Here is my weak attempt to try and describe our trip last week. No matter what, you really had to be there. Us here in Cleveland, OH {Heather, Jen, myself, Danny, and Josh} left friday night around 9pm after a full day of work and about 5 hours of packing in Africa heat. It was a little rough
We drove the twelve hours to Petes and got there around 9:30am Saturday. The only real problem was the last gas station on the turnpike before Chicago was out of gas and we were screwed. We had to get off the highway in Gary, Indiana in a not too good looking neighborhood around 2 or 3 am. It was 15 minutes away from the highway next to a strip club. I wanted to fill up and get the hell out of there. Here's a pic of it. cool name
Once we got to petes we ate and then collapsed on his floor. It was the best feeling ever to lay down. We got up two or three hours later and loaded up Dustys, Petes, and Chris' bikes. I think we pulled out Saturday around 3 or 4 pm destined for Idaho. Heres a couple pics of us ready to go
We drove through MN then through ND which was actually quite scenic. Heres a sunset shot from that night in ND
In the morning on Sunday we were going through Montana which was very cool. One thing that was weird was that there were casinos even in the gas stations. Here's a pic from sunrise that morning
Around 8am Sunday we got into Yellowstone. This place was awesome. It was worth the drive alone. If you've never been there you really should go. Heres the Mammoth Hot Springs
Heres one of the geysers which isn't old faithful but right next to it. We just missed old faithful
On the way to Idaho and on the way back we ran into Buffalo on the road. They could care less about cars and have no problem walking right down the road a couple feet from your car and holding up traffic
After spending some time in Yellowstone we got to the campground around 3 or 4 pm Sunday. After an 18 hour drive from petes through the night and then going through yellowstone we were all tired as hell. We finally get to the campground and while we were checking in the owners acted like assholes. They couldn't have been anymore uninviting. I shrugged that off but when they showed us our site i was ready to go on a rampage with a baseball bat in their office. This is supposed to be TWO sites! And we had to park the trucks away from the site
The people are also grass nazis there. Which i could somewhat understand since grass seems pretty rare out there and it's a lot of work to keep it alive. You couldn't have quads, gas cans, etc., a whole list of shit anywhere on the grass. We made the site work and it all worked out OK. The owners turned out to be not too bad, too.
Here's where you can see the entrance from our site. That was nice
This is for all the Silver Lake people. You know how at SL you have to have everything short of an eye scan to get in? Not here. This is all there was. One old crappy sign half fallen over. No stickers, vouchers, rangers, anything. All you really need is a flag. There is no authority of any kind
The only time we saw any kind of police or Ranger was when a dune buggy flipped over at thunder mountain and crushed in the rollcage right above the driver. He was even wearing a helmet and still got life flighted out. It was neat to see the helicopter take off from the sand. The police buggy and raptor were cool too.
The one thing that was so different there than Sl was how at SL you ride over the dunes, here you ride on the face of them. Its a rush and takes a little getting to. Need lots of power and speed or else you drift down to where there was sometimes lava rock waiting for you.
Heres josh after breaking his flag and pride LOL
This is Thunder Mountain. Its the first big dune you come across. It was at least 1.5 test hills, if not 2. Very cool to climb
Heres the famous one. Choke Cherry. Or maybe it should be Choke Bitch. There are a lot taller dunes to climb then this one. The middle is too worn down but the sides are nice and steep and fun to climb. Every bike made it up but heathers. Hers really had some performance issues. It will be back for blood next year. Jens 400 ate it for breakfast
This was just some random hill on the way to devils dune. Once you get passed Thunder Mountain the hills just get bigger, and bigger, and bigger. This hill was basically vertical and quite exhilirating to fly up to the top, turn and come back down on the way to the next one. It's just one after another. You go in a line doing S's going from one to the next.
This is the big daddy comp bowl. I think its the biggest and best dune there. You fly up the right side and ride the top all the way over and come down the left side. On my shee i would climb the right in 4th wide open, shift into 5th at the middle of the top, and then hit 6th on the way down. You are FLYING! You have to be in order to stick to face of it without rolling down. You really want a powerful bike for this.
This is the view from the back of Comp Bowl. My biggest regret is that by the time you get out there{ about an hour and a half ride} you have to watch your gas. I could only climb a handful of times before having to stop to have enough gas to get back. Next year definitely bigger gas tank. Almost everyone would hit reserve before getting back to camp
Heres a sunset shot in the smaller dunes
Banshee was looking good this day. Think this shot belongs in a magazine
We also had our share of mechanical problems. Heres me trying to get dannys plug out after the metal tip seperated from the porcelain. Me and Chris had to ride back 45 minutes to get another one.
Then on Monday dustys quad inhaled a ton of sand from the filter slipping off the bottom and the sand locked up the carb slide out at choke cherry. Pete rode it all the way back with the throttle stuck at a 1/3. He said he had a lot of fun doing it. After much work from Pete and Chris it was running again and ran the rest of the week!
Then on Tuesday the screws on my Ricky Stator decided to loosen and go into the flywheel causing evrything to get ripped out and i had to get towed back by a Rhino which towed me no problem through all the hills and everything. Very impressive. I went to the dealership in town and had to pay $350 for a new stock one. My butt hurt when i left. But it was running that afternoon and had no more problems the rest of the week.Ricky stator will be getting a phone call. Could have been fine with just a few drops of loctiite from them
On wednesday Joshs DS started acting up and would cut out like crazy when trying to climb hills. After hours of speculating and throwing out ideas we finally found a ground wire that came unplugged. All better
The only other prob was a tire issue in Montana. Thats what they make spares for
Heres Danny eating his way across the country. Poor Pete's toilet didn't know what hit it
This was a truck we saw just outside of St.A. It was unbelievable. I talked to the old guy that owned it and he said it's all original, even the paint. It looked brand new. There's a second trailer behind the camper with a gold wing on it. He said it towed everything fine, just not very quickly.
The ride home was fine with little incident. The drive wasn't bad at all. The trip wouldn't have been as good without it. We saw so many cool things i can't wait to do it again. Heres a sunset shot in Montana from Friday evening
