Riding Solo From Long Island NY To Alaska And Back

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Montana

What a great trip this was, I want to thank my son Craig for setting up this blog for me, I enjoyed sharing my trip with everyone. I was able to sort out a lot of things. I excepted what is going on with my eyesight , there is no reason to talk about it anymore, when that day comes then thats when Ill deal with it. I know I wanted to go see other places but what I did was enough for a lifetime, I want to thank my wife Dawn for understanding and letting me do what I needed to do. I also want to thank  Chris at Crown Lift Truck
for giving me some extra time for this also. This was an amazing journey as ive said before and meeting all sorts of wonderful people along the way made it better but I have to say the best part of my trip was seeing my brother Andy in Montana, it had been six long years but seeing him was great, we both had a great time together, hope we can do it again. For everybody who followed along and called me or emailed me, thank you, being on the road alone sure made it easier to get by. For my good friend in New Jersey, Denise, a special thank you to you. My Harley held up and got me home safe, hats off to the people who built her, she needs a good cleaning now. Its good to be home.

Today got off to a late start due to heavy fog this morning, it cleared around 830 and then I opened her up. Later on I stopped for gas and the sun was shining so I figured I can take off my rain pants that Ive been wearing every day on this trip, took them off and rode on. later on in Ohio I stopped got coffee and was talking to a friend who said it was raining in New York and I said I finally have sun, well wouldnt you know it 20 minutes later all the rain clouds came out. I pulled over at the next rest stop to change back into my rain gear and park next to a fellow biker who also was changing into warmer clothes and rain gear. His name was Joe and was from Rochester, always good meeting a fellow New Yorker on the road, we talked  for a little while, really nice guy and then we took off.   For the last couple of days my horn has not been working so Ive been trying to find a local Harley dealer somewhere but there either closed or I just cant find them. As I riding thru Youngstown Ohio I notice an open dealer on the the right so I pull off and head over there, took the turn way to fast and scraped those floorboards into the pavement , god I love doing that, I drove Dawn nutz every time I did that. Anyway I go inside and go to the parts guy I need a horn and should be covered since its less than 2 years old, he says no and gets me the horn, $48 for the horn,I said that should still be covered, he goes yeah but we close in a half hour, there is no time to change it, I took the horn and removed the old one that was filled with water and installed, tested and had it back on his counter before he had a chance to shut up. A lot of guys coming over checking out how dirty my bike is and when I told them where I just came from their jaws dropped,proud moment for me. This is my last night on the road and hoping to be home around noon tomorrow. I will write my final thoughts tomorrow but holy crap this has been one hell of a trip.

Woke up this morning and could not believe how cold it was here in Wisconsin. loaded up the bike and froze my ass off to the local diner for some nice hot coffee. With in 2 hours I crossed into Michigan and started driving along Lake Michigans shoreline, I wanted to take some cool pics but it was cold and the sun did not come out today so I didnt bother taking off my gloves for any pics except the big ass bridge I had to drive over and it was grated so you bikers out there just know how muchfun that is. Driving on Route 2 was an amazing road with wonderful towns and friendly people, Im so glad I decided to stay off the interstate.

Yesterday i finally got out of Canada and back into the USA, Rode the northern routes of North Dakota rt.2 into Devils Lake and stayed for the night. I will do a little sight seeing and then head to Chippewa National Forrest in Minnesota. The weather is calling for rain for the next couple of days but what else is new. They have had so much rain up here, all the farm lands look like lakes, when I passed thru Minot yesterday half of it was under water, if you take a close look in the background of that pic of transformer man you can see his back yard is flooded. Other than that my body is still holding together but I am looking forward to getting home and seeing my wife and family and of course my dog.

Ive been riding around America for years now and I love all of its beauty. This trip has gone beyond what I was expecting, I find it hard to believe that a lot of people I know would rather pay some corporate theme park all their money to sit in lines and be in crowds just so they can come back with Mickey hats on their head. WTF, we have this beautiful country with all its natural beauty and they still will want to go to theme parks. All of the small towns with mom and pop diners are just waiting to see you and tell you all the great wonders around them, they can use your money more than Disney or 6 flags, so many small gas stations and diners closed because we got too lazy to go out into the country,Im lucky right now to bedoing what Im doing and everyone keeps telling me how great this is but what about you, take your kids upstate and fish for a day or go to a national park and start giving your money to the real backbone of this country and not the corporations, a couple of days out of the year aint much to do but get out and see just how beautiful this country really is, I dont need a theme park because I have this beautiful country right outside my back door.   Just saying

The day started out good,cold but plenty of sunshine as I left Grande Prairie Canada to head back to the states. Well not more than a hour into the ride it began to rain, pulled over and put on rain gear again. It rained for 4 hours until I hit Edmonton. Stopped at diner for lunch and read some posts from my blog. My friend Joey told me to slow down and relax because there is no rush to get home, well I took him up on that suggestion and when I pulled out of Edmonton the skies opened up and the sun finally came out. So taking Joeys advise I kicked back against my sleeping bag that is on my passenger seat, turned on the stereo and put on my ipod that Harry loaded with great rock an roll then hit cruise control to 72 mph, put up my legs and just enjoyed the ride for the next several hours and it was wonderful. The land out here is very flat with lots of farm land but I see lots of nothing growing on these lands,lots of oil fields too. I took some  pics of the land that I posted. I pulled in for gas and something to drink and I notice this thing pops its head out of the ground and I said what the hell was that, he comes out and starts playing inside this little bag, I asked someone what that was and she told me it was a prairie dog, it was cute, never saw one before, he had a mate and they were jumping from hole to hole. Anyway, took off and settled in a town called Battleford in Saskatchewan. Will be in North Dakota by lunch time tomorrow. Anyone know of any good interesting places I should stop at let me know before I pass it.