Day 32: Tribune, KS (again)

We woke up feeling a little rough. Maybe it was the bed or maybe all this caught up with us. I had a pretty sore throat, probably from the rain and cold. We enjoyed the hotel breakfast and left right around check-out time.

The day was really uneventful. We rode through the valley until we hit plains. Thankfully the mountain the day before was the only one, so it was warm as we rode; beautiful weather actually for the first little bit. The highlight of our trip came just as we left the valleys. We were starting to get hungry and it was close to lunch. (well probably a few hours after lunch because we are always a few hours behind). We started to look around for restaurants and decided against this one:

 
Yep. I think that's supposed to be an x. It doesn't look like an x. At the next stoplight a Colorado parks and game officer rolled down his window and asked if we had just taken a picture of that sign and then told us how it was a really good restaurant but as soon as they put that sign up hardly anyone goes there anymore. We were all laughing pretty hard.

We ended up eating McDs for lunch and stopped once more for a heat and gas break. When we got back on the road it was windy, about 15-20 mph according to our weather app. It really beats you up and takes it outta ya. And it was downright hot, in the mid-90s.  We'd get some relief driving past fields that had been well watered. The wind would take the coolness off the field and blow it our way so it felt a lot like AC. But as soon as the plot ended it was hot again.

We eventually made it to Mic and Carol's again. It was so good to see welcoming, familiar faces (and the dog, Jess). We had a 'farm dinner,' as Carol put it, of corn, mashed potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, biscuits, and fried chicken. In the words of Mr. Food, ooh it was so good. That's a bikers kind of meal. We talked for a while and then watched the RNC on TV. It was the first time we'd really watched TV in the last 30 days. The last time we were here I remember the moon was near full and very beautiful on the open fields. It felt like we had been there just the week before but I noticed the moon was near full again, reminding me of how long it had actually been. We took our shower and caught up on the blog before we went to bed.

Today we traveled 299.7 miles for a total of 9323.3 miles across America.

Day 31: Arches National Park & Salida, CO

We got up around eight and had everything packed and were on the bike by 9. We aren't that efficient even when at home. We stopped at a local gas station for another one of Mrs. Hostess' famous breakfasts. We were tempted into a donut and breakfast burrito instead and, according to Devin, the best coffee of his life. We went up the road and into Arches National Park, saving another $10 with our card. We stopped first at the balanced rock.

There are over 2000 arches in this park. The minimum space must be 3 feet to qualify as an arch. Thats the smallest there and the biggest is 75 feet or something. Another cool fact is that the soil is living...there is a bio crust made up of cyanobacteria, fungi, lichens, etc that provide nutrients and water retention to plants. So it's really important to stay on the trails there. We saw delicate arch from afar. We drove down to Devils Garden where there were several arches, but it was quite a hike (several miles). It was getting really hot and close to lunchtime so we just left. We caught one more arch on the way out.

We drove into Colorado and stopped at Wendy's for lunch. We rested for a little while and got back at it, stopping again for gas about 100 miles later. By this time it was raining pretty good so we took our time and sat for a while at the gas station. We looked at the radar and saw we were heading right into the rain. Luckily we were in a town with a wal mart (which is surprisingly rare out this way). We went there and bought cheap rain suits. It want too much longer after that out started to sprinkle. The sky ahead was really dark so we pulled over roadside and put em on.

 (those are Doritos in my pocket)

We hit rain just as we were entering the mountains. The farther we went the colder it got and the harder the rain fell. It stung the open parts of skin and I felt bad for Devin not having gloves. We crossed over Monarch Mt. and the temp gauge on the bike read 40. All you can do in that situation is hunker down and just go. Dev had the hazard lights on and we crept along until we made it to Salida, CO, an actual town. We stopped there and got a hotel room at the Days Inn.

The kid working the desk, whose parents owned the hotel, was from Chicago (and it showed...). We got settled in and went to Wallbangers bar & grill which was within walking distance and got good reviews on yelp. We shared fried pickles and I got an amazing roasted poblano chowder and Dev had excellent chicken fingers with wing sauce he said was some of the best he's had.

We went back to the room and enjoyed a really hot shower before hitting the hay fairly early.
Today we traveled 372.7 miles for a total of 9023.6 miles across America.

