BMWRTGIRL, BoxerGrrlie, and BradfordBenn on the way to the Rally 2004

Day 11 - More fun at the Rally

http://www.bradfordbenn.com/beemer/trips/JulyD11.htm

I have been sleeping like poop the past couple of nights. Not really sure why, so when I woke up with a "hangover" feeling having only had two beers and 1 vodka over the course of 8 hours the night before, I figured something is up. So I took my butt to the hotel and slept. I slept longer than I wanted, but I feel much better now.

So then it was back to packup camp and then go to the closing ceremonies. Luckily CycleGadgets.com is helping me out by taking my camping gear to their shop and I will pick it up from them there. Makes the pack a lot easier.

So then it was closing ceremonies. Funny, I don't remember opening ceremonies. The ceremonies started off with Native American Dancers, First Nation for those of you from the Great White North. That was pretty cool. Then the flags started coming out carried on horseback, first there were the flags of the 50 states...



This part was pretty cool. The picture does not do it justice, but each state had its own horse and their flag was carried in, around the ring a few times and then galloped off in pairs. Next were flags for the people from other countries. Then flags for the armed services. I thought it was very appropriatte to have the following in the group:



Then came Old Glory and the National Anthem



After that, out came a portable stage and the presentations. I do not remember all of the awards, but I figure that they will be posted in ON or the web.

To give you an idea of what the site looked like, these pictures are only a portion of the campgrounds.





Only 369 days until Lima, Ohio and Beemerville USA!

Spokane 2004

Brad,


Great job with the ride reports and photos. Wish I could have been there, but I am now just starting to walk unassisted. Next week I should be able to ride.

While you and your buds were having fun, I had a good lunch.

The girls said to say "hello".

Robert, is it true that you have a 40GB hard drive with nothing but pictures of you posing with Hooters girls?

Hooters Girls

Jon,


I have 80 gig hard drives on both the laptop and desktop computers. When the Hooters girls start to pile up, I save some to CDs and continue forward.

Unlike Mount Rushmore, which has the same four guys all the time, each return visit to Hooters yields fresh, new Hooters girls who must be met, measured and photographed. It is a never-ending task... a calling, if you will. It's my life's work.

Thanks for the note. Let's do lunch. Surf's up!

Geezum!

How did we get from Brad's rally route report, to Robert posing with Hooter's girls?

Sometimes this place skeers me ...

Re: Geezum!

RickM said:

How did we get from Brad's rally route report, to Robert posing with Hooter's girls?

Sometimes this place skeers me ...

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I don't know how, but I like it. Hi Brad et all

Hooters Girls

Howdy Kids!


I was just letting Brad know that all was well out here in the real world and that I was healing sufficiently to be able to ride my BMWs by the end of this week.

Brad, Tracy and Rebecca have dined together at past rallies, such as Thai food at the Blitz To Branson. I want to inspire Brad to try different cuisines while on the road. Jennifer and I will be holding a table for him at Hooters for lunch.

Hurry home, Brad.

Robert wrote:

I was healing sufficiently to be able to ride my BMWs by the end of this week.

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Whazzup?

Whatever the case, I am glad to hear you are on the mend.

Hmm. I wonder if this means RW has abandoned the Thursday night BBQ gathering on Highway 31 in Hoover ...

Hooters and Rallies go together

Jennifer and I are already planning dinner at the local Hooters in The Bunny's honor.

Anyway.... we resume the thread already in progress

Day 12 - Lolo Pass and the Journey Home

http://www.bradfordbenn.com/beemer/trips/JulyD12.htm

The morning got off to a slightly later start than expected, but hey we are on vacation. BoxerGrrlie decided that instead of going the direct route home we go by way of Lolo Pass. For those of you who are not familiar with it, it is the location of the following

A beacon for motorcyclists everywhere. Unfortunately we did come across a motorcycle down, luckily it was a low speed drop by someone not in our group and no injury. There were us three, plus two Harley riders, plus the down Suzuki rider working the incident. Nothing injured other than pride.

About midway through the ride, we ran into some of the Sled Dog riders on their way to Ouray, another rally. Yup they were having a rolling rally on the way to a rally. It was damn frigging hot also. I do mean damn hot. Why is my motorcycle gear black?

So we spent the night in Missoula.

Day 13 - Continuing to go home...

http://www.bradfordbenn.com/beemer/trips/JulyD13.htm

After riding the pass, we all slept in a little later than expected. The day was not off to the best of starts. I guess two weeks on the road with anyone is difficult, so we all hugged and made up. Then BoxerGrrlie called another audible, why not make it a short day so that Day 13 can be a SaddleSore 1000 from Miles City, Montana to Milwaukee, WI. A quick check on the laptop and it came out to be 1,032 miles according to Maps and Streets, so we figured it would be a good idea.

The last item of the day was BoxerGrrlie's scooter finally letting the smoke out of it's weird wiring. So I taught her how to make a simple splice/termination using wire nuts. Yup, I am sure that there will be lots of comments about how to connect two wires. However for connecting two stranded wires that will be in constant motion, my experience is that a twist with properly sized wire nuts is the best solution.

Then it was planning and back tracking. It resulted in a scheduled leave at 3:00AM MDT to be in Milwaukee at about 9:30PM CDT. So at 8:00PM MDT it was bed time. Also we would be maximizing daylight riding. Something that we did not know until later, we left before the rain.

Day 14 - SaddleSore 1000

http://www.bradfordbenn.com/beemer/trips/JulyD14.htm

Man is 2:15AM MDT early. So we loaded up the bikes, and got the night clerk to be our witness. Then it was about time to head out. One last thing to do was to zero out the GPS to ensure that what we think is 1,000 miles really is 1,000 miles. As usual all three of our odometers showed different distances and I trust the GPS and Streets and Trips as a better guide.

