Well it Happened

My turn to do the morning check up. Oil and tire pressure checks are done every morning.


We traveled from Orillia to Alberta then from B.C. back with no problem until we hit a little area called Spanish. We had just gassed up and the throttle cable that is attached to the handle bar on Bob's bike broke. He lost all power and motioned me to get over. I slowed down but hit the edge of the road and down I went. The next thing I knew I was looking at the grill of the truck behind me. I was very lucky that the lady got stopped. Bob pulled over and looked back in horror as I laid sprawled on the road. But the good thing of it all was the only thing wrong was a bruised and scraped knee. The lady who was driving the truck help Bob and I pick the bike up off the road.
When we got to the dealer they had never seen that happened before, but did not have a handle in stock. they called Sudbury and Bob agreed to go and get it. The dealer would be closed when he got back but he was instructed where to put it so the mech could work on it the next day. Steve had come and got me from Auntie Stella camp and I waited and worried about Bob until he finally arrived at 8 pm. Tired, hungry and wet. He had got caught in the down poor. My rain suit fit him somewhat, so he stay mostly dry.
We left around 10:30 Sunday morning to head to Orillia.


Bob not happy waiting for the tow truck. it took 2 hours plus to get a tow truck to us.











It took three of us to load the bike in the trailer.


Bob and the driver pushed it up the ramp and
I steered it. Then came the fun part of
making sure it was secured. The driver was
really good, I rode with him and Bob drove my
bike. We had to have the bike taken to Espilola.
That was the closes dealer.

My poor knee. It is a little stiff now but I am very happy that is all I ended up with.

Thursday night found us in Ashland. Since we arrived early enough after supper we went for a walk.

Imagine this fish on the end of your fishing line.
I put my feet in the water to say that I have done Lake Superior. What dirty sand it was. I had to wash my feet when we got back to our motel room.

I found this water tower so cute. Just had to stop and take a picture of it.

Monday & Tuesday

After getting to our motel at 11:30 Sunday night we started. Monday off early to try and get a head of the heat. Our first stop of the morning was Sturgis.
Bob wanted to go and see what the town was like so we rode through it at 7:45 am. Stopped at McDonald's for a juice break and by then it was 84 degrees. Bob wanted to take a picture of the famous bar that in one week would be over run with bikers of all shapes and size.





The next stop was a town called Wall.
Before we stopped for lunch we looked around. I found the sign below the guns to be a little funny...........








I guess they really don't want you to play with the guns.......








I had my hunny sit with the pretty lady to get his picture taken. Of course he had to rest his hand on her knee...









Now I wonder what she did to him to get this expression?

We had lunch at the Wall food court. Wall is a small town in the middle of no where on the edge of the Badlands South Dakota.
In 1931 a man name Ted Hustead and his wife Dorothy took his $3,000. inheritance and bought the only drug store in Wall. Business was bad in the little prairie Town where only 326 people, 326 poor people. The depression and a drought had wiped out the farmers. One one stopped for coffee or anything else. Ted had promised his wife that they would give it 5 years and next year was going to be the fifth year. As a Pharmacist Ted also studied some veterinary medicine so he could help the farmers when there livestock got ill.
One hot summer day Dorothy went to lay down after putting the children down for a nap. She wasn't down long and decided to go out and tell Ted her idea. "All the cars going by on Route16A just about shook the house to pieces and I think I know of a way to bring the travelers to our store. What all travelers need is ice cold water, why don't we offer free water." Ted and a young lad spent the next week making signs to nail up and down the highway and it worked. Now Wall is a huge downtown area, with all kinds of stores with all kinds of different gadgets. they still offer free ice water and coffee for only a nickel.

We had lunch and got back on the road. It was so hot, that we had to stop every 1/2 hour to get cooled off and drink water. The one stop had bottled water in the freezer for people. The temp was 112. I wasn't sure how much farther we could go. I was not feeling well and the air was so hot blowing in your face. Finally at 2:00 Bob said it was time to get off the road and we would try it really early the next day. When we had our shower and went to get our deodorant and things, our deodorant had melted. What a mess! We were in bed by 8:15 exhaust from the heat.

Tuesday
I woke up at 5:15 am and looked out side. It was still dark. I had forgot that we had crossed over the time zone back a few miles from our motel. We got packed up and dressed and on the road by 6:10 am. We were going to try and get as far as we could before the heat drove us off the road.



The first rest station we stopped was around 7:45 am. Bob told me to take some pictures but I didn't go off the path this sign pretty well says it all

From where I stood this was the beautiful picture I got.

While waiting for

Bob I took

some

fun shots

Isn't he handsome....

Today we made it as far a Mankota, Minnesota for the night. Tomorrow we hope to be pretty close to the Canadian boarder. Bob is going to bite the bullet and cross the bridge at the Sue. I have to testify in court on Monday and Bob has Dr's appointment.

Yellowstone National Park

Entrance to the Yellowstone National Park. It is a big and expansive area.
We got to the park at 11:00 am. It was already starting to be a hot day. It wasn't long before we removed our Jean Jackets and Leather's. Even though there is no helmet law in a lot of the states Bob insists that we wear ours.

Moose were all over the area. They are so used of the humans that it doesn't bother them to have us standing around taking there pictures and looking at them.

I know it looks like snow, but it is a acid powder. The same acid that is on the top of your car battery. It is so interesting to see it all, in some spots it looks like there are stepping stones.

This is a dormant hot spring cone. Funny looking isn't it.

a hot spring pond, it is so blue and you can see down in it. The temp is boiling hot.