Day 30: Bryce Canyon & Moab, UT

We awoke feeling a little better about the day before. We needed to do laundry so while we did we made PBJs for lunch and packed up. We finally got away just after 11am and headed towards Bryce Canyon, just down the road. We had missed the beautiful scenery on the way in because it was dark, but it was really beautiful out that way. We stopped at a gas station before the park and got gas and some chips & sodas for lunch. We went into the park (saving $10 with our parks card!) where the ranger gave us the tip of going all the way to the end and working our way back. We took his advice. We made it to the endpoint and it was awesome. Some guy offered to take our picture and we started talking to him and his buddy who were both on bikes. They were from Washington and we had a good time chatting about roads, the weather, the Vegas incident... It was a nice relief from the sour experience the day before.

The canyon isn't really a canyon but a set of naturally occurring amphitheaters.

  

 

We went down the mountain and stopped at several viewpoints. This was an arch:

 

 At the last viewpoint we met a couple from Naperville who took our picture. We had a nice conversation with them too. 

 We hit the road again, stopping not too much long after in construction and then to eat our picnic lunch. We continued on and watched as we approached inevitable rain. But we saw a double rainbow which was pretty neat:

We eventually hit rain. This was the first time we needed rainsuits and the first day we didn't have them. We actually got a good laugh out of that piece of irony. We stopped at a gas station to fill  up and beat the rain. The lady at the counter was not very nice in telling me the closest Wal-Mart  (to get rainsuits) was 30 miles in the opposite direction. She really thought we could maybe find rainsuits at the local hardware store. I wouldn't fault her if she hadn't been so rude...but I digress. We put on sweatshirts and hunkered down as we headed into the rain.

It was chilly but thankfully not very heavy and short-lived so we dried out pretty quickly. We were on I-70 and drove through some fantastic scenery. I took a ton of pictures to show my teachers. The rock layers and formations were just beautiful. It eventually got pretty warm again and that coupled with the scenery made the whole rain thing not a big deal. We stopped for a break at a gas station and reserved a campsite in Moab. Coming into Moab the sun was just setting and the moon was rising:

It was so cool with the red rock mountains and canyons and the moon. We made it to our site and set up camp. I made a work call and we eventually headed out to dinner. There wasn't much open at 9pm but we decided on a microbrewery (Moab Brewery) and had a really great dinner of BBQ chicken and chicken burrito and enjoyed a few of their "fine craftsmanship." We got gelato on the way out before making it back and heading off to bed.

Today we traveled 350.7 miles for a total of 8650.9 miles across America.

Day 29: Las Vegas & Cannonville, UT

We slept in late and really tried to enjoy our hotel room as much as possible. We went down to our hotel's buffet again for breakfast because we needed to check out by 11am and we had planned to go to another hotel for lunch. We ate way too much again. We went back to our room and took a nap...just because we could. At 10:30 we packed up and headed towards the bike.

This is where the day takes a turn...

We were having a good time laughing and joking as we approached the bike. Devin stopped for a second, noticing something was off, and then realized that someone had stolen our saddle bags.

Now you see them:

Now you don't:

Let's make this short. We called the police but had to go down to their office to file a report. We called our parents. We called our insurance agent. We went to the concierge who got us with hotel security and a list of the nearest pawn shops. In a nutshell, we filed a report with the hotel with a very young but nice guy detailing every last little bit of the contents and the details (the bike was on its own from 8pm-11am). We then headed to the police station, filed another report, and after 3 or so hours had done all we could do. It's classified as burglary because the value is around $3,000 (the bags are $1500 to replace).

Here's where it stands: We can call the hotel in 7-10 business days to see if they know anything. The police will contact us if they find anything out. Pawn shops are required to hold all items 30 days and must check all pawned items with the database of stolen items (if they do is another story). Likewise all the detectives have access to the 'pawn database'. Reality: we will probably never see our stuff again but we are checking ebay & craigslist in hope.

What was in them: Our leather jackets, leather chaps, gloves, digital cameras, fuel injector tuner, rain suits...all our wet and cold weather gear and all our other most valuables. My computer was with us in the room. We genuinely thought the bags were the safest place on the bike. They bolt directly to the bike and have a key lock unique only to our bike. The stuff in the front part of the bike (that cannot be locked), which included a knife and mp3 player weren't even touched. Our trunk, which we have the wrong key for so doesn't lock, also untouched. The camp chairs which were unsecured, still there. We parked in a well-lit area in between two cameras. We cable locked the trailer to the bike in addition to locking the hitch. We had done that the night before so we could just on out (good thing too, I'll tell you why later). These guys were pros for sure. We have no idea how they got them off. No petty thief would A) understand the value of such an item and B) not take the other available items.

After all the reports we felt a little defeated. This trip had gone so well...we hadn't lost so much as a bungee cord or hair tie. We knew the risks of Vegas and thought we had taken the necessary precautions. The PD is right next to the famous Vegas sign and, well, when in Rome...

