Gino's Travels: Canada - USA Tour 2018 -part 1

The main purpose of this trip was initially to meet up with Dan and Sara Pederson who were coming to the end of an epic 6 year round the world trip and initially planned to be in BC late August for a travelers meeting, we thought we'd surprise them but they surprised us, by being behind schedule, unfortunate but I'm sure we'll meet up sometime, somewhere. David Templeton, fellow Norton owner and his wife Anne joined us, we both hired Yamaha Tracer 900's from BC Cycles for no other reason than they were available and not too expensive for a 3 week hire.
The trip to Canada and the USA started with an early departure from home to get to Glasgow airport. Airports and flying are some of my least favourite experiences mainly due to being treated like a potential terrorist all of the time.
We met up with our travelling companions there, David and Ann T and finally got into our aluminium tube for our flight to Vancouver. Around 10 hours later we landed 2 hours after we left thanks to time travel in a hot and smokey Vancouver. The raging forest fires around the British Columbia province had given the town a ethereal feel, the taxi driver from Ethiopia almost elevated us to early death due to his spirited driving.
The following day we picked the bikes up from BC Cycles, somehow we were a day early, oops, however Mike the boss sorted out the revised paperwork and after squeezing our luggage on we left Vancouver on Highway 1, crossing the border at Suma, we had a little problem with US immigration, our previous entry cards from 5 years ago hadn't been returned, the border guard gave us a right telling off but in a funny way whilst I acted dumb (which I'm good at)

Smokey Vancouver

Maybe too much of this being smoked and not the forest fires

Wierd Sun due to smoke

Loading the bikes, the shop guy dropped Davids taking it out, not a great start!

USA Border

Day 1 in the big brother house

From there we headed to highway 20 in Washington State which is a nice road but the smoke kind of spoiled the ride, we stopped at lake Diablo for a picture but the smoke meant it was a bit of a waste of time.
We stopped for the night in Winthrope, a cool cowboy town and stayed at the same motel we stayed at years ago. The fires were so bad there was ash on the bikes in the morning . We continued the next day through similar scenery to Spokane, just before our Macd's breakfast stop we were following the road along the river when on our left an Osprey had just taken a fish of significant size and was flying alongside us just 10 feet away, a magical moment and that vision kept us going until we reached the KOA campsite , due to luggage limitations we couldn't carry cooking stuff so had to call in a Pizza, which was excellent and the campsite sold beer so all was good, I was also reunited with my old favourite craft beer "fat tyre" , the only issue is the railway line ran close to the camp site as is often the case so sleep was interrupted. day three we headed on the small roads to white Sulphur Springs for lunch then a wee bit of bad navigation saw us going a few miles in the wrong direction before turning back, the landscape in Montana is huge, they call it the big sky state and I can see why, deserted roads, mainly straight as an arrow for mile after mile, often we found ourselves running at 100 mph, far too easy to speed on these roads. The other thing that became apparent is that you need to fuel up when you can get it. We passed a rural filling station but I pushed on then ended up on the I90 running low on gas, a nervous lower speed run followed in till finally be got a Gas station, relief all round. The bikes we rented were the same, Yamaha 900 Tracers, after 3 days we had already both agreed on their shortcomings, vibration was worse than was expected, the engine felt flat, the bike was difficult in windy conditions, getting blown all over the place, fuel range was at maximum 180 miles which isn't enough. The bikes wandered at slow speed, the throttle heavy, suspension front and back poor, something always grounded going over speed bumps and it was really awkward for the pillion getting on and off. The plus points, it was reliable and easy to put on the centre stand.
The panniers were 21 litre Givi's, really cheaply made , awkward to lock and get off (I didn't bother as it was too difficult, David did and lost one later on in the trip (which involved a retracing of his route) cheap nasty and not recommended, Givi make some good stuff, just not these.
Anyhow, quick road test report there, we stopped the night at the campsite at Canyon Ferry, nice site and a nice evening, there was still a haze from the numerous Forrest fires so picture taking wasn't great. Funnily the lady at reception said they badly needed rain as there hadn't been any for months, just as we finished putting the tent up there was a short heavy shower, the Scots had arrived.

Lake Diablo, "Devil Lake" certainly had the fires turned up that day....

All smiles

Cool scenery, when you can actually see it

Winthrope, Three fingered Jacks, no idea what the story is

Hmmmm.....

Cracking with a good ole boy on holiday

Still smiling

authentic, I think

Wierd sun

Pony Expresso, hilarious

Nice old petrol pump

MacD stop

Petrol stop

More food stop ....and petrol

Only $2000 !

Restaurant at campsite, Anne blending in with her camouflage shirt

Sun very wierd

Chewing the fat

Fi wants one of these!

Fiona hard at work route planning

Onwards the following day to the nice little town of Red lodge, another KOA campsite and after a nice meal in town we got the campfire going and satisfied my Pyromania needs, Anne wasn't overly impressed with my use of the remaining lighter fluid to provide a more spectacular display, there was a fair amount of Whisky taken and I went to bed happy and drunk!
For this trip I decided to use my mesh jacket (a string vest with protection) and Kevlar jeans, as I awoke the next morning it was a little cooler but ok, we'd been recommended the Bear Tooth pass and Chief Joseph highway which is the more interesting route between Red Rock and Cody, Wyoming so off we set, the wind got up which made the ascent a bit hair raising, I was getting colder by the minute and by the time we reached the top I was almost hypodermic, we stopped and I put my waterproof jacket on to try and heat up but it was unlined so only kept the wind out. I was shivering that much I struggled to operate the throttle and the bike was pogoing along, not good, there is a shop near the top so I did get some shelter and a coffee, but was still freezing so chased down the pass looking for heat, as we turned onto the Chief Joseph highway I'd warmed up so I enjoyed it for a while until the wind got up making it a tad challenging again. Heading into Cody I'm sure we were holding up a guy on a Gold wing and at one point the wind blew all 3 bikes onto the wrong side of the road. I was happy to get to Cody and celebrated with a beer at the Occidental Hotel, founded by Buffalo Bill unfortunately the nightly gunfight wasn't on so the entertainment was just eating and drinking, we were quite lucky as the rain started and allegedly there ended up with 17 inches of snow on the Beartooth that night, we were lucky to just have a small flurry when we went over.