Bar Harbor to Bangor- Bill's Orange Vest.

After seeing the top of Cadillac Mountain, Brad and I spend the second half of the day tooling around Bar Harbor then decided to start heading west toward Bangor. The sun started to set and riding west into the sun is not a good idea no matter how dark your sunglasses are. So near Bangor Maine we stopped to get gas and directions to an affordable hotel. I fueled up, moved my motorcycle out of the way and went inside the gas station shop. I noted that this shop had two pay phones hanging inside with two old fashioned phone booths painted on the wall behind them so it appeared the pay phones were in the painted phone booths. I thought it was neat since phone booths are becoming a thing of the past. I'll try to take more pictures next time...

I walked back outside and Brad is talking to another customer pumping gas. This guy is associated with the military too such as the National Guardor Army Reserve. So we got to talking for some time. We got directions to a good hotel and bar near the airport in Bangor. Brad and I start talking about motorcycle vests. Notice our pictures - Brad wears a leather vest proudly displaying his ride pins. Bill wears the orange vest that meets the military regulations and no ride pins. Bill actually out grew his leather vest and is too cheap to buy a larger one! Anyway Brad told me that many people were asking him questions about his pins and the vest was causing others to start conversations. He suggested that I stop wearing my orange vest and wear my leather vest with pins because no one will come up and start talking to me about my vest! Well later we find our way to the hotel. While unpacking our bikes a woman comes up to me in the hotel parking lot telling me that I have a cool orange vest! So ha! Turns out that woman wears one just like mine! My orange vest does get attention and invites people to talk to me.

We did laundry at the hotel. The hotel even had complementary laundry detergent and scented dryer sheets! I know we are tough bikers but we like clean and fresh smelling clothes. We ate dinner at a bar near the hotel and planned to continue west thought New Hampshire and Vermont tofind some covered bridges we heard about.

2007 Sturgis and the decision to make plans to go no where.

In 2007 we organized a ride to Sturgis, South Dakota. Kevin, Brad, Jim and Bill (pictured left to right) started at points from Virginia to California and rode into Sturgis together. Bill started in Illinois and ended up riding to where the corners of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah met at the Four Corners Monument before finding his way north to Utah where he met up with Brad and Kevin.

We camped out on the hard, hot, alfalfa hillside at the Buffalo Chip Camp Ground. We attended the concerts each night and woke early enough to enjoy breakfast and go on some awesome daily rides before the summer sun baked the streets and the majority of the other rally-goers woke. We enjoyed riding to Deadwood, the Black Hills National Forest, Mt Rushmore, Custer, and the Crazy Horse Monument. We had a great time exchanging stories and seeing the Black Hills first hand along with the enormous crowds the Sturgis Rally draws.

Near the end of the rally the four of us split up and headed home. Bill never seems to make definite route selections. When asked how he was going to go home he would reply that he’ll follow some small road that headed east. He’d decide where to go at each intersection. Brad and Bill left the campground together heading south. Brad ultimately had to go to Utah and Bill to Illinois. They ended up on route 18 at Edgemont. Bill’s bike lost power and would not accelerate. While tooling around in Edgemont, the bike sputtered and coughed some black smoke out of the exhaust. This gave her a second wind. It must have had some bad fuel from somewhere because this never happened again (knocking on wood). They followed the back roads south and ended up in Laramie, Wyoming. The ride from Sturgis to Laramie was relaxing because we simply headed south without regard for the actual route. We knew that we’d find Interstate 80 at some point, which we did at Laramie. We realized how relaxing it was to be able to enjoy the scenery and stop to explore without being tied to a schedule. It was at Laramie were we decided to plan a ride to nowhere instead of rides to crowded motorcycle rallies. The 2008 trip around Lake Michigan was successful for us so here we are planning to ride east toward New Brunswick for 2009!