So off we went, headed east. A quick stop for lunch and gas along the way. 1,044 miles 16 hours 36 minutes later at 8:41PM EST we arrived at BoxerGrrlie's parents.

A quick Mexican dinner and then sleep. We were all tired.

Day 15 - The last leg to home

http://www.bradfordbenn.com/beemer/trips/JulyD15.htm

We all slept late, so at about 9AM CDT I realized what time it was and if I wanted to be home by 2PM EST I needed to get on the road by 10AM. The night before when I said I wanted to get on the road early like 10AM, everyone kind of laughed and said that was not early.

It rained on and off as I was loading the bike. Once it stopped raining it become 91?? Fahrenheit with 99% humidity. I could not even move without sweating. So BoxerGrrlie and I decided to let BMWRTRider sleep and off I went. Keeping with my tradition of drink delivery problems, once I got out of Milwaukee the bite valve of the Platypus decided to dislodge in my mouth. Through the fun of having the drink tube drop into my lap and my crotch getting wet, I realized that I just created a siphon. So I picked up the tube and back in the mouth it went. Other than wet pants and a few moments detour, nothing big. I just hoped it would not get sticky and yucky since it had some sports drink mixed in. Luckily five minutes later a three minute downpour happened. Cleaned it off and made it a little more bearable in terms of ambient temperature and humidity.

The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful. I was able to beat the rain for most of the day, with just a few minutes of rain here and there. I realize that this rain is the same rain we had beaten out of Miles City, MT. I had one last stop before I went home. I decided to surprise Jennifer by visiting her at work. She was very surprised and happy.

July Journey - Epilogue

http://www.bradfordbenn.com/beemer/trips/JulyEpi.htm

So during the ride home it hit me what I had just accomplished. I had ridden approximately 5,160 miles in 15 days, an average of about 345 miles a day. I also realized that this was the last leg of the journey. It was quite a different trip than I expected. Not just in terms of where I went, but also in what happened. I was expecting there to be an epiphany of some sort, but I have not found it yet. I just was looking forward to a shower and not having to go anywhere tomorrow.

My original plan was to slab it out to San Francisco on Interstate 80. Visit family and friends there before heading north to the National MOA rally in Spokane,WA. This was going to be a solo ride. Then came the invite from friends to go to Lunatic Fringe in Canada on the way to the Rally. So a change in plans. I packed what I thought I needed and off we went.

I was over packed, but not as badly as it looked at first blush. Other than three pairs of jeans and three long sleeve tee shirts, I used everything I packed. I also learned that putting compression bags inside of a big waterproof boat bag is not as good of an idea as it might seem. There was lots of empty space around the bags that I could have used better. So I started doing that with loose stuff and my pack got "smaller". Also for how stylized the system cases are, they such for storing stuff in. It was a pain to get stuff in there. I found that straps work better than bungee's.

Check back, I'll let you know if there is an epiphany. Now comes the questions:

Do I regret doing this trip?
No

Would I do it again?
No. I don't want to go where I have been before.

Would I ride with BoxerGrrlie and BMWRTRider again?
Yup, in a heartbest. We ride well together. I also think it is pretty funny to see the look on everyone's face when I show up with the two Lovely Ladies and then people find out neither of them is my wife.

What would you change?
I would pack differently. I would also have better more formal ride plans.

There it is, the epiphany. "Someone has to be in charge and set the plan" It became difficult when everyone had their own expectations and plans. We were all very nice and polite so we never really wanted to make too much of a big deal. However someone needs to define the plans for the day, it should be a different person each day. The plan can even be, follow me but I don't have a plan

Thanks and congrats

Thanks for taking the time to post your journey. Congrats to all of you on a SS in the midst of the trip.
A pat on the helmet to the three of you for not killing one another.

I would think 2 weeks with Brad would be enough to make you want to kill yourself, not him

lorazepam said:

I would think 2 weeks with Brad would be enough to make you want to kill yourself, not him

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Can you feel the love? This is the whole reason I keep hanging out here.

Re: July Journey - Epilogue

BradfordBenn said:

There it is, the epiphany. "Someone has to be in charge and set the plan" It became difficult when everyone had their own expectations and plans. We were all very nice and polite so we never really wanted to make too much of a big deal. However someone needs to define the plans for the day, it should be a different person each day. The plan can even be, follow me but I don't have a plan

Click to expand...

i learned this on a short two day ride. on the ride there, i had detailed maps for the other two folks, planned stops, and it was all laid out to the letter. we didnt worry about time, but we had the whole space thing nailed down. the whole thing was smooth as a gravy sandwich and everyone was very happy. on the way home i thought i would do us a favor by being zen and 'meandering' but as you stated, that's hard. so we were indecisive and we'd get to intersections, dork around with the GPS, look at a map, and in general, sit there for 2-3 minutes. after doing this 5-6 times, tempers rose and the sentiment was expressed that we should just f-ing ride. my epiphany was that being zen doesnt mean not planning, it means doing the right thing at the right time and keeping your mind right.

there is a little law of motorcycling in there somewhere where the happiness factor of a ride is the square of the ratio of planning to the number of riders. it's parabolic - with one rider you need a little planning, maybe a destination, and that's it. too much and you feel like youre at work or something. with a group, the reverse is true - you need an actual leader and there is a balance. i guess it's like everything else in life.

great thread brad, it's cool seeing the alpha and omega of a rally journey.

Thanks for letting us share in your journey, reading it made me feel like I was there! Glad everyone got home safe, I bet now you guys really know the true meaning of monkeybutt!!!!!!!

Not everyone got monkey butt. I ain't telling who though