After uneventful flights to Paris and Montreal I arrived at 12:45 and was through baggage collect and immigration in excellent time. TimB picked me up and we were back at his place before 2pm. After repacking my gear from cases to his car we were on our way by 4pm and managed 600km to Milton where we stopped at about midnight for a dry and short night.
We were on our way by 7am and doing well until Immigration at the US border held us up for over an hour. As we had now idea how far we would get before stopping for our first night on US soil we had no address to put on my immigration form. Big problem. We were taken around the back ….. After a lengthy explanation they accepted an address for an overnight stay about 3 weeks hence in Yellowstone!!!! That done, they released us and we were off. Progress around Lake Michigan was a bit slow and traffic was heavy all the way into Iowa so we only made 1200km before we’d had enough and stopped in a motel in Waterloo, Iowa. This time we didn’t turn in for the night before we’d found a bar and had a couple of beers. Did they taste good.
Thursday morning we were off early driving through the rest of Iowa, part of Minnesota and into South Dakota near Sioux Falls heading due west on I90. We took the time for a tourist excursion with photo stops along the Badlands Scenic Loop eventually getting back on the I90 at Wall. By the time we reached Sturgis we’d had enough for the day. Another 1200km and we were still in SD. We picked Sturgis because it holds the worlds biggest Harley Festival where about 100,000 Harley fans turn up in a town with a normal pop. of 6700. This year’s festival was on last weekend and there were plenty of people still in town. It was a lively evening in the saloon and well worth the stop.
After chatting to a few bikers outside the motel we were on our way and with only 750km to go were starting to get excited (aka nervous) about the impending start of the tour. We continued on the I90 through the corner of Wyoming and into Montana at Billings. A quick lunch at a petrol station and another 2 hours of driving saw us in Livingston by 3pm. Then we hit an unexpected problem. Despite offering to stay Friday night and again in a month’s time none of the 4 motels we tried would let us leave the car there for a month. One woman said Homeland Security would not like it and the police would tow the car. I guess that’s what you get when you look like a terrorist. Fortunately, a very helpful young man across the road at the RV Sales business had no problem parking the car for us for a month for a whole $25. He even offered to sell it for us which I thought was very generous of him but TimB said that Joan definitely wants her car back. The evening in the nearest saloon was another good night with a rock band playing, members of which were all older than us two thus showing that there is still hope for Guido if he carries on with his lessons.
