Crossing into the USA

Monday 395k…wow still thinking of that great dinner last night at the Moores!

Ok today is going to be the first day on the official route and Mike and I were both up at 6:00 getting repacked and ready to go.  Breakfast was a protein shake and toast (pretty good eh Rob and JJ) then we said out goodbyes and it’s off to the other side of Calgary to meet Dave and say so long to the Howards until next year.   Calgary hospitality - thank you!

Dave was our escort today and he took us on some great twisty and scenic paved roads out of Calgary and heading west with the Rockies dominating the horizon.  We hooked up with the forest trunk road again and ran the gravel south to Hwy 3.  We had a quick and powerful reminder about logging trucks.  The lesson was .. Wow!  They how ominous - they're fast, huge, load, unstable looking and produce a dust cloud that looks like a horizontal mushroom cloud hitting you at a closing speed of .... well we're not sure cause you ain't looking at your gauges.   A quick lunch at the Coleman Subway and we parted ways with Dave, he headed east into the sunshine and we headed west into the wind and rain (of course).  We smoked west through Fernie, hung a left and aimed for America!

Being the chickens that we are…we put on the rain gear but we never really got more than a few sprinkles.  We almost didn’t get across the border as Mike did not see the flashing RED light (or ignored it) and proceeded to drive up to the booth before he was supposed to…..I could hear the guard asking him if he was color blind…when I rode up the guy was laughing and asked me if I saw what Mike did…I said “Oh yeah he’s a goof…he always doing things like that”…..Of course I didn’t have to wait very long for goof action number 2….We are coming up to a construction resurfacing project and the truck with flashers pulls out in front of us….Mike then proceeds to follow this truck to the front of the line of cars instead of taking his place at the back….I followed of course…

Goof action Number 3….while following the truck with the flashing light we get to a point where the truck turns around and another truck takes us further up the road….for a second Mike is thinking of following the truck back the way we just came….

Goof action Number 4….While following the new “Follow me” truck, we come up on stopped car (a local waiting for the escort).  The follow me lady waves at Mike to stay on the right and fall in behind the new car…Mike passes …so he is still winning the construction race…..this time I did not follow… (Mike - being a civil engineer has its privileges)

Now we are safe and sound at our hotel room…the bikes are parked outside, the gear is unloaded, we have eaten our wonderful tenderloin sandwiches, and are drinking red wine from plastic water glasses.  Mike is down a few rooms talking to the bikers that have just finished the Divide Ride….or talking to the bikers who are starting the ride tomorrow…there are about 15 bikes at this hotel…..and a lot of them are off road bikes.  As the night is wearing on the Divide Ride stories are coming out as the hotel turns into a quasi motorcycle show!  See you on the Trail.  MnM

Last Day with Aaron and Kelly (Sunday)

Sunday 240 km……Up early this morning to work on the blog….Kelly sleeping in the big double bed beside me.  Mike showed up around 7:30 to clean up and pack up the bikes.  Breakfast in the linked trailers…….fruit, cereal and toast. 

Out onto the Forest Trunk Road for a day of dust and spectacular views….including a deer taking a drink at a bend in the river…there are cliffs behind her and she’s in a  kind of a canyon….postcard perfect!

The dust was scary in places when a car would pass us going the other way…and the dust would hang in the air for minutes…just long enough to start wondering if you were either going to be rear ended or driven into head on…it turned out there was nothing but dust to worry about…and I got everywhere!  I had to start wiping my visor with my glove every 20 minutes…so much for my shiny new helmet!

We had a late lunch in Cochrane and just happened to stumble into a vintage motorcycle ‘show and shine’ in the A&W parking lot.  A lot of really great looking vintage bikes…hot sunny day, cool bikes and rootbeeer…does it get any better….oh yeah…upgrade the rootbeer to a float….mmmmmm

This is the point where we said goodbye to Aaron…he went back home to Edmonton and we headed on to Calgary, to see Bill and Sharon, Leslie and Chris.  What fun, what a welcome home, what a great time and what food! Now you’re in trouble…we’ll be back.

Got sleepy with a big mug of tea, and a fire on the back porch fireplace.  Goodnight.

Day 1 - Riding with Aaron and Kelly

Our first day of riding…almost 300k…..not much but our destination was approximately 2 hours north west of Calgary at the Mountain Air Lodge.  Here we have a room booked in a rustic ‘outpost’ on the forest trunk road.  I call it an outpost as the rooms are in a long log structure, the restaurant/store is constructed by linking 3 transport truck bodies side by side and the gas is pumped directly out of a large tank into the awaiting pick-up and four wheelers.  We have stayed here in the past and the rooms have been spotless, the food limited but great and the gas …well it’s gas…..

Since we have Kelly and Aaron with us, the one room is not enough for the four of us…sooooo we have a compromise….the girls get the room and the boys get to camp…..Kelly is out niece from Toronto, visiting her Aunt in Calgary and Aaron is a riding buddy from the Mexico trip.  Now Kelly rides with us in Ontario but it's usually on the back of our Harley, so this is quite a change for her.  Aaron has his own BMW 800 with the new addition of side bags.

The camp site is on a bow in a beautiful mountain fed river…the water is the color of  the Caribbean…but man is it a lot colder.  Now don’t feel sorry for the boys, they just popped a bag of popcorn to take with them…. and since we are all a bit tired they’ll be sleeping like babies in no time.

