it was still light out. Not something that we were used to. We sat down in the room and it just felt weird to not be riding with daylight left. So we decided to take a ride around to burn off the last 45 minutes of the day. Butte is a cool old copper mining town with lots of old buildings.

Dick had his nose to the ground looking for more pie but came up empty. He had to settle for a strawberry sundae at DQ.
Day nine. We headed for Yellowstone NP. Just before we entered the north end of the park we stopped for breakfast at a country cafe. Excellent grub and friendly ranchers. Great stop. We went from there through the park heading south.

Unfortunately it was a Saturday and also free NP day. Too many people for us, so we didn't stop much. From there we continued south through Grand Tetons NP.

Pretty Cool place but we were again riding in the rain and the cloud cover over the Tetons looked nice but didn't allow for any nice pictures of them. We rolled on and ended up in Rawlings WY for the night. Another 600 mile day.
Day ten. We woke up too low 30's and a closed cafe. We rode around town for awhile looking for breakfast and ended up back where we started and the cafe was now open. Rode from Rawlings to Walden CO. Back to familiar territory. At Walden we rode 14 through Poudre Cannon and cut off to Buckhorn Cannon. There was fresh snow on the ground that morning. The leaves were bright and colorful through out our trip. Other than all of the rain it was a great time of year to make this ride. After Buckhorn we were just looking to get home without traffic. Rolled into my drive at 4:30 or so. Just short of 5300 miles for the ten day trek. What a blast. A big thanks to Dick for letting me follow him around some awesome parts of the country. Can't wait to do it again. Where to next Deadpan?


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DirtyDan

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Kingman Arizona, from NJ