DAY 13 FINAL LEG OF OUR JOURNEY

Well we new it had to end sometime. Day 13 Sunday July 12Th. We left Dayton OH and headed for the Longaberger Homestead in Dresden OH. We arrived around 12:30 and stayed for a couple of hours. Raelene picked up a couple of good deals in the company store. (I think she just wanted to see if she could finish filling the trailer up before we made it home) Denny tried his hand at basket weaving. It's always good to have a backup plan.(he must have taken this as a college course, he was pretty good at it)

While we were on RT70 in West Virginia, Don and Karen called to see how close we were. They called back a little later and said they would meet us on the PA Turnpike and ride in with us. So we arranged to meet at the Carlisle Exit. HOW COOL IS THAT. We fueled up for the final time and road past Harrisburg to the first rest stop and took a break and got some chow. There we exchanged some travel stories from our trip to theirs.

The last 2 exiting things that happened were we saw a trooper on the turnpike with a motorcycle pulled over. the Trooper had his gun drawn and the guy had his hands up walking towards him. Then as we crossed over RT 724 into Parkerford 3 deer were crossing the road in front of us.

we all stopped at the firehouse in Linfield, said our goodbye's and goodnights. We had a great time with Denny, and we are sorry to see it come to an end, but we have to start planning next years trip so we need to come back to the home base some time.

It was after midnight when we pulled in our driveway. I laid on the horn to get the dogs barking and have the kids come out. But they had the AC on and didn't even hear us. It was Jacks birthday and they were still celebrating when we opened the door. Missy, Jack, Erica, and Jacks buddy Chris all came out then to Greet us. the Two dogs, Deuce and Barry went crazy too. I think Barry peeded on every inch of the breezeway floor.

Here are the total numbers. The last leg of the trip was 582 miles, that was a long day.

the total miles for the trip was 5534. WOULD WE DO IT AGAIN? YOU BET WE WOULD.

Thanks for sharing our trip with us. if you would like to see all of the pictures, give us a yell.

JACK

DAY 11 AND 12

We are homeward bound. on Friday day 11 which was July 10Th, we left Platte City Ne, By the way, our hotel was on Jeffers Street, it was the main drag in this town. also visited the Buffalo Bill Ranch just outside of town. this was his home town.

During the day we travelled through the states of Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, and Missouri again. when we went through Kansas City Mo i took the wrong turn and we went around Kansas City Kansas and back into Mo again.

check out the picture of the crop duster that buzzed over us.

the day ended with us stopping in a small town called Sweet Springs, MO. it was like stepping back in time. this little town must have been a boom town in it's day until they made the interstate come through. now the main drag in town is vacant, most all the buildings are empty but the store fronts are all there as they were. the streets are brick. we ate supper at an old restaurant in town. it was full of the locals that are left there. when we walked in, the whole place became silent, talk about a weird feeling, i didn't think we looked that bad but we had been on the bikes all day, i guess we smelled a little.

we road 519 miles that day.

this morning Saturday, Day 12, July 11Th,we left Sweet Springs Mo. and headed east. we traveled through Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and into Ohio. we stopped in Dayton for the nite. Ran into some bad weather, but only for a short period of time. can't complain. total miles for today was 540.

we plan on going to the Longaberger Homestead tomorrow. Denny and I can't wait to get our pictures taken in front of that huge basket. With any luck, i want to have one of the owners come out and autograph my bike.

we will see how the day goes, we might role back in town late tomorrow night.

JACK

DAY 9 AND DAY 10

Hello all, here's what we did Wednesday day 9 and Thursday day 10.

We left Cody wy and stopped at THE LITTLE BIG HORN in Montana. then we drove down to buffalo Wy and spent the night. total miles for yesterday was 284.

we ran into a small shower yesterday on the way to Custer's last stand, then the day cleared up and was pretty clear. we spent a couple of hours at the Little Big Horn. the information center had alot of really cool stuff in it from the battlefield and information on what led up to the confrontation.

