Stu's Friday Travels (or not) - Sadie broke curfew

Seems like the weather got a little severe in SD, Stu posted this on Facebook this morning:

Getting rained and hailed on today in Rapid City. Not sure if we leave for Colorado today or not. Catching up on rest and laundry.
> near Rapid City, SD

Then early afternoon:

Finally getting some food. Loaded the bikes and we will meet the rest of the crew and start to Colorado. Late but perhaps a little drier — at Arnold's Classic Diner.

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Later in the afternoon;;;
>On the road. Weather cleared enough to go. Hate that hail stuff. Road construction delay Just outside of — at Hot Springs South Dakota.

In for the night. Some very interesting weather and clouds on the ride here. Rain was minimal. — at Wheatland, WY.

We'll see what the weather brings tomorrow....

Back on the home front, Sadie never came home all day yesterday so I let her "sleepover" with her BFFs. She watched me take the motorcycle out this morning (gas run) and then watched me come back. There is a big rock in the field and I suspect she likes sunning on it. Well, about ten minutes later, guess who comes bumping at the door (her version of knocking).

Yup, Miss Sadie - the neighborhood social butterfly. She immediately crashed in her bed and started snoring LOUDLY. She slept about 3-4 hours and then was off again. But guess what, tonight she came home as it got dark. ;-)

Stu's Thursday Travels - half day of rest & errands

Talked to Stu this morning and the group had decided to stay another night at the hotel. Duane & Bonnie needed to laundry and Mr. Earl needed an oil change. Stu was just bumming around. They planned to do Deadwood and Spearfish Canyon this afternoon.

First login was here: Downtown Deadwood SD.

Last login was here: Late dinner after a full day riding. Spearfish crayon, Deadwood, Sturgis and all the roads in between. — at Ruby Tuesday of Rapid City.

Me? I slept in a little and after letting Sadie out for her day of play, I decided to give my new hair clippers a try out before I jumped in the shower. It was actually pretty easy to do with the color coding. I think I can keep this up easily now, trimming it every 4 weeks or so. I stuck with 1" on the top but when we head off on Route 66, I may trim it shorter to allow for two months of travel.

This is the set I got....each color is a different length, I started with 1" on the top and used shorter lengths around the ears and up the neck.

Oh, you wonder what it looks like? Not much different than any other haircut...honest.

Sadie is like a kid gone to summer camp who never wants to come home. LOL! She loves having a pack to play with (2 Chihuahua, 2 Beagle, 1 Shepherd and her). She hasn't eaten at home for a week...finally took a big bag of dog food to our neighbors. She's a happy pup (and a tired one every night).

Stu's Wednesday Travels - Mt Rushmore, here they come!

Today is a total sightseeing day - no trailers. Know they enjoyed that!

Mr Earl posing — at Mount Rushmore National Memorial.

 in Keystone, SD ·

With old and new friends — at Mount Rushmore National Memorial.

in Keystone, SD ·

Custer State Park. Custer, SD

at Custer State Park. Custer, SD.

Pronghorns — at Custer State Park. Custer, SD.

at Custer State Park, SD...Needles Highway.

When I talked to Stu tonight he told me about meeting some blog followers that recognized him but he couldn't remember their name. About 30 minutes later I got the following email:

Hi Donna,

Rudee and I are work camping at Crazy Horse this summer. She works the gift shop and I work the entrance gates. I had a group of bikes come through and one looked awfully familiar but I wasn't sure so I didn't say anything.

Later I was taking my break and saw the group walking around the grounds and then it hit me, "that's Stu!". I went out and asked them if one of them was named Stu and married to a "Froggi". I told him I had been a blog follower from way back and we had a nice chat.

Looks like we still need to meet you though, maybe one day our paths will cross as well.

Phil (and Rudee too!)

http://workinrvers.blogspot.com/

ps: I probably didn't recognize him at the gate because of the young shapely blond in the back of his trike! LOL, just kidding of course!

See, you never know who you will run into out on the road, be it in your car, RV or motorcycle!

A great day of riding, they will decide tonight if they want to hotel it here one more day or not. Tomorrow they plan to ride through Deadwood, Spearfish Canyon, Sturgis and maybe Devil's Tower.

Stu's Tuesday Travels - The Duwopers Ride!

Moving rapidly through SD...

The Duwopers are at — at Doo-Wah Ditty's Diner., Kimball SD

 Now in Mountain time zone - perfect weather!

Just before going on the park — at Badlands S.D.

At Badlands National Park

Gotta have some ice scream after riding through the Badlands — at Wall Drug Store Inc., Wall, SD

Two nights here while we ride the black hills — at Big Sky Lodge.

The group decided to get a hotel in Rapid City and spend two days riding, one sans trailers. Good decision! They discovered two good friends from back east are here as well. They flew out and rented a bike to ride with some other friends. They're all having dinner tonight.

Stu's Monday Travels - first day with the guys (and 1 gal)

Here is the Facebook reporting from Stu today:

10:00AM
Has to stop. The bike just turned. I couldn't help it honest! — at Big Barn Harley-Davidson., Des Moines, IA

NOONish

Gas stop — at City of Manning., IA

4:00PM

Truck stop stop for gas and coffee — at Coffee Cup. Vermillion, SD

8:30PM

In for the night — at Best Western., Mitchell, SD

9:00PM

Steak dinner and a few beers — at Chef Louie's Steak House & Lounge., Mitchell, SD

Looks like a great day to me!

