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2015 Trip West USA & West Canada synopsis We were gone 25 days & rode 6112 Miles. We did take one day off in Sidney, Montana. We were tired & the weather was not very good. It was then back on the road again. There is a huge oil boom going on in North Dakota. We saw many new wells pumping & quite a few new wells being drilled. Of course, the Canadian Rockies were spectacular!! The difference between the American Rockies & the Canadian Rockies is that in Canada you are mostly in the valleys looking up. The USA Rockies have lots of roads that go up through the high passes. One highlight was standing on the Athabasca Glacier where the ice is 1200 feet deep! It was COLD, WET, and WINDY with some snow in the air. Still not an everyday experience!! The next morning we awoke to an inch of SNOW in the bike!! That’s a first! Lake Louise was spectacular in spite of less than ideal weather. It was again wet, windy, & cold! We also visited the largest Mall in North America in Edmonton, Alberta. It is indeed HUGE! One could walk quite a few miles to see everything. We did not do that. It is impressive! Bear Tooth Highway is one of those roads that every motorcyclist should ride at least once. It is truly spectacular. The morning we left Cooke City, Montana for Yellowstone National Park it was 21 degrees! That was the coldest start for us, ever. There was plenty of frost on the bike cover that morning. Yellowstone is SPECTACULAR!! We saw lots of wildlife and Old Faithful put on a show as always. Most of the roads in the park are in good shape & there is quite a bit of road construction going on. The waterfalls are impressive. One could spend a week there but we only were there 2 days. Chief Joseph Highway is another one of those roads every motorcyclist should ride. We thought US 14 north of Greybull, Wyoming was even better! Devil’s Tower is impressive. It seems impossible to climb but there were several in the process of climbing it. We rode through Spearfish Canyon near Sturgis, SD which is another premier motorcycle road! Words are inadequate to describe Mount Rushmore. How anyone could sculpt it is beyond our imagination. Crazy Horse is another Sculpture in progress of the GIGANTIC kind. It will be at least 100 years before it is finished. We had breakfast in Wall Drug which is one of the business success stories of all time. They still have free ice water & 5 cent coffee which made them famous. The ride through Badlands National Park is another super ride. We saw lots of Big Horn Sheep in that park. The scenery is “out of this world”. We rode 6112 miles for the 25 days & took pictures of 53 County Courthouses. We have now visited 1665 County Courthouses which is over half of the total in the USA. WOW-----What a trip!!!!!!!!!!!!! Where we stayed
August 23rd Monroe, Wisconsin August 24th Superior, Wisconsin August 25th Devils Lake, ND August 26th Glasgow, MT August 27th Shelby, MT August 28th Fernie, BC August 29th Canmore, AB August 30th Lake Louise Village, AB August 31st Glacier Inn, Ice Fields Parkway AB September 1st Edson, AB September 2nd Vegreville, AB September 3rd Moose Jaw, SK September 4th Sidney, MT September 5th Sidney, MT September 6th Lewistown, MT September 7th Cooke City, MT September 8th West Yellowstone, MT September 9th Cody, WY September 10th Buffalo, WY September 11th Belle Fourche, SD September 12th Wall, SD September 13th Chamberlain, SD September 14th Algona, Iowa September 15th Dodgeville, WI September 16th Home |
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