So the Cache Rally is over, and its time for the next ride.
Howard and I make the 500 mile dash from Gardiner to my house where we both catch some ZZZs overnight, then he heads for home (Flagstaff, another 500 mile day) and I depart for Nova Scotia.
NS has been on my bucket list for quite some time...and now I'm going to check it off!
I will ride to Montreal and Bev will fly there and join me.
But first I need to get out of Dodge... I cross Wyoming and stop at Martins Cove. Martins Cove is where in November of 1856 the members of The Martin handcart company hunkered down during a bitter winter storm. Of the original (estimated) 500 members 145 died either in the cove storm or on the way to Utah.
In the picture is a replica of the handcarts that the pioneers pushed and pulled across the plains.
I ask and receive permission to ride some goat roads in the area. One of the docents there told me to keep my eyes open for pioneer signatures in the rocks....
...and I found several, here is just one example.
On my way again, I pass through tiny Mills, Wyoming......
...and I Dino if I'm still in the Cowboy State until I see this Buck-A-Roosauras...
When I reach Aberdeen, South Dakota, I get on Expedia to look for a room....but Expedia tells me all the hotels are full...what??
There must be a glitch, so I phone Bev to see if she can find one. What she finds out is that all the rooms for over a 100 miles are full of construction workers...thanks to the gang buster economy.
She was able to find a room a little over 100 miles down the road but the address she gives me leads me to this cemetery....
Whether a joke or a warning, she wouldn't say...
It took some time, but I finally found the hotel.
The next day I stop in at the Split Rock Lighthouse on the north shore of Lake Superior.
One of the most popular lighthouses The Split rock hosts an annual remembrance each November 10 for the Edmund Fitzgerald and other lost seamen.
Lake Superior, da nort shore, eh.
And into Canada..
I didn't notice when I snapped this shot that the right fork seal was leaking. I'm hoping I can find some sort of solution soon.
More in part 2