Ride from Champaign to Seattle

[p_s]

Day 6: Thursday, May 8, 2008
Start: West Yellowstone, Montana
End: Missoula, Montana
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Walter Gropius&hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl

My original plan for the previous night had been to sleep in Jackson, WY, outside of Grand Teton, but the road to Grand Teton from Yellowstone was closed for another day--it opens Mother's Day weekend. Maybe it was a crazy plan anyways. So I ended up in West Yellowstone. That killed my US-93 twisties path from Jackson to Missoula. Well, after a long detour I managed to get the very last of the twisties. For an hour or two I was at a high enough elevation to be riding among snow-covered pine trees, but the sun was out this time, and it didn't feel as special as the previous day.

The day was pretty uneventful, and at 330 miles, one of my shortest. I did hit a nasty, long stretch of construction south of Missoula on US-93, which later caused an annoying rear brake squeal. Early in the day, my idle had somehow gotten stuck at 3k once. Wiggling the idle stop brough it down again. Then this happened again in Missoula rush-hour traffic, which was slightly scary. When I found a hotel, I thought "air leak" and sprayed all over the intake with WD-40 with no results.

Oh well. I walked around Missoula, which is a classic college town. I stopped at a scooter shop and chatted about scooters, riding, Seattle, and life. (I also ride a '63 Vespa, and they had some more recent but very similar scoots, so we had something to talk about.) I had coffee at a coffee shop that also stocked probably over 100 microbrewed beers. A beer sounded good at the time, but they told me they had no beer license so I couldn't have it there.

Another customer brought a beer to the register and asked them to open it. They repeated that they had no license, and he said he was taking it outside. They opened it. On my walk back to the hotel I saw another fellow drinking a beer on the street, with no brown bag around it. I asked the pothead alcoholic college-aged clerk about it, and he said the fine for public alcohol consumption was only $25 and that Montana is per-capita the drinkingest state. Aha.

I still had $50 on my daily meal allowance, and I had spent none of them yet. I'd eaten some cereal at the hotel for breakfast and a candybar for lunch--I don't like to ride on a heavy stomach. So I found one of the pricier places in town, the Pearl Cafe and Bakery, and had one incredible meal: to drink, two glasses of a locally brewed porter, for the entree: "Boneless rabbit, herb marinated, bacon wrapped, grilled and served with fresh locally raised wild mushrooms, tomato and rosemary sauce and baked pasta flan", and a very rich chocolate cake and coffee for dessert.

There was an indie rock band staying at the hotel, and I decided to go to their show. They were pretty awful, but the previous band I enjoyed. Better was the strong IPA beer that was supposed to be $3 a cup, but they gave me for $2 because there was too much foam on top. Missoula is a place I definitely would have liked in my undergraduate years. (Austin Texas ain't bad for music & beer, though, either.)

This was the one bad night of sleep I had on the trip. The indie rock band was the depressing introspective type, but they were clearly not feeling depressed or introspective when they returned from the club. There was shouting and whopping until about 3 am. By the time I woke up at 9 they had already left--I'd like to think they saw me tinkering with my bike and knew I had the tools and know-how to make them very late for their next appearance. (My valve caps double as a valve core tool.)

 

[p_s]

Day 7: Friday, May 9, 2008
Start: Missoula, Montana
End: Pasco, Washington
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=....709736,-116.477051&spn=3.457594,9.613037&z=7
(Last part not entirely correct.)

I woke up late and poorly-rested and missed the continental breakfast. Had a good cup of coffee and zucchini bread around the corner from the hotel and made my way out of town. The route today was the famous twisties of US-12 from Missoula to Lewiston.

When I left, the temperature was in the upper 40s, but it was sunny and the mountains blocked the wind. I passed a few white-knuckled tourists in rentals and found I had the road to myself for the next hour. The road climbed high enough that for a decent stretch there was still snow on both sides of the road. A ways into Idaho I lost some elevation, and the temperature got up into the 60s, which was the perfect temperature for all the gear I was wearing. This part of the route follows a river and the sides of the road were greener than any I'd seen the whole trip. There were tourists rafting down the river, who looked very happy, but I was happier riding my old Suzuki GS. Many of my friends thought the bike would leave me stranded somewhere in South Dakota, but the bike was running great and I had less than 400 miles left in the trip.

