Canada - USA Tour 2018 -part 2

 Monday arrived and one of our few days off from motorbikes,  a day mooching around Cody which is a cool if a little contrived town. It was raining, different to the last time we visited when it was hot and dry. One of my old pals from Perth Andy Gorrie had moved to the US 19 years ago and we'd been in contact, he came up to meet us for the night, he rode up from Casper on his Harley and had a pretty cold and wet run up. After he heated up and dired off we went to the famous Cody rodeo and despite the pissing rain, enjoyed it immensely,  back to the Imra hotel for more beer and a catch up to round off the evening. Tuesday and we said goodbye to Dave and Ann as they were off to Yellowstone to chase their own adventure,  we already had that T Shirt, we followed Andy on his Harley the 240 miles or so to his place in Casper. As we rode down the highway I spotted a big bird at the side of the road pecking on some roadkill as Andy approached it took off, a huge golden eagle, just missed him and was just fully unfurling it's wings when it almost got us, to me it looked like a prehistoric Teratornis,  huge and impressive,  glad none of us made contact though.
We spent a great night at Andy's in Casper, plenty toys to look at and he's certainly living the American dream, a night at a Japanese restaurant would you believe with a zany chef cooking in front of us and squirting Saki out of a bottle down our throats (I of course refused :-) ) great to catch up with his wife Pam and his kids as well.
After breakfast we took the Peter Allen suggested route to Evergreen, The 487 to Medicine Bow, then Saratoga for brunch (we stopped here last time and it was cool to be back again, onwards past a few National forests, the pine trees, meandering rivers and twisting roads as we rode up and down mountains made for an excellent ride.. We knew we were near Peter and Mickey's place when the Elk appeared at the side of the road, bloody huge and many off them.
We went out for dinner in Peters Dodge Ram which ticked a box for Fiona as she'd once again been admiring them on this trip, not sure I could afford to fuel one in Europe though. We met up with Chris and Lynn who we'd also spent time with on our last visit, both motorcyclists and like Peter were airline pilots. Plenty bike talk and travel talk meant the evening went too quickly.
The following day I helped Peter in his impressive workshop put the gearbox into his Vincent, later on Fiona borrowed Peters Mk3 Le Mans and we all went for a ride to Cactus Jacks for a beer, living the dream.

Cowboy country

It was raining so these hombres didn't get their gunfight

National Anthem time

Very cool

Round 1 Horse wins

ride em cowboy

waiting for the inevitable

ouch

Buckeroo

Just ropin some steers

amazing skills

Rather him than me

Funny thing is these guys on foot are there to protect the guy getting trampled

All happy bunnies

Following a Harley, first time for everything

great roads

and fantastic scenery

Andy's new shed, about 6 times bigger than my house

Mad chef

Saratoga brunch stop

Gone fishing

Peters cool E type tent and helmet stand

Work of art

Peter with his pre war new Imperial

shiney

simple lines

Ex factory 7R

This very bike was one of 3 factory bikes

Vinnie gearbox about to go into the crankcases

Ready to get geared up

Part of a 680 single project and going into a Norton frame to make a pretty nice Norvin

What happens when you ride a Vincent like you stole it

Perfect day and looking at old bikes

Fiona grinning after her ride on the Guzzi

getting fed

dusk falling, getting a nightcap

After a pleasant couple of days with fantastic hospitality it was time to get on the road again, Peter had told us that a friend of ours (John Martin from Texas) had an old pal that had created a Stonehenge with cars in Alliance, Nebraska and we should visit, having never been in Nebraska it would have been rude not to so off we went. We ended up staying at Chadron that night after a great ride through the Nebraska National forest and got an apartment in a hotel very cheaply by claiming my AAA membership discount (good tip if you are travelling ask for triple A discount) and no I'm not really a member.
John got in touch and told me his pal Jim Reinders gifted this to the town of Alliance and its now a visitor attraction, a nice piece of philanthropy.

The story, funny stuff and can you imagine the red tape to do this in the UK?

Carhenge

Home to many birds

Bizzare

but very cool

The car on top would have been a nice car in its day, very 50's Americana

Dinosaur

Nice idea (I now expect Bert to make something similar) 

Outside our rooms....

To be continued........