My friend Mitch and I made a relatively quick ride out to British Columbia (BC) June 28 - July 10. We covered well over 7,000 miles (7,415 by Mitch's odometer) in 13 days.
We rode we rode through 18 states and two provinces: Alberta*, British Columbia*, Idaho*, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa*, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana*, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington*, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Six of these were new for me (marked with an asterisk).
We crossed three time zones so we could have the pleasure of riding through six Canadian national parks in Alberta and BC and five in the United States. I've never ridden by, over, and around so many mountains. I got to see the American and Canadian Rockies like I've never seen them before.
Here's a list of the National Parks (NP) or National Forests (NF) we toured--the ones I know of for sure:
Canada (6)
- Banff NP (Alberta)
- Glacier NP (British Columbia)
- Jasper NP (Alberta)
- Kootenay NP (British Columbia)
- Mt. Revelstoke NP (British Columbia)
- Yoho NP (British Columbia)
United States (10)
- Badlands NP (South Dakota)
- Black Hills NF (South Dakota)
- Coeur d'Alene NF (Idaho)
- Gallatin NF (Montana)
- Glacier NP
- Grand Teton NP (Wyoming)
- Great Smoky Mountains NP (Tennessee/North Carolina)
- LoLo NF (Montana)
- Wind Cave NP (South Dakota)
- Yellowstone NP (Wyoming & Montana)
We tent camped in the Badlands and Glacier (US) national parks.
In all this travel, I learned a great deal about riding long distances on my Harley, which now has almost 102,000 miles on it. I also met interesting people. Over the next 4-8 weeks, I will post photos and descriptions of our experiences on this blog site. Please check every other week for new articles.
It sure felt good to be riding my bike more than repairing it, though there were some repairing activities as well.
-The Long Rider