I'd been warned of out-of-control racers on motorcycles and sportscars. I didn't meet any motorcycles. I did cross one group of Miatas and another of assorted sportscars. Both groups stayed inside their lanes and didn't do any stupid stunts. The locals in pickup trucks were well-behaved, too, unlike the seasonal workers in the mountains of Yellowstone NP a couple days prior.

I stopped for gas in unincorporated Powell Junction, which was a gas station, a general store, and a few cabins. Gas here was $4 a gallon, fifty cents more than I'd paid hours earlier in Missoula. The woman running the place said they were just very remote and had to pay a lot more to get gas deliveries. (10 miles later I reached a few towns and gas was down to $3.60. But not a big deal when you get 3 gallons at a time.)

There was an older gentleman in the store who saw my gear and my way out-of-state plate and wanted to chat--he was the only person in my trip (besides GS Resources folks) who understood what was I was doing. It turns out he'd moved from some city somewhere to rural Idaho to write books and man a fire lookout. He also used to ride. Both of our first bikes were 3-speed automatic clutch Hondas--his the dirt 90cc model, mine the street 72cc. He had previously owned a GS850 (or some GS model, anyways, that was bigger than mine), but lost it in a roundabout and didn't own it anymore. He was selling a book he wrote on his adventures to raise money for a local boy who had liver cancer, which they'd cured, but whose family had massive outstanding medical bills. A good cause. (I need to finish what I'm reading now and get on with his book.)

It was good to have a proper conversation again--I hadn't had a good one since leaving DanTheMan's 5 days before in Minnesota.

I went on and the twisty pleasant roads ended and I was in Lewiston. I tried to find the old spiral highway that GSJohn had mentioned but I took a wrong turn and missed it. *sigh* I'd had a pretty good day thus far anyways. Maybe 40 minutes later I met GSJohn in Pomeroy, Washington.

I ate a club sandwich at an old diner and then he took me on the scenic route to the tri-cities of eastern Washington. I don't remember the roads, but there were straight bits, sweeper turns, tight turns, hills, lakes, bridges--everything you need. We arrived in Pasco and went over to GSJohn's neighbors, who were celebrating because they'd just poured a new driveway for their second garage. This garage had a nice couch, a flatscreen television, and a stereo system, and they spent a lot of time there. They were many beers ahead of me when we arrived, but one tall big man made sure that I caught up. ("ILLINOISE!" he'd shout, pointing at the refrigerator, and I wasn't going to argue or tell him the "s" in "Illinois" is silent.) I fell asleep in seconds and slept late.

(Photos shamelessly linked from GSJohn's photobucket site.)

 

[p_s]

Day 8: Saturday, May 10, 2008
Start: Pasco, Washington
End: Seattle, Washington
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=....013971,-120.690308&spn=1.842724,4.927368&z=8

I woke up late with a mild hangover and ate a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, and fruit served by Mrs. GSJohn. And lots of coffee. Then we went out and picked up some brake caliper grease so I could take care of my noisy rear brake. We called around trying to find an allen-head bolt to replace the one that rattled out of the tail cover with no luck, but on the way out of town GSJohn took me by a big motorcycle dealer and they had the exact one.

On a short run on the freeway my turn signals stopped working, and then one of GSJohn's fell off of his bike. We parted ways at a gas station, but first I put on the tunes. Well, I tried to but my iPod gave me the sad face. I bashed it a few times and it came back to life. (The sad face means hard drive problems, and many people have reported that percussive maintenance can help.)

The plan today was to ride up to US-2 and through Stevens Pass and onto Seattle. About 40 minutes into the trip I heard a noise and felt something very not right in the pegs. I pulled the clutch and the bike rolled on fine, I slowly let out the clutch, and it still ran okay, and then I pulled over where it was safe. My taillight had halfway fallen off, and the end of my tie-down strap was shorter and frayed. I hadn't touched the jerry can since day 2 until the previous day when I knocked it putting away some gear when I met GSJohn. The only thing I can think of is that somehow the tie-down strap got caught in the rear wheel, and it pulled down and snapped the taillight before the strap broke.