We skipped lunch at the buffet. We couldn't trust parking our stuff anywhere at this point and we just wanted to get outta there. We went down the road a bit and stopped at a gas station (where the pump leaked gas ALL over the tank). There was an Iron Skillet inside and the hostess was super nice, giving us the cheaper option for our salads. We just sat for a while. Both in anger, disbelief, a little sad.

We kept going in the HEAT before Devin realized that a piece by the odometer was out of place. The plastic housing was 'amiss' and we think that they had intentions of stealing the entire bike and moved that piece to get to the lock to unlock the handle bars and steal the bike. The handle bars will lock at an angle, and because they were angled you wouldn't be able to move it without moving the handlebars. Later looking found a rubber mounting on the pipes had also been moved (there is no way that it could have slipped...he had to hold the pipe a certain way to put it back in its spot). This all fit with other evidence...when we were packing up the padlock on the trailer cable-lock was unlocked. I was certain he had locked it solid but we shrugged it off thinking maybe it hadn't been locked all the way or it came undone (a cheap lock). We now think that they were working to remove the trailer and unlock the bike to steal the entire thing when maybe they were spooked.

Let's be clear. We are LUCKY. We are SUPER LUCKY. They took something replaceable. We could have lost much, much more. The whole bike could have been gone. Something else could have happened like an accident or a mugging. If this is our one sour grape this trip then we will gladly take it. We're still bummed, but we can joke about it now and move on. We'll deal with it when we get home and we'll move on. There are certainly worse things.

We got to our campsite around 9pm. I had called to ensure we had a level site and we did, right near the bathrooms too. We set up a quick camp, took showers, and went to bed.

Today we traveled 290.2 miles for a total of 8300.2 miles across America.

Day 28: Hoover Dam & Las Vegas

We woke up today to the sounds of rumbling engines and a terrible car show announcer. It was a quick morning, we packed up easily and set our sights on Las Vegas. We were pretty far out in the sticks at this KOA, so we were expecting a very small car show. We were wrong. There were so many cars they had a hard time getting them all in the place! Erin had said prior I should enter the bike in the show. I bet I would have been stuck in the rat rod category it was so dirty! On the way onto the interstate we stopped to get gas but headed to the next one when the first was going to charge us extra to use our credit card...

The whole trip to Vegas was freeway and Interstate, and it was HOT but uneventful. About halfway we stopped for gas and lunch at Arby's (just the lunch, Arby's doesn't sell gas). While pumping there came some big trucks into the station that had been out in the desert playing around. Some were pretty wrecked. All had a Monster Energy Drink sponsor logo on them. Eventually we got into Vegas and got to our hotel. We stayed at the Paris Hotel right on the strip across the street from the Bellagio. The whole hotel was Paris themed. Walking in the hotel was supposed to be like walking down the streets in Paris or something. When we got there I went straight to the parking garage, but Erin made me go back to the front and drop her off so she could check in while I parked the bike. Good thing too, because she had just gotten to the counter by the time I had parked the bike, unhitched & chained up the trailer, and gotten all our stuff. She estimated 50-75 people in line when she got in line. Our room was on the 25th floor and overlooked another parking garage, but it was nice with a tub and a shower (not in one, two separate things!) We somewhat settled in then headed back out to see the Hoover Dam before it got dark. We had chained the trailer to a pillar in the parking garage so we didn't have to tow it. On our way we decided that we had just enough time to go to the Las Vegas Harley Davidson dealer before they closed at 5pm. Just enough time means 20 minutes. We went in and did some hard shopping in those twenty minutes getting us each two shirts and a lot of gifts for other people too (but I can't tell you who because then they wouldn't be a surprise and that's just no fun). The dealer saw my Leathernecks shirt and said that I get 10% regular priced merchandise too for being a veteran. Most Harley places don't do that.

It was a quick drive to the Hoover Dam. We got to drive across the dam with no traffic, which we were worried about before coming. It is kind of weird driving on it after seeing the dam in pictures and documentaries. Up close, it doesn't seem as big as it should be, or at least it's not as wide as it seems to be. We drove across to the Arizona side and parked for some pictures of the reservoir side of the dam. (Note Erin's finger in the upper right, not exactly Ansel Adams...)

 

We then went back to Nevada and went into the parking garage to go to the visitors center. Right as we parked an attendant came over to tell us that the visitor's center was already closed and that we would still have to pay to park and all we could do is walk on the dam; he said we should go to the bridge to view the whole dam and to walk on it because you can't see the dam if you drive on it. We were more interested in riding across the dam than walking on it and really had come to see the visitor's center but since we couldn't we just moved on to the bridge. It was nice of him to tell us that. The bridge is fairly new and is in memory of Pat Tillman and someone else. It is part of Hwy 93 and keeps more traffic off of the dam, which was previously the only way to get into AZ from that area. It was a short hike but totally worth it.

