2005 Harley bike trip

Preface - The gear and bikes were to be packed Tuesday July 26th for a departure early on the 27th.  The bikes and gear left late afternoon on the 26th.  Bikes arrived at 3 pm PST on Friday the 29th.  Riders arrived at 11 pm on the 29th.  The remainder of the night was spent in a smoky bar.

Saturday July 30th - Day 1 - Columbia River Gorge to Mt. Rainier - Problems with gravity.  The ride through the Columbia River Gorge was full of surprises.  Waterfalls, wind surfing, food and fun.    We're off on our way to Mt. Rainier.  In an effort to cut 100 miles from the trip, the route was changed.  The route change and a missed turn took us down a short dirt road.  Well not just a short dirt road...but it will be worth it to cut off that 100 miles.  We had a lot of trouble keeping the bikes upright.  Several hours later, at Mirror Lake, we were told that the road was a dead end and motorcycles were not allowed on it. We would have to turn around. Time to do it again! Whoopee! The bikes do not like this dirt road. One cut arm, a bent crash bar and a couple loose pieces later and we're back to where we started. We never do make it to Mount Rainier. Time was not working for us. After a bit of a struggle finding a hotel room, we settle down a mere 30 minutes drive from where our adventure began.

Sunday, July 31 - Day 2 - Our mission - keep the bikes upright! We leave on a mission - make up some time, finds some parts to fix the bikes, keep them upright and not get lost. We are successful. We head North towards Seattle. After stopping to get parts, we reach Seattle in time for the Farmers Market at the Pikes Place Market. We are even successful navigating downtown with the truck and trailer and manage to find an empty parking lot. We have a lot of fun shopping (Hey Gatis, how many tomatoes can you get in those helmets?) and eating lunch. After lunch we head to the ferry to go over to Whidby Island. A short ferry ride and a beautiful drive later and we are close to our campsite. We see our first wild animal of the trip. Whets that bird on the road? Is it a turkey, or a pheasant? No, its a peacock. We have dinner at a wonderful restaurant on the island. Best meal yet! 

Monday, August 1 - Day 3 - Whidby Island to Vancouver - We get to try out our raingear this morning although not for long. We head to the north end of the island to take the bridge to the mainland. Little did we know that that Deception Pass would be as beautiful as it was. Unfortunately we were not prepared and have no pictures. We reach the Canadian Boarder ready to show our passports and answer a lot of questions - No ID and only a few questions later and we are on our way. Gatis wants to see the float plane base in Vancouver so we head downtown. Big Mistake!! Traffic, headaches, one way streets, no parking and road construction around the float plane base was all we found. Time to head out of Dodge. We go through a beautiful park on the way out of town and eventually find a restaurant and a hotel. Heaven!

Tuesday, August 2 - Day 4 - Vancouver to Kamloops - Driving through Heaven!  We leave the big city and are off to the mountains and the countryside of British Columbia. After a short road construction delay by the beautiful Lions Bay we are on our way. We saw beautiful snow capped mountains, waterfalls, valleys, rivers, turquoise lakes, wildflowers, and more. Wonderful day and wonderful drive! Perfect, well almost! We are at the end of our drive and a very talented bee decides to sting Bob in the neck while  we are heading into Kamloops. He's itchy and sore, but will be ok.   

Wednesday, August 3 - Day 5 - Kamloops to Golden, BC - Tipi day - We spent the morning getting the grand tour of Kamloops -looking for coffee before the Harley dealer opened. Whitey (white motorcycle you see being worked on in all of the pictures) ran for a short time before gimping it back to the hotel. We spent the next hour or so at the Harley shop trying to get help figuring out what was wrong. Didn't happen - so we loaded Whitey up on the trailer and headed out. We stopped for lunch in Salmon Arm at a BBQ place downtown. Food was good but the drinks were better - they even went to the liquor store to get what we wanted - what service! We drove through the Mount Revelstoke National Park and Glacier National Park (didn't see any glaciers but we assume they are there somewhere). We pulled off in Glacier to take some pictures and almost got stuck in these big circle things they had carved into the pull offs which would have eaten our tires had we not been careful. We had many theories as to what these were but no answers as of yet. Just remember to be careful if you find yourself in Glacier.

We got to ride on our second dirt road of the trip on the way to our Tipi camp - much much much better condition than the first and we didn't get lost! We got to the Tipi camp at about dinner time. Since we didn't have anything with to cook we had a choice of either going into town and buying food to cook or going out to eat. Being the lazy bums we are - we chose the latter. We had a wonderful meal out. (see a pattern here?) We were planning on getting back to camp in time to watch the sunset over the pond which we were told was beautiful, however we missed a time change as we headed east so we got back too late. We had drinks and conversation in front of the campfire instead. Some of us even went to bed early.