I arranged something with the bungee cord GSJohn gave me and some bailing wire to hold up the taillight. I didn't do a very good job, as 1 mile later my bike died with a total electrical failure. The taillight was dangling by its wires and one had chafed to the point of grounding out and zapping the main fuse. Of course I burnt up 3 fuses before figuring it out. I wrapped some electrical tape over the chafed wires, took off the tail cover, and did a better job with some bailing wire. (On the way back I'm packing two-part plastic epoxy.) I also noticed a tiny break in one of the wires from the turn signal relay, and with some electrical tape solved my intermittent turn signal problem. I stopped a few times over the next couple of miles, and my taillight was okay, but my iPod died for good.

I was in an awful mood at this point, so I decided to save an hour and just hightail it on I-90 to Seattle. It was wrong, but I just wanted the day to be over with. Looking back now it seems like such a silly thing to get upset over. Of course even on I-90, you have to pass through the mountains. At the beginning of the ascent I saw a bike pulled over onto the shoulder and I stopped to offer help. The motorcyclist waved me on--he was just putting on some winter gear. I saw a few more motorcyclists doing the same thing not much further on, but I was too grumpy and impatient and stubborn for that, so I just kept going. I did get very cold in the pass, but only for maybe 10 minutes, and then it got warmer and sunnier. It wasn't much fun riding the pass with all the big rigs and cars for company. I won't make that mistake again.

I made it from I-90 to I-5 to the exit to my friend's house, and then I was lost and my bike was idling at 3k again. Sometimes whacking the throttle open and closed in neutral would cure it, but sometimes I'd just make a lot of noise and irritate people. I was in stop-and-go traffic a good bit, and almost everytime I pulled in the clutch this would happen, I'd wiggle the idle adjuster, and it'd go away. After getting well lost, I pulled over, killed the engine, and tried to figure out where I was. I got my bearings, arrived at my friend's and started throwing my gear everywhere and cursing at the bike. I asked if there were a cliff nearby where I could toss the bike over. I'm not normally so short-tempered with innocent machines, but something had snapped inside. At least the long trip was over and now I had a couple days to fix whatever was wrong with the bike before my job started. An unexpected plus was that my friends had a garage that they didn't use, and there was plenty of room to get greasy.

Postscript: I can't hold a grudge, so I went to work on the bike the next day. Shockingly, Aurora Suzuki up the road from my friend's had float bowl and clutch cover gaskets in the back. The clutch cover leak actually seems to have gone away on its own. The bike is in good shape again. I was apprehensive about having an old motorcycle as my only transportation here (at home I have two bikes and a car), but it's been okay. Yesterday I visited a friend in Tacoma and replaced all the generic 10W40 I'd been adding during the trip with new Rotella. The bike shifts smoothly and precisely again--what a difference fresh, good oil makes. If you're reading this, John, thanks for all the help and the espresso.

THE END.

 

[Craiger]

Great story! Thanks for taking the time to put everything down in writing.

 

[DanTheMan]

Hey, Paul, nice story!!!! I never did finish mine after my California trip last year, only got about halfway through the story.......:-D

 

[bonanzadave]

Congrats on a fine ride. I enjoyed the story. You were very near me when you went by St Olaf. I had just picked up the grandkids in Northfield and was enjoying the day at a park. I would have liked to have met you and rode a while but the bike was down and it was just not in the cards. Maybe on youre way back.......

 

[p_s]

Thanks for the good comments. Oh, also big thanks to Skreemer, DanTheMan, and GSJohn for putting me up and riding with me.

I am riding back in mid-August. I won't have quite as long since I have a wedding to get to. (Not mine, but I will be a groomsman.)

The thought has crossed my mind of doing an Iron Butt. I did 600 mi on 2-lane roads one day with a pulled back muscle, no kidney belt, and I was underdressed that morning for the cold. I could get one of those water vests that evaporates over a whole day to keep cool, ride interstates, and maybe it'd be possible. I'm taking the northern route through Glacier NP and then there is not much else to see afterwards anyways.

 

[alton_blair]

Thanks alot for the story. I have been thinking about taking a trip like that for a long time.

 

[p_s]

Thanks alot for the story. I have been thinking about taking a trip like that for a long time.

Thanks for reading it. The return trip is here: http://thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?t=131060