Niagara Falls

Only America can turn one of the natural wonders of the world into a skyscraper skylined tourist attraction! Still, it's very impressive;

Back in time

After a great party at Dave's sisters house in Chicago, it was back on that damn I90 to get out of the city. As soon as possible, we turned off, in search of countryside and small roads.

We found exactly that - Amish Country;

It seems a shame that the modern world has forced these people to install lights (indicators), registration plates and huge rear warning triangles - but such is life.

After lunch in a small Amish cafe, we continued eastwards along the farm roads, and were completely amazed by the craze that is sweeping the backcountry of the central-states - lawn-mowing!!! They mow EVERYTHING, and they mow it short and neat;

Field edges:

Trailer homes;

Even abandoned buildings, had the 'short back and sides' treatment;

After all that lawn excitement (and I have lots of photographs), it was time to try and get some miles under the belt - it was 3pm, and we still had over 200 miles to get to Cleveland, so you guessed it, back on the I90.

Avoiding the I90

The obvious route from Rapid City - South Dakota, to Chicago - Illinois, is the I90 interstate - Yuk - the same motorway for almost 800 miles.

Instead we decided to divert through the backcountry to Badlands National Park;

Once in Badlands, the scenery was impressive - thousands of acres of badly eroded landscape;

From Badlands, we reluctantly decided to head for the I90 to get q quick route to Chamberlain, as the motorcycle tyres were getting bald, and one of the bike sprockets was smoothed, so maintenance would be required.

Chamberlain - another motel, another evening, and more bike maintenance - 3 rear tyres changed, and a rear sprockets - then perhaps the most disgusting meal of the whole trip - a Dairy Queen burger - yuk.

Leaving Chamberlain, Caroline and I split off, to go and see Larry & Andi - friends of ours from London, who happened to be settled in Minneapolois - a great evening with fantastic food - nothing American in sight here - no fries, no burgers, no soda :-)

From Minneapolis to Chicago; a mere 450 miles (think London to Edinburgh), started with a lovely winding road alongside the Mississippi River - even thousands of miles from the sea, the river here is _huge_, in places several hundred metres wide !

Passing through the timber housed towns that edge the Mississippi River was like travelling back 50 years - twee timber clad houses, with immaculate lawns, and classic 60's Buick and Chevvy cars parked outside. Several of the twee houses had dungaree wearing old-timers, sitting in their rocking chairs, selling pumpkins by the container load.

Time was starting to run out though, and by midday we still had 300 miles to Chicago, so reluctantly we headed back towards the I90 - destination Chicago.

Parcels around the world

During the last 100-odd days we've had a few interesting experiences shipping goods around the globe.

1) Early on in the trip, one of the group lost their GPS (it bounced out of the cradle during some offroad riding). I had a spare at home so offered to get it shipped by DHL to Istanbul. We found the address of the hotel in Istanbul, and arranged to get DHL to send the GPS to the hotel (£50 please). When we arrived at Istanbul we phoned DHL, but unfortunately the GPS was stuck in customs, and they wanted £170 to release it. That's more than the current value of the GPS - ok, so can you send it back please - another £40 to return it, and they still wanted £170 for the customs. So there is currently a nice GPS sat at DHL in Istanbul.

2) The starter motor on one of the bikes was making very poorly grinding sounds, so we arranged to get one shipped in from Yamaha in the UK. The process started in Turkey, and we decided to get it shipped to Baku, Azerbaijan. DHL charged £130 to send the starter motor, and they gave an estimated time of arrival. So, for the next 4 days Scott and I pushed Carolines bike to start it - in 40degC heat !! In Georgia (before Azerbaijan) we checked the DHL website, and the parcel was indeed in Baku - fab. The only problem was that the DHL office was closed on Sunday, and only open on Saturday morning. It was currently Friday morning, and we were in Georgia, and we still didn't have our Azerbaijan visa !!

