The Adventures of FriarJohn on Two (and Sometimes Four) Wheels

[Note: I guess my day one draft didn't get lost after all. Rather than delete it I'll publish it with the caveat that it may or may not be better than what I eventually included in my trip report.]

I spent the whole day dodging shitty weather. I started out the morning by getting run out of town by a storm approaching from the north. I froze on the way to Butte, where, after an Egg McMuffin and the search for better gloves or glove liners (I found the latter and boy are they stylish) the storm caught up to me and again I skeedattled my ass south.

Monida Pass, at I-15 and the Montana-Idaho Border, was dry but had snow flurries going. And cold! My Gerbing heated jacket liner paid for itself today.

After that I found my stride, my groove, and really rolled on the miles. I made my goal, Ogden, UT (455mi), at around 5:30-6:00, and decided to keep going. I planned on staying in Provo, but then I saw a billboard for a Cracker Barrel in Springville. Sold! And sure enough, there is a Days Inn next door. Tomorrow I only have about 385mi to go to get to Vegas.

I love it when a plan comes together, or even improves!

(Tapped out on my Nokia Internet Tablet from my hotel room in Springville, UT.)

(Updated 05/27/08)

I’ve posted my pictures from the trip on Picasa. I tried to start posting updates on this blog on the first day from Springville, UT, using my Nokia internet tablet, but all my work tapping away on that tiny on-screen keyboard was lost and I was too pissed to try again. Not sure why WordPress didn’t automatically save the draft as it normally does in Firefox. Maybe it’s a javascript thing that is unsupported by the browser on the Nokia. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway…

What follows is a rough, day-by-day recounting of the highs and lows of my trip. It’s probably going to get long. I feel like rambling on. My updated/final maps can be seen on my TBA Wiki.

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Sitting in my room at the Best Western in Richfield, UT, dead tired and heading to bed. Will post a trip report later in the week. Tease: that’s a big effing hole; ran out of gas; things vanish off my bike…

Update: Home a day early. Put on 638 miles today, a new personal record.

Well, the bike seems to be running fine, and more importantly stopping fine, so I’ll be riding down to Prescott, AZ(1 , 2), by way of Las Vegas (map) next Monday for the Southwest Triumph Fest. It’s about 2,260 miles round trip. This time it’s all about the destination(s) not the ride, so I’m just going to jet down the interstate most of the way there and back. I’m saving a few hundred miles by not going back through Vegas on the way home; it’s as much a straight shot as I can make it.

I’ll spend a day in Vegas with a few family members, have lunch with a buddy and try and catch Speed Racer at the IMAX. Thursday a few of us will meet in Vegas and head for Prescott. On Saturday the 17th our little flock of Triumph cruisers will head for the Grand Canyon (map), which I’ve never seen.

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