Woke up the next morning, rode for a couple of hours, then grabbed some breakfast. This is daily trip rules, so I will not mention it again. We spent the rest of the day going thru Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Ended up about an hour outside of St Louis. By the way, I’ve never been in the southern part of Ohio, but there were a lot of hills. I was quite surprised by that. We hit the rack for the end of day two.
Next morning we got up and thought it would be fun to visit our friend Jenny at Frieze HD. So we stopped by in early hours. No Jenny, but her husband Larry was there so we aid hello and walked around. Then we started heading west again. Went thru St Louis saw the Arch and on we went. That day we knocked off Missouri and part of Kansas. Well, let me tell you, going thru Kansas with a 70 mph head wind was strange. Felt like we were going nowhere. Stopped in Wichita and grabbed a steak dinner. Watched some Fox News, (yes Fox News — I think that’s the only channel I watched for three weeks!) If it was not available Tom and I would move on to the next lodge.
So we are more than half way there. This day was all about Colorado and the Rocky Mountains. Let me tell you, the weather and riding were quite awesome that day. Riding thru the Rockies was amazing. It got a little chilly at the high altitudes but our bikes were running like true champions. Again up in the mountains the curves, the scenery, and yep the switchbacks with Tom tearing it up. We ended up in Grand Junction, Colorado that night. Yep, Mexican again for dinner and of course Fox News. Oh and it was laundry night. This was quite interesting - two washers, one dryer and a packed hotel. So we did the laundry and I took our cargo nets off the bikes and hung them around the room to dry our clothes.
Ok the final day on the way out, then we are in Vegas baby. We
were about 30 minutes outside Utah. So our first stop was at Black Dragon Canyon. What a view - you could see for hundreds of miles. On the road a sign said next gas stop 128 miles. Well I didn’t see but Tom did thank God. Grabbed some breakfast and back at it again. Riding down the road this hyena just took its sweet old time crossing the road in an 80mph speed zone. So about two hours outside Vegas we made our last gas stop but definitely not our last stop before getting there. Tom said you ready, sure I’m ready, ok Paul it’s going to get hot soon, sure let’s go. Well let me tell you - it was HOT! OMG was it hot. So we pulled over and yes it was hot. He looked at me a said, “Are you going to make it? If not, your mother and grandfather are going to kill me.” As you can see I made it and learned a lot that day. Did I tell you it was hot that day! About an hour or so later after stopping for water about every 20 minutes, we made it. Oh did I mention it was hot that day? Now we are here and getting ramped up for the dealer show. We spent a day at the pool with some friends, Stacy and George and his family. The next three days were the show with all the new models and parts and clothing. Yes, we had Mexican every night. The last night there Lucy flew in for the ride home. Yep, we ate Mexican that night. So we got a good night sleep and shipped some stuff home and packed our bikes.
Well, it’s early morning and we are heading to Utah for the next three days. At 8 o’clock in the morning the desert was almost 90 degrees, a lot cooler then our ride in. So we ended up by riding thru Zion National Park. The views were amazing! Look at the pictures. So the park was under construction; we went down a 20 mile gravel road, boy was that fun. Headed up to Panguitch (which means big fish). We stayed there for a couple of nights because we did a 220 mile loop and Bryce Canyon. Guess what? No Mexican. Yes, there was an awesome rib place across the street from motel and they served a beverage called Polygamy Ale.
Bryce Canyon in the morning then our 220 mile loop. It rained a little on and off all day but it was so much fun. The thing that made it really fun to me, was that I figured Tom has ridden his motorcycle everywhere and I mean pretty much everywhere and it was his first trip to all the parks. This made it feel like an honor for me to be able to do this with him and Lucy. Again the roads, the views, the canyons, the mountains were just amazing. They are thousands of years old and are incredible in person. They say the visibility is about 114 miles there compared the visibility in our area which is about 3 miles. We spent the next day at Arches which let me say left me speechless. They say there are about 2000 sandstone arches that have been forming for millions of years. When you visit there plan on doing a lot of walking. But it is worth every second.
Well, it’s time to head back home and get back to work to do what we love. The pictures that are up around the article will show you how epic it really was. You need to get out there on your bikes and do it and you will see and feel what I mean.
On a closing note there was one more honor I would like to mention; the past couple years I was fortunate to do these trips with Tom and a fellow Harley dealer. They met up late in life but had but had a lot of common friends and experiences. That would have been Tom and Stretch from Smaltz’s Harley-Davidson, who we lost a few years back. They spent the three years before this doing these summer trips.
By the way, I have all pictures from trip on a digital photo on my desk at Highroads. I would love to share them with all to see!
~Paul
[Ed. Note - check out www.highroadshd.com/events/past_events.htm and click on the Summer Ride link to see more pictures!]
