Summer 2009 Geezer Tour

[TexZilla]

My self and a friend from Tn are in the beginning phases of trip planning to Yellowstone and Glacier NP's this summer.Departure time will be mid June to early July.Bikes will be slighty farkled FJR 1300 and BMW 1150GS.Most nights will be in a KOA campground with the occasional hotel thrown in.Rendavous and exodus will be from Kansas City.We no longer have to prove to ourselves that we can do the exrememly long days in the saddle.We are looking to Two lane as much as possible and wear our cameras out. Our photo theme will be bridges,barns, and backroads....

We will try the badlands,devils tower,a trout stream or two and whatever else we find .We will avoid crowds whenever possible.
We have planned this before but either my work or his health,or just life in general, has held us back. We are way past being kids but we still like the adventure of seeing things and going places for the first time.

Feel free to give some travel advice on where to stop,stay, diner's and such. We will probably head north first and then counter clockwise working our way down towards the Durango area before breaking off for Texas and Tn on our ways home.I am sure we hit the square in Santa Fe,the Durango diner,Elkhorn cafe, and more than a few home cooked campfire meals.

[busric]

Sounds great! One place I can recommend is a campground west of Hill City, S.D.. Hill City is west of Mt. Rushmore. Once you hit Hill City, ask for directions to Deerfield Lake campgrounds. Anyone there will tell you. Along the road up to the lake's campgrounds is a small stream. The stream has a few "holes" where trout are abundant and I speak from several trip's experience. Tent camping is no problem and the campgrounds are well taken care of also. The best campground I found is called Whitetail and it's darn nice for tenting. After leaving the Deerfield Lake you can take some really cool backroads that will bring you out on the Wyoming Hiway 85 by 4 Corners and take you north to Devil's Tower. These backroads are some gravel but very easy riding considering the bikes you will be riding. Just an idea for ya since it's a very cool ride through there and hardly any people to share the road with on the way.

Also, in Hill City, they have an old steam train you can ride on that's pretty cool also.

http://peternorbeck.americasbyways.net/

Not sure how old ya are but I'm in my late 50s now and would do that trip in a heartbeat. Some of my early days of riding took place on the backroads north of KC. That was back in my days of owning a Kawa H2 and burning pavement.

[Toe]

At least you are doing this trip in July!

My buds and I had 2 trips this year. First to Big Bend in July and then the same Yellowstone trip you describe in September. I told them that we had them scheduled backwards, but plans were set.

Turns out I did not get to go on the Yellowstone trip. However the big story from the trip was that they ran into an ice storm on the top of Beartooth pass (US212), and had to abandon the bikes on the top! They got rides down in cars and then had to go back up the next day to recover the bikes.

[ljjohns]

One caution: the Ride to the Sun in Glacier didn't open until after the 4th of July. But the National Park Service has websites for its parks, and you can check the Glacier Park site for info on open/closed roads.

Did that ride last summer, and would do it again.

Larry Johnson
El Paso