We never got a chance to see Old Faithful. It can erupt any time between 60-130 minutes apart. The time it explodes can last 1-5 minutes. This is a picture of a smaller Geyser.

A good name for this one Spasm Geyser, it pops and bubbles . Looks just like water boiling.

We crossed the Continental Divide 3 times. So we figured we should get a picture of it, so I told my hubby to get in the picture.

A family came along and offered to take
a picture of the both of us at the sign. Not often do we have a picture of the both of us in it.

Mr Bison out for a stroll., first he was walking down the road then decided to go over into the grass. I could almost reach out and touch him he was that close. He just ignore the humans.

This moose end table was in a gift shop we stopped at for water. We have made bottle water our drink of choice, even when we eat now, lots of water.

Bob found these rock formations really
interesting. We stopped for a minute to
take the picture and have a rest.

They look like castles, but this is from the wind and elements.

on the go again

Our day started off meeting up with the people that we had talked to at Crow's Nest Pass the day before they invited us for breakfast with them and we chatted and found out where we all had come from Ontario.

Day is Ended.

Sitting on something that isn't moving!

Yep it is raining here in Sand Point Idaho. The rain lasted a few hours then stopped and it came out hot....

Our breakfast friends. the far side young man is from Peterbrough. His family moved to Calgary when he was 7. The girl sitting next to him is a Pharmastic The Lady next is married to the guy at the end with the white hair. They are from a small community called Midhurst which is right out side of Barrie Ont. They moved to Calgary with his job 10 years ago and have no plans to move back to Ontario. The bald man works with the white hair guy and is going to Orillia ON next week for his sisters wedding, but is from Calgary. It is amazing how you meet people and find something that you all have in common. But as Bob says, we never would have had any conversations with these people if we weren't biking.

Day 1-Wednesday

Wednesday started off over cast and threatening to rain. It was hard to get any pictures of the mountains with the haze on them.










So instead I took a picture of the flowers growing on the side of the road.





I had found a funny picture but I couldn't get Bob's eye so we could slow down. All along the fence post at the road were hats of all sizes. Baseball, hard hats, baby bonnets all perched on the top of the fence post. The final post had a big of a different twist though, it had a bra and panties tied to it.....

This is a picture of the mountain at Crows Nest Pass. It was a beautiful sight going through there.We stopped at a gas station and meet a couple from Newfoundland. They were on there way to Yak. We meet up with more people at the last Tim Hortons and there were 5 of them traveling from Calgary to Seattle. People who bike all seem to talk to one another, it is a great way to meet new people.

We stopped in Spartan to see the biggest truck in the word. Imagine the fact that it holds 2,000,000 golfs balls. Now I wonder who counted all those balls. Some body sure didn't have a life....

Hubby standing beside one of the tires......

This is were we are and were we have to go today!

Finally the American boarder..

My face all burnt, we had to go and get a different sun lotion. Something stronger!

Holding 2 glasses of water on my cheeks to cool them off. They were so sun & Wind burnt.......

Back on the road

Sorry there have been no blogs but we were at motels that internet was either very low connnections or the next night I would have had to insdert my credit card to get a line. So I am doing all three days hopefully tonight..For some reason the blog site is not co-operating. Hopefully tomorrow night I will be able to get caught up. Today we spent 10 hours traveling. Tomorrow we hope to be able to go through Yellow Stone park. We were suppose to do that today, but one of the locals told Bob about a short cut. WELL>>>> we ended up having to change our reservations and get off the road at 8:00 pm. I will say one thing, I really don't want to see another sign that says, truckers chain up, because that means you are going up one mother of a hill, then when you get to the top there is a sigh that says Strong Gust of Wind, well let me tell you something, those strong gust of winds can almost knock off your bike. By time I am done this trip I will have super strong leg muscles. You do get to see some beautiful scenery if you have the guts to take your eyes off the road to look out over the valley.
So I will try once more to post some pictures. If it doesn't work I will leave it for tomorrow night. We are in Livingstone tonight....

Storm damaged

Well we didn't get by with no damage to our vechicles as we had orginally thought.

Our windshield has a big circular crack on the passengers side. OH MAN

The hood suffered a big oww eee that shows and some that don't. Total dents that we could count to inform the insurance company was 12. Pretty sad for a new vehicle. But the hail stone were really big some as large as baseballs and coming down as hard and fast. Sister Debi's car and Leon's truck was hit also. Debi's little red Focus suffered 8 dents and Leon's truck got a chip in the windshields and some dents. We have notified our insurance company and I am waiting for Debi's to recommend a place to take our van for an estimate. We will have the work done while we are on the road. But since we are in no hurry it can get estimated and wait until we return for the winter.

We hope to leave early tomorrow morning to head back east. We are excitedly looking forward to the trip to the east coast with our friends Wilf and Betty also to see our grand babies and their parents. Keep checking our site for the pictues and adventures traveling back to Ontario and touring through the Eastern Provinces.

Another Hot Day

Sunday turned into another hot hot day. No air moving and we were just vegging around the house when we decided to go for a ride up in to the mountains. Leon showed us the trails that he & Deb ride on the horses and we went for a small walk. The reason it was a small walk

was the horse flies were biting. Man oh man do they

hurt.

After supper we seen the skies turn dark and it started to rain & hail. It sounded like someone was throwing baseballs at the porch roof. We went to look and found hail the size of golf balls. Bob is holding 2 in his hand. The one beside my foot was only 1/2 of one, the other part broke off when it hit the edge of the porch. The hail also riped Bob's cover on his bike, but a strip of duck tape will fix that for right now. We were concerned about the van but what we can see there is no dents in it.