Thursday, August 4 - Day 6 - Golden, BC to Canmore, AB - Park Day - Some of us got up early and explored our camp - found some really tiny toads by the pond, took some pictures and waited for the others to arise. We tried to go horseback riding but were about 2 minutes too late as another group had just signed up. So, instead we spend the next hour or so trying to get the Yellow Pony (Gatis's Bike) started. We finally do and get as far as the end of the driveway before we are working on it again. So onto the trailer it goes. We head out with Bob and Sarah the only ones riding - everyone else is comfy, cozy in the truck listening to a book on tape. We are heading toward Lake Louise and Banff. On our way we go through the Yoho National Park which has had a fire recently which left these really neat patterns on the mountains. We see some mountain goats by the side of the road but they came up so fast that no one had their camera ready. Bob and Sarah also saw a black bear as they were approaching Lake Louise. We unload the trailer because we cannot drive it on the roads to Lake Louise and Lake Moraine. We decide to give the Yellow Pony another shot and it awakens so off the trailer it comes. We get to Lake Louise and it is just an absolute madhouse with no parking spots and a hike to the water so we decide to head to Lake Moraine instead. We are only about a quarter of the way there when there are more problems with the bike. Don, Peggy and Sarah went to see Lake Moraine while Bob and Gatis work on the bike. The lake was beautiful. It is this really bright aquamarine blue color that almost looks unnatural. We took a short hike along the water and then decided we better get back before Bob and Gatis got mad about waiting so long. We passed them on the way down. They had been working out in the sun and were not happy that it had taken us so long to get back but all was forgiven by Gatis when he found a chair in the shade and a drink waiting for him when he got down. We head toward Banff and when we get there we decide to look for this castle we had seen from the road - it turned out to be a really fancy hotel. Only about $720 for the 5 of us to stay for the night. Good thing they didn't have anything available or we may have just jumped at such a great deal. We would love to see what the rooms look like. We decided to save our money and stay in the next town over - Canmore, AB. We get a room at a hotel across from a German restaurant. We all have a couple of drinks before heading over for dinner. We didn't have any lunch so we are a bit silly by the time we get to the restaurant. We had a great meal and a lot of fun.

Friday, August 5 - Day 7 - Canmore, AB to Cranbrook, BC - Glacier Day - We have breakfast at the hotel before our adventure in the wrong direction. (planned this time) We are going to be heading south toward the border but we decided that before we leave the park we have to take a drive north up the Icefields Parkway. We don't have to go very far when we find a great place to stop and get coffee on Bow lake. There are a number of glaciers that are on the mountains adjacent to the lake. We are all very comfy in our Adirondack chairs and so we relaxed and enjoyed the view for a while before heading out to see the Columbia Ice Field. This is a glacier that you can get out and walk on. Just be careful of the crevasses as you do not want to fall in. Once we are done exploring we decide it is finally time to go south. We stop for snacks by Lake Louise on our way out as we again have had so much fun we forgot to have lunch. We head out of Banff Park through the Kootenay Park which also had had a fire recently. In a large section almost all of the trees on both sides of the road had been burned except for a section right on the edges of the road. There was also a section around the Lodge that had been saved as well. It was a beautiful drive with a lot of crazy drivers who just seem to pass without even looking to see what is in the oncoming lane. We make it safely through the pass and come down into the town of Radium Hot Springs where it was about 30 degrees warmer than it was in the mountains. We stop to have dinner before heading south to Cranbrook. We leave a bit late and so it is dark before we make it to Cranbrook. We see a beautiful sunset on the mountains but nobody understood (or ignored) Bob and Sarah's hand signals to take a picture. Oh well - nothing to show you all as you can't see our mental pictures. We travel slowly in the dark as we are busy watching for wild animals on the side of the road. We plan to trailer the bikes if we see too many but we only see 2 eagles, 2 elk and 3 deer - all but one were quite a ways from the road. We make it safely to Cranbrook, find a hotel room, locate the Harley shop (right across the street) and are off to bed quickly.

Saturday, August 6 - Day 8 - Cranbrook, BC to Spokane, WA - Rise and Shine - we are all a bit tired today so we get a slow start - it doesn't help that we made 4 stops before leaving town - 1 for coffee, 1 at the Harley Shop, 1 for breakfast and 1 for gas. Finally we are on our way. We make it to the US Border about an hour later and expect to have a harder time getting back into the US, but it was almost as easy as getting out. Good thing Bob remembered all of the dates. We stop for drinks a little while later in Bonners Ferry, Idaho. First time in Idaho for some of us. We are planning on having dinner at some steak place in Coeur d'Alene that was recommended by one of our employees. We decide to head to the hotel in Spokane first and then go for dinner. It is 100 degrees as we came into Spokane so the first thing we want to do is go for a swim. Lots of kids in the pool so we don't stay long. We get ready to go and decide to give Whitey another try as Don had her working again this morning. Unfortunately it was not to be - Peggy was afraid that Don was going to explode as it was shooting flames out of its pipes. So we stop and get the trailer to load it up. We end up loading all the bikes up and head to Coeur d'Alene in the truck. We can't remember the name of the restaurant, can't get a hold of anyone, can't find a steak place by the lake and can't find a parking place for the truck and trailer downtown as there is a street festival going on in town. We decide to head out of downtown looking for someplace to eat and end up finding a little place advertising "traditional food and ale:" The food was wonderful but anything but traditional. We head back to the hotel and get ready for bed. Sarah gets packed up as she will be flying back home from Spokane in the morning. So sad!

Sunday, August 7 - Day 9 - Spokane, WA to Missoula, MO to Salmon, ID - LONG Day! - 475 miles

Monday, August 8 - Day 10 - Early departure from Salmon, ID...  To Jackson, WY (Grand Teton NP) final stop in Riverton, WY. 450 miles

Tuesday, August 9 - Day 11