 (It was too windy and he needed some assistance)

 We texted this to our mom's. My mom said we looked very happy and brown!

We went back to our hotel and enjoyed a wonderfully hot shower before trying to hit the town. It was late and we needed to eat. But our first stop was to get wristbands:

To the hottest nightclub? No... To VIP access to all the Vegas shows? No...

To the buffets. Yes, All-You-Can-Eat blissfulness at any of 6 buffets in Vegas at any time during a 24 hour period. We had one primary goal in Vegas...buffets. We don't gamble. We just don't. The only time we hit the casino floor was to find the door to outside. We do eat. A lot. A whole lot. A whole lot of the time. Buffets were our hot ticket.

Most buffets closed at 10pm and at 9pm we went to the buffet in our hotel (which was supposed to be one of the best) and got our wristbands and chowed down. Now everything was Parisian, but it was all delicious. They even had that whole crab-leg thing that people go crazy for:

Erin was certain hers came from the Northwestern or Time Bandit (if you're not familiar, our favorite show is Deadliest Catch about crab fishing in the Bering Sea and those are two of our more favorite boats). We also enjoyed made-to-order crepes and great fish and prime rib. We got some frozen custard on our way out...sorry, as we rolled our huge full bodies out onto the mock streets of Paris.

We made it onto the strip and just walked around, taking in the sights. As we walked past the Bellagio their fountain went off in time to Frank Sinatra's Luck be a Lady. We went into Caesar's Palace and just walked around.

Can you tell we're tired?

We went back to the hotel and went to check out the pool. We were thinking about swimming but it was closed so we went back to the room, took ANOTHER hot, wonderful shower and CRASHED out in the big glorious plush bed. 

Today we traveled 330.4 miles for a total of 8010.0 miles across America.

Day 27: La Brea Tar Pits & Hollywood

After a very nice, cool, but not cold night we woke up and packed up easily. We stopped for gas and a quick Hostess breakfast and headed towards Los Angeles. If you have never had anything from Mrs. Hostess, you are missing out, she really knows her way around the gas station pastry display. We were on the freeway for pretty much the whole day. I was surprised at how easy of a day it was, we didn't get beat up too bad on the road, and the traffic gave us space. On the way down we passed many grape fields and the workers were out picking. They have these little hut things that they can move along the vines so they have a table and shade while they work...it was pretty cool. We got down to the Acton, CA KOA to find our site pretty far from the bathrooms. We went in and asked if we could move to the other tent section that was real close to the bathrooms and they said yes. It was first come first serve that night for tents because of a car show at the campgound the next day. We went to the other loop with the intentions of setting up our tent and staking our claim right away only to find that the entire loop was being watered with sprinklers. We had gotten to the campground early (around 1:30pm) in hopes to make it down to LA (about an hour drive) to see the tar pits.(which closed at 5). We obviously couldn't set up the tent in the sprinklers so we found a spot we wanted, parked our trailer nearby, and took off toward LA.

We got moving because we wanted to make it to the Page museum at the La Brea Tar Pits in enough time to enjoy them and see it all. In route, we got gas and chowed down at Mc D's real quick. We were making awesome time until we got into the La Brea area. It was stop and go, and other motorcycles were splitting lanes between the cars. I wanted to go with them, but the bike is too wide for that. It took us about 30 minutes to go 3 miles but we finally made it. We got into the museum and had about 2 hours to see everything.

First we got a student rate (sweet!). The first small exhibit is a skeleton of saber-tooth tiger that would change into a real-life looking one; the lights would come on and create a 3-D effect/illusion of a real one every few seconds. Then we went on to see a buffalo skeleton, very similar to todays buffalo.

 Can you see the mini-B? He really likes buffalo.

They also had a hands on thing where a solid aluminum bar was sticking into a bucket of tar and you had to see how hard it was to pull out, to simulate what it would be like to be stuck in the pits. It was pretty hard to pull on the bars, it'd be a sweet way to die... We saw mastodon and camel skeletons and a wooly mammoth replica & skeleton. They were HUGE.

 Then they had this wall of skulls. They are dire wolf skulls, the number one thing found in the pits. On this wall there are 404 skulls, but there have been over 4,000 individual dire wolf skeletons found in the pits.

