To Gaspe and back.

Stump

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Las Vegas, Nv
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Back on August 07 I rolled out of Las Vegas on a trip to attend 2 ST-Owners get togethers (MnSTOC and ONSTOC) as well as go around the Gaspe Peninsula and circumnavigate all the Great lakes. The Crosstourer was well and truly all packed up and HEAVY!
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I wasn't sure what I'd need and packed a bit much... even though I'm a fan of buy it when you need it instead of packing it up.

I left early, around 0430 and luck gave me wet roads but no rain for the first 3 hours. The storm had just missed Las Vegas but followed the I15 corridor up through Utah to past Cedar City. I road through the rain tunnel and turned NE up I70 as I wanted my first night to be at Dinosaur National. I rode up Colorado 191 from Grand Junction and enjoyed the climb up and down the mountains, enjoying the twisties for many miles. I made it after 9 hours and set up a comfortable first night in the campground near the Green river.
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I had a route I wanted to follow but no hard places to be each night. I left Utah and rode over to Steamboat Springs then up to Wyoming. As the day was perfect I just kept on riding and made it to NW Nebraska. I stayed at Fort Robinson State Park which I found to be very nice, camping under monster Cottonwood trees and along a bubbling creek. Its a great park though a touch expensive to me. Every aminity is available though including a hotel and restaurant.
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I wandered on to the NE from there, watching and passing all the folks that were riding to and from Sturgis. I ended that day in a motel in Sioux Falls and finished the first part of the ride the next day at MnSTOC down in the SE corner of Minnesota. I spent the weekend with a great group of people that all just plain enjoyed riding their motorcycles! Great private campground with wonderful riding in all directions.. I enjoyed a ride down the Mississippi and a jaunt into rural Wisconsin south of La Crosse.
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The next section of my ride was to be the beginning of "around the Lakes" ride and around Gaspe. I left MnSTOC and went up through Wisconsin Towards Duluth, Minnesota. I then trended easterly towards Green Bay, Wisconsin as I wanted to skip Chicago by taking the ferry across Lake Michigan from Manitowoc Wisconsin to Luding Michigan. I got to the terminal way early for an overnight ride so I visited Wisconsin Maritime Museum (very very good.. especially if you like WW2 Submarine history). The weather was calm so the 5.5 hourish ride across the lake was easy. I slept a bit and we got in around sunrise.

I felt pretty good so even though I'd planned a night in the area I just kept on riding. Once in Ohio I put my front wheel on Ohio 2 and 6 and rode close to the lake in the farmland. I kept the course mostly up to New York and I found a nice camp site at a state park in New York called Lake Erie State Park. Great Park with wonderful views of the lake. Beautiful campsites too!
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I headed out the next day figuring I spent a coupla day up near the new York / Canada border. I found a place on a lake south of Potsdam called Higley Flow. Nice place but pretty busy. I did fight mosquitos.. and spiders. I collected the first of many bites there. I was a bit worried (needlessly as I found out) about the rear tire wear so I found a very nice motorcycle accessory shop (MOTOR SPORTS WORLD) that had a tire drop shipped the next day as well a a great little shop (Sovies Honda) about 20 miles away that allowed me to pull the wheel in thier lot to have the new tire slung on. During the wait for the tire I played tourist in the area.
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I enjoyed the town of Massena. Nice people!


With a new tire on the bike and my first rainy day happening I rode through the border and started up the south side St Lawrence River valley. After negotiating the Montreal area I got on Highway 132 and followed it up the river.
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The rain let up and so I spent one night in a municipal campground at Riviere-du-Loup. Woke up to more rain early so I took my time packing up as I hoped the rain would let up. I got lucky and had enough time to get the tent stuff packed pretty dry so up the river I went, staying on Highway 132 through all the little towns and right along the water.

I made it up to the beginning of the north shore of the Gaspe, at a bitty little town called Martre.
It was so nice I bought 2 nights! I spent the second day there riding the road across the northern area to the town of Gaspe and visiting the Parc Nat'l Forillon.
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I then did the north coast From East to West on the return to my camp site. Great scenery and what would be a fun road if it weren't for the horrible condition. Hard duty.. but i done it!
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The next day I again crossed the peninsula over the mountains and started my finish of this part of my planned ride by heading down the Chaleur Bay, over the pass and back to the St. Lawerence river. Spent a night in a great little motel in ST Flavie then rode down to the same Muni campground in Riviere-du-Loup to be near the Ferry across the river.
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Next morning I went across to the north shore of the St. Lawrence and headed to OnSTOC, the group gathering near Ottawa. I spent one night in a campground to the NW of Montreal and made it to White Lake and spent another wonderful weekend with like minded motorcycle enthusiasts.
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Leaving OnSTOC I chose to follow Canada 17 the whole way... figured I'd just enjoy the lake view instead of a view of just trees. The ride to Sault St Marie was uneventful and straight forward. The ride past Sault was very nice and scenic. I got lucky and had great weather for this part of the trip. I spent my last night in Canada at "The Chicken Shack Motel" at Pancake Bay (30 or so miles north of Sault.) I finished the ride around the Lakes the next day. Other than the road construction I enjoyed the ride and area.

From Duluth, Minnesota, I took Minnesota Highway 23 down to I90. My rear tire was again looking tired and I deemed it time to start home directly. I bounced of I90 as soon at I29 and headed for the Yankton crossing of the Missouri on into Nebraska. It was getting hot and humid, clouds building mid-day near the middle of Nebraska near Oneil so I stopped for the night there. No sooner was I parked and off loading into another motel room than it started raining. I rained off and on for the evening but I only had about 1 mile of wet road in the morning to contend with. The next day was me through Nebraska at I80 and off I80 at Laramie, Wyoming to the roads to Craig Colorado. I dodged thunderstorms and only delt with wet roads over a pass luckily. The storms where on a cold front and the cloudy skies and cool temps made for great riding through Wyoming and Colorado.

I knew I could make it home on that last day and passed through Dinosaur Colorado, Vernal Utah, Price Utah and Ceder City using nothing but state highways to stay above 5000 feet altitude to keep the heat at bay. The weather forecast was listing Las Vegas at 106 so I took my time. I wanted to ride the last bit, the bit from Cedar City to home after sunset as I had to go on Interstate 15 and thats never much fun if you have to stare into the sun.

Parked the bike at 2030 and called it a ride! A very nice ride indeed! I'm sold on the VFR1200X as it NEVER gave me anything but perfect service. It handled every road condition, every tempurature change, every condition without a peep. Never used a drop of oil, Never needed any air in the tires! Drank less gas at the end then in the beginning even! No bad road manners at all other than what was started by my poor riding inputs.

I think I'll need to do Cabot Trail next... darn I'll have to drive back across the whole United States again :)
 

kiltman

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Stratford, Ontario Canada
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Thanks for the write up.
I'm doing the Cabot trail on Monday Sept. 18th. Does that give you enough time to get back up here? ;)
 
OP
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Stump

Stump

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Joined
Jun 29, 2008
Messages
442
Location
Las Vegas, Nv
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VFR1200X
STOC #
7591
Kiltman ... ahhhh... nope.. prolly not! hehe I'll have to wait until next September I think. :)
 

Gerhard

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Glad you made it home safely. Sounds like you had a great trip filled with lots of memories. It was nice to meet you even though we where misdirected to the wrong town for the coffee roaster but then we wouldn't have met the retired table dancer ;)

Gerhard
 
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Cow Head, Newfoundland, Canada
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Great trip. Nice to see a few place names from my only cross continent trip in '08. If you are going to do the Cabot Trail... you might as well visit Newfoundland. Just sayin'.
 
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