Once we got checked in we took a road we have never taken before to a camping area where everyone brings their horses.  It’s pretty cool as there are horses and riders all over the place….and these are the real cowboy horses not  like the beauties of Ontario.

The end of the road wasn’t that far and we had a great ride down a smooth but dusty gravel road in between 2 mountain ranges.  At the end of the road there was the camping area on one side and a waterfalls on the other.  We did the hike up to the waterfalls but that was tougher going than any of us expected…we all feel out of shape…I think it’s the thinner air.  Haha

We had dinner in the room watching the day’s videos then it was off to repack and get ready for the night for the boys and Facebooking for the girls….we did manage to get a connection even out here.  Yeah Kelly!!!

Were in Calgary!

Ok we flew out of Toronto at 5:00 last night...no bags to check...just a pair of boots, my new helmet and our computer between the two of us.

We arrived in Calgary 7:00 local time, grabbed a taxi and were off the the Deerfoot Mall to meet up with a motorhome pulling a trailer full of bikes.

The bikes got dusty on the drive out here (gravel roads in Saskatchewan)...ha their adventure bikes...they love it, but ok.  There was a patch of oil under my bike, but it was just excess oil dropping out of the bike..Whew!  bikes out...loaded up, gear on and were off to Dave and Jolene's.

Found the house with the help of the GPS and spent a great night with them and the kids (Cole and Mckenna) talking bikes and looking at pictures.  Thanks for the great bed and the wonderful breakfast.

Were off to meet niece Kelly in Calgary and and Aron (Our Mexico riding buddy) and head north for a few days of riding.

Here's our GPS Tracking Device test

Well, we got a GPS "Spot" unit that is both an emergency beacon (that we'd rather never use) and a tracking device so that our blog stays up to date with our route and current location.  Pretty cool.  If we had an iPhone, which we don't, the Spot unit can be teathered and then effectively we'd have a world wide Sat iPhone / text messaging system.  With the unit we do have we are limited to 3 text messages that we pre-program on line so that we can give an MnM status "Ok / Checking in" or "How's work going? lol".

Anyway, we're working on the links so lets see how it goes.  Here's a test ride to where we loaded our bikes.

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0dDUbHvnlvf6grcE8NB4csINThqzfIoXx

The loading has begun August 3, 2011

 Here's the trailer almost empty.  Note the shelf at the front to the trailer for gear...it's full by the time we're done loading.

 Here's the Kawi and the Beemer waiting to go in the trailer...note my cell phone in the box on the back of the Beemer....where it will be for over a week until we open up again in Calgary!

Here's the trailer almost fully loaded up.

Ok as you can see in the pictures.....today was the big load up day…and guess what?  We have had beautiful weather for so long…but today it decided to rain!

I had Ted give me a ride home to pick up my 2 side bags and tank bag all loaded up and ready to go, and to bring 2 duffel bags of riding gear and tie downs.  It was then off to Milestone Motorsports to pick up my bike after a long stressful day at work….  The bike was ready to go shortly after we got there so I put on the rain gear and Mike and I were off to Port Hope to load up into the trailer.  The rain hit really hard right about that time…401, pouring rain, trucks…yup lots of fun!

The loading took a while as there are about 15 bikes to go into the trailer and a tons of gear…..around 2 hours and my bike was the very last one to go in…but the first one out at the other end!!!

Copies of ownership and registration and a waver to sign and we're all set.  See you boys in Calgary!

August Long Weekend

So the BMW is at Milestone Motorsports in Whitby - Hi Kevin and Alex (A great dealer by the way, mostly Harley’s but they can do anything) getting an oil and filter change the chain and sprockets looked at and changed if required, new knobblies put on and the BMW servicing done.  The bike has 18,000 km of mostly off road riding on it so it needs a bit of TLC every now and then.

We started the weekend purchasing a new pair of sleeping bags and pads from LeBarron on Woodbine Avenue in Markham…the prices are really good and the service was great. The prices have really come down from the last time we bought bags so that was great news.  Our tent is set up in the back yard as it has been so hot we have slept outside a few times – no air is really tough when it drops to a whopping 10 degrees at night to 28.  We pulled out the camp supplies including the stove, pots, compression bags and all the other stuff you need for camping.  Went through it all…did a dry run of packing up the bikes and ended up with this….

So here is a picture of all the stuff we need to take with us….

The bikes have to go to Port Hope for the loading process this Wednesday and then it’s a 1 week drive to Calgary in the back of a motorhometrailer to where we pick them up again in the WalMart parking lot.

Here is a list of the stuff we are taking:

Camping stuff

Tent

Sleeping bags

Sleeping pads

Whisperlight stove and fuel

Pots

Flashlights

Matches

Rope

Soap

Hand sanitizer

Waterbottles

Bike Stuff

Tools  (for the KLR and the BMW)

Rags

Oil

Windex

Tire gage

KLR tubes

Air compressor (compact)

GPS – waterproof for bikes

SPOT – Emergency beacon

Personal stuff

Riding gear (full body protection including pants, boots, jackets, helmets and gloves)

Rain gear

Clothes (longs, shorts, under)

Shoes

Toiletries/medicine

Computer

Camera

Chargers

Cell phones