After that was a room where you can watch volunteers sift through the tar pit stuff. They were sorting small things like seeds, snails, and insects while we were there. One was cleaning sabre-tooth tiger bones. There are only 2 on staff, the rest are volunteers. They call it the fish bowl:

There is also a small window where you can take a small glimpse into their storage rooms, which stretch on and on to hold their over 1 million bones. They have found lots of animals and one human, a woman.

They had lots of different animal skeletons on display and they were all really neat. After browsing the gift shop we walked around the fenced tar pit outside, complete with fiberglass mammoths (2 outside the pit watching helplessly and one is stuck in the pit). It smelled just like asphalt and bubbled in several places from escaping methane gas.

We weren't far from the Hollywood sign and figured we might as well. We found a quicker and less-traffic way to get to the overlook. There is a very small parking area and it was crowded with people, so Erin jumped off to go take a quick pic but you had to take a small hike to see the sign so she just got back on and we rode off. We got about 50 yards down the road and you could see it just fine so we pulled off. There was nobody there which was nice. I had to stay on the bike, there was no way to safely park it on the dirt incline. Even though it wasn't direct on it was still cool.

The sign is back there...somewhere.

Just trust us...

We came back to the campsite with no problems, and found we were the only ones in that area. We set up camp and Erin did some work while I went to get a very expensive but only okay tasting pizza. We then went to bed...still the only ones tent camping in that area.

Today we traveled 289.5 miles for a total of 7679.4 miles across America

Day 26: Yosemite & Sequoia National Parks

We got up early and headed out as fast as we could. In the light of the morning, we could see the campground a little better now. EVERY site except for the one they wanted us to be in was LEVEL!!!!! I guess they don't pay much attention to their reservations.....Because we had packed the night before it was easy to get out fast. It was about 50 miles to Yosemite and we saved $20 on our card when we got there. They didn't give us a map so we tried to figure out where we were going by the signs. We figured the visitors center was a good place. So we kept going and going...eventually we saw a pull-out and stopped because Devin needed a break. It just so happened to be the El Capitan overlook.

We got back on the road to try to go to the visitors center. We made it to the parking lot but it was a far walk to the center (we couldn't even see it. the signs said it was a far walk). We parked illegally long enough to go to the bathroom and then tried to get out of there. I had taken a map while there at a small information desk. I say took because there were about 400 people in a 50 sq ft info tent and after 5 minutes still didnt have the chance to even ASK if they had any. I just saw, grabbed, and ran. The big stuff all sits on a road loop. We had come in on the bottom loop and were trying to get on the upper part of the loop and still got off and into the restricted parks area where they have all their offices. It wasn't a bit deal, but I want to reiterate how hard this place is to navigate. We eventually stopped and picnicked at a site right under El Capitan, enjoying PBJ & Salad. Leaving was supposed to be easy. We get back on the loop, hang a left to go to the south side of the park, and keep on going. We missed the left and had to turn around. By this time we were ready to get outta there. As we were leaving we got some good pics though.

We stopped in town just outside Yosemite for a refill on gas & water, Devin had said I had black stuff all over my face...when I went to the bathroom he was right! We were both covered in road grime. We loaded up and kept on south to go to Sequoia National Park. It was about a 100 mile detour to our site. It took a really long time to get there and it was really hot, but once we started getting up into the mountains (Sierra) it was nice and cool. We got into the park and saved another $20 on our card...it's paid for itself now! We made it to the highlight, The General Sherman. It is the largest living tree (based on volume). It's about 2, 250 years old:

Mini-B was completely dwarfed by it. This was the first time anyone had asked about him. We were taking pics a little further up the path and I got one of him and some people asked about him. Surprising we got this far without people wondering why we taking pictures of a stuffed dog!

We also saw the twin sequoias. There's the twin with the twins:

One of them had a big burnt out area. Fire helps them get so big:

There was a cross-cut of one cut down in the 50s. It was also several thousand years old:

They had a tunnel going through one that had fallen:

We then had to, of course, get a pic with the bike:

We had a really good time in Sequoia National Park. It was spectacular. The trees are enormous and their growth cycle is quite fascinating. This is the only place that they live. Anyway, it was getting darker and we were ready to go. We exited the south side of the park that led right into the town we were staying at. In true Miles Across America fashion, we hit unpaved road coming down the side of the mountain. For several miles.

After the dirt it was twists and turns, 15 mph. It was great riding. We eventually made it to our KOA just before it closed and were able to set up our tent before it got dark! We went to In-N-Out burgers for dinner. A fave of Devin's and one of the things he wanted to do while out west.

After we came back to the campsite we started a fire. The camp store sold little s'mores packets and we bought one. We made s'mores before going to bed.

Today we traveled 320.1 miles for a total of 7389.9 miles across America