A little something and a lot of nothing....

Wow, more than a week has passed since we arrived. We've been busy catching up with errands and chores mostly. We did get a giggle as we drove into town one day. The neighbor's Beagle mix treed what looked to be either a Guinea Hen or wild Turkey in one of our trees. This was the best I could do with my cell phone.

Stu spent his time putting some miles on the trike before going in for a 10k service appointment. The rest of his time was spent getting the bike and trailer ready for his three+ week trip with his guy pals. They are taking two weeks to ride my Maryland out to Sturgis, do some major sightseeing and then back. They leave on Saturday and will meet up with Stu in Omaha on Monday.

He loaded up yesterday afternoon in great weather and headed for his first night in Mammoth Cave National Park.

He's had good weather thus far and I hope that will continue throughout the trip. He posted a photo of his camp site. He's taking this opportunity to test out all our camping gear that we plan to use on our Route 66 trip this fall.

So I'm a bachelorette for the next 3+ weeks. I've got some paperwork to catch up with, plus trying to post something in all my blogs before the weekend. Then it's time to start serious work on "Barely a Spark", book two in my Klondike Mystery Series. I'm trying to write some more flash fiction, too. Today I did a new Five Sentence Fiction.

I'm also starting my 15 Day Body Reset Diet - for anyone interested you can follow along HERE. Today is day one!

Weather and Wall SD

We all love our lifestyle because we can move easily, at least most of the time. But sometimes we can't move or can't move quickly enough and we get exposed to some nasty weather.

We've sat or driven through:

• Hail
• Snow
• Earthquakes
• Heavy rain
• Wind
• Fog
• Driving the RV in snow

What about you? Have you had to deal with severe weather or have you been able to move/out run it?

BONUS: Wall, SD

Montana, Micro-Brews and Motorcycles

We like our micro-brews and try to visit as many as we can. We've been a bit lax lately but here are some of our past visits in various states:

• VT - More Vermont travels....and breweries.
  
• ME - Another good day of riding....
  
• LA - Today was free beer day....
• MT - On our way to Glacier National Park...
  
• MT - Missoula to Butte Update
  
• AK - Cruise to Alaska - Day Eight - Seward
• AK - Day Fourteen: Victoria, B.C. Canada
• UT - Oh the places we've seen...take 2

Of course motorcycling is one of our biggest passions. When we got together, I had sold my last motorcycle and Stu had his first (since dirt bikes as a kid). I am on bike two and he is on bike three since then. I think these are our last....unless I move to a trike someday.

We've been on some amazing rides and been to some fun events since we met in 2008. Here are just a few samples.

• Gillette WY Updates - Escapade, SOLOS & Motorcycle...
• Yellowstone - Day Two
• Yellowstone - Day One
• Red Helmets Ride
• Family, Motorcycles & Northern Kentucky
• Rock Hall Bike Fest
• A great day for riding...
• Sturgis Roundup.....
• First day at Bike Week
• 10th Anniversary Ride to Remember 9/11

BONUS: Montana

It was meant to be?

Sometimes the wind blows us in strange directions. Take all this into account:

• Stu had never been to North Dakota
• Stu needed a Harley-Davidson t-shirt from North Dakota
• We were already in South Dakota, ready to head east to Milwaukee
• We bought land in Jamestown, TN
• I bought my first Harley in Jamestown, NY
• Jamestown, ND was due north of where we were in North Dakota
• We had several days leeway in our time table for getting to Elkhart, IN

See? Everything was conspiring to get us to the Harley dealer in Jamestown. So we routed a slight detour (ended up adding 435 miles to our trip) and headed north. We made it to the Harley dealer about 5:15 (they closed at 6:00).

As soon as I walked in the door I saw it....I heard it calling my name....I was entranced. Ever since I read the review in our H.O.G. (Harley Owners Group) magazine about the new, improved Sportster...the SuperLow...I was hoping to get a look at one.

Not only was it a SuperLow, the color combination drew my attention immediately. The colors on the Harley website just hadn't done justice to the two-tone orange and white bike. I had to sit on it. I had to touch it. I had to drool over it.

After Stu dragged me away from the bike, we picked up our t-shirts and asked if we could stay there for the night. They have a huge gravel parking area where we had parked, perfect for an overnight. They said sure and we told them we might be back in the morning.

We talked a lot last night, checked out the HD accessory book, talked some more and left it that we would see what they might do for a trade-in on my bike.

Fast forward to 4 pm today....and Stu loading my brand new 2011 Birch White & Sedona Orange Harley-Davidson SuperLow motorcycle. I got a fair trade-in and a discount on all the accessories I wanted...unfortunately they didn't have any of the bigger accessories in stock so those will come later.

So why a new bike? I'd only had my Nightster for a year (7000 miles worth). Well, we want to ride Route 66 next spring. My old bike had a 3.2 gallon gas tank, the new bike has a 4.5 gallon. That means we can ride close to 200 miles before stopping for gas instead of the current 100 or so miles. (Some of the difference is the new bike has a smaller engine.) The other is a completely redesigned motorcycle...all lowered bikes have rougher rides. Harley made some major improvements in this area and from all the reviews, I think my back is really going to appreciate the softer ride. Add in a better seat and a brand new 24 month, unlimited mile warranty...just makes sense.

I'm looking forward to many miles on my new ride....

Till next time - keep on rollin',
Donna and Stu