Karen, you would have really liked it, I'm sure you would get some feeling's out there.

we sat through a orientation film put on by the park commission, then we had a live discussion with a park ranger who is a real Crow Indian. he told the entire story from the Indian's perspective and there were a few points where he said our history books were tainted.

we went to the top of the hill where the monument is and all the markers are where the fallen soldiers were found. the entire battlefield is 5 miles long. and the whole battle only lasted a couple of hours. they have a road put in and you can then drive out across the top of the hills and see the markers where bodies were found and battles took place leading up to the last stand hill.

while walking through the information center, the Indian memorial and the monument area, it was very sollum and nobody was saying much at all.

Today we traveled from Buffalo wy to North Platte Nebraska. The weather was perfect. we even drove out of the way a bit so we could go into colorado. total miles for today was about 557.

not sure where we are headed tomorrow.

JACK

DAY 8 TUESDAY JULY 7TH

Went to Yellowstone in the morning. headed for old faithful. along the way we saw a grizzly bear, lots of snow, several hot springs and smaller geysers. the weather was perfect all day, a little cold up in Yellowstone. can't believe how much snow is still around up there. old faithful was right on time. we saw eagles, buffalo, moose (with 2 young), bear and a deer that ran out in front of me while we were coming down the mountain at about 50MPH, raelene yelled when she saw it coming out of the woods. Denny thought we were going to have venison for supper, it was a close call.

after we got something to eat this evening we went to the Cody nite rodeo. great time. i have a few good videos of it too.

tomorrow we will be off to the little big horn.

JACK

DAY 7 MONDAY JULY 6TH

we left Rapid City and headed west to the devils tower in wy. this was the very first US national park. on the way to the tower we stopped off at a little town that has this small country store with gas pumps in front. we were very low and had to put in regular 87 octane, thats all they had. thank god for octane booster. the total population of the town was 15....

we then stopped off in Gillette wy for lunch. It was a nice sunny day high of 94 while we were riding, UNTIL WE HIT THE BIG HORN NATIONAL FOREST.We saw a storm coming fast as we started to climb the mountain. After pulling over and putting our gear on it began raining half way up. the temperature gauge on my bike went down to 35 at the top. there was still snow in spots at the top. we had very high winds with the rain, talk about your extremes.

as we were coming down the other side the rain stopped and the views were unbelievable. we ran across a moose along the road. can't wait to show everyone the pictures of Big Horn Forest when we get back.

We got into Cody around 7:30pm. tomorrow we head for yellowstone to see yogi and old faithful.

enjoy the pics.

jack

DAY 6 SUNDAY JULY 5TH

Went to Sturgis first thing in the morning, not too many things open but we cruised the town and you imagine what it must be like during the bike rally. we then headed off to Deadwood. We saw where Wild Bill was shot in the number 10 salon, learned alot about the history of dead wood from one of the actors in town. He is a local man from the area and really tells the story of the towns past from his heart. he plays Doc Holiday as an actor in town. he also told us about the views on a drive outside of Deadwood through Lead SD into Spearfish. we saw huge cliffs and he told us of several water falls but we only found one. Anyway, we spent several hours in Deadwood, went into a bunch of casino's and saw a street shoot out.

the weather for the day was perfect.

Next we will be heading for Cody Wy. YEE HAAA.

DAY 5 SATURDAY JULY 4TH

We had a great day today. slept in a little, Denny and Raelene were happy that they got to get an hour or so more sleep. (I'm the bad guy). we started the day off by going to the Crazy Horse site to watch the big blast they were going to set off at 11am. the weather was good up until about 10 minutes before the blast was set to go off.YES IT RAINED. then they had 4 duds in a row when they went to FIRE IN THE HOLE. the last time they went to count down they said 1 minute to blast, then went to 10 seconds, then the blast went off. this all happened in about 10 seconds and caught everyone off guard. our pictures show the blast just after it went off. this stone monument is unbelievable. just the size of it is incredible. they said the entire Mount Rushmore monument of the 4 heads will fit into the face and headdress of crazy horse. the story behind the whole project is interesting. we spent quite awhile there.

next we road to Custer State Park, Needles Highway, and back to Mount Rushmore to see it up close.

Denny did pretty good on the twists and turns on needles highway, it also has stone tunnels that you have to drive through.

tomorrow we are going to sturges and deadwood and whatever other trouble we can get into.

JACK