We received our Visa at 2pm on Friday, and dashed to the border - a border crossing thar took 6 hours to get through. We arrived at a hotel at 1am Sat morning! So, we awoke at 5am, with the aim to ride across most of Azerbaijan, aiming to be at Baku for noon. This actually went surprisingly well, until we got stopped for speeding by a gold toothed policeman in a Lada, wearing the most ridiculous hat, and stinking of aftershave - we were travelling at the same speed as all the other traffic, but seemingly it was only us that were speeding!! As we were in a hurry, we dished out the $100 (each) fine/bribe, and managed to make it to the DHL office in Baku with 30 mins to spare. As it was, the starter motor was never changed, as the grinding noise disappeared.

3) Some of the guys on the trip who changed to offroad tyres to early, had worn them out by Turkmenistan, so they ordered new ones to be shipped to Almaty (Kazakstan). The tyre cost £100, and the customs and shipping another £225. Per tyre!!

They also had agro getting them through customs, as (apparently) the tyres were all on different planes (right-o) and so customs processing was being delayed, and the weekend was approaching.....

4) Front wheel rims were next - they were ordered in Korea, and the plan was to ship them to Anchorage. Rims cost £140, and DHL shipping was £160 (fast delivery). After much messing around, the rims finally left London when we were 1 day away from Anchorage - they would surely never make it. We watched the DHL tracking website, and the rim went from London-Heathrow-EastMidlands, by the next morning the parcel was in America. That evening we arrived at Anchorage, and no sign of the parcel - the website said the parcel was still in America. We spent the morning drifting around bikeshops, getting warmer clothes and spare tyres. By the time we returned to the hotel, the rims had arrived !!!! Bonus!!

5) Riding Europe only motorcycles in North America caused us problems with getting chain&sprockets (normal consumable items), we had spent several hours on the internet comparing part numbers against other bikes, and thought we had a list of bikes that had compatible parts - only to discover that these other bikes were also not imported to America! Another few hours were spent in a bike shop on Vancouver Island with some very helpful chaps, who helped us sort some compatible parts - but we still did not have a rear sprocket. We had kept a used rear sprocket, so that was reused, but now there was nothing for it, but to ship some from the UK.

As we had plenty of time, we used Royal Mail, and shipped them to an address in Jasper, Canada. We arrived at the hotel in Jasper about a week later, and went to retrieve the parcel - alas, there is no postal system in Canada - it seems that all (normal) post is left at postal boxes. Ok, so where's the postal box - oh that has a totally different address to the hotel address!! So where are the sprockets - god only knows - we are still to track them down.

So, the next time someone says 'just stick them in the post', give it a little bit more thought.

Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota; 3 states in 1 day, who said America was big..

First stop in the morning was tyres - it's been a pain over the last few months to get hold of any tyres, but now, finally we had some in stock.

After leaving Billings, it was a short hop to Little Big Horn - the site of 'Custer's Last Stand' - classic Cowboys and Indians stuff! Then back to the highway, for a long and dull ride through some fantastic scenery (if that makes sense)

The highlight of the day tho' (as suggested by Larry), was the Needles Highway, enroute to Mount Rushmore - a fantastic rocky, foresty, hilly, bouldery, national park. The road wound around huge rocks and through huge rocks, and over wooden bridges-and-through huge rocks;

The rocks peaked out of the treeline;

Until all of a sudden Mount Rushmore appeared through the forest;

Marlboro Man in Montana

Montana _is_ the roaming grounds of Marlboro Man - the ranches, the horses, the cattle, the yellowish grass and mountain back drop. And it goes on for miles, and miles, and miles..

We were even lucky enough to see him in action;

Wild ranches of Montana

A very pleasant evening on the balcony of our motel with a bottle of local wine, watching the sun set over the mountains in Radium Hot Springs.

It was soon time to leave Canada and head into Montana (border crossings, compared to Asia, are a complete breeze these days) - immediately the scenery changed to dry yellow fields; ranch country;

The ranch terrain provided wildlife for our entertainment - deer jumping fences alongside the road, and bounding alongside for 10's of metres before leaping back into the ranch from where they came - fab.

Ranch-land soon ran out, as we turned North-East for Glacier National park, and more pine covered mountains, glacial rivers, and scenic twisty roads - spoilt !!