3 Generation Motorcycle Road Trip
By Tom Neal
Bigfoot Trails Basecamp | Independent Adventure Media
Originally published as a three-part Readers Ride feature in Quick Throttle Magazine.
Tommy on the Tail of the Dragon - 16 years old from Washington!
So a couple years ago—well, almost two to the day—we left on a bike trip. Myself, my mom, and my son. I broke the adventure into three parts at the request of Quick Throttle Magazine, who published the trip. It was a first for them to have a three-part Readers Ride section and a first for four pages of a Readers Ride in each of those three issues.
Pretty fuckin’ cool if you ask me!
Here’s the story.
The adventure started out on August 1st, 2015, with my mom, who was 64 years old, myself at 40, and my 16-year-old son. We set out on three separate bikes on a cross-country “state collection” road trip.
You see, my mom has these goals of collecting states: riding to all 50 states on a motorcycle and all Canadian provinces and territories on a motorcycle. She had already been to all continents and all oceans, and she was now working on all countries, some of which she may or may not have entered legally.
My mom is a very adventurous woman, and I felt honored to have been asked to join this adventure. What made it more enjoyable was that my son was able to make it along on his bike too.
Seeing how this trip had a mission of “collecting states,” there would not be a lot of sightseeing or other touristy-type stuff happening, though there was about a week of relaxing and fun that we had planned into the mix. Originally, we were going to hit 46 of the lower 48 states, California and North Dakota being the two not touched. Mom had already ridden to those states before, so we planned to skip them.
Let’s just say that plans always change!
We woke on Saturday, August 1st, to our alarm going off at 4 a.m., and by 5 a.m. we were walking out the door. We’d packed our bikes the night before, so my son and I jumped on our scoots. My wife and daughter decided to tag along in the car with us the first day and follow us on our journey to Montana.
We left Shelton, Washington, while it was still dark and rode into Olympia to meet up with my mom.
The first day was a pretty uneventful ride through Washington, Idaho, and into Montana. There were fires in Eastern Washington, so our fuel stop in Moses Lake was pretty smoky, with ash falling everywhere. I-90 had lots of construction happening through Idaho and Montana, but I have traveled this road since 1987 and don’t remember it ever NOT having road construction.
I’m not much of a “freeway flyer.” I prefer to travel by back roads, but there is something to be said for the interstate system, and we were on a mission, so speed was a necessity. I-90 in Idaho had a 75 mph speed limit and Montana’s was 80 mph, so we were laying out some ground.
My son’s tank would only hold about three gallons of fuel, so we needed to stop often for go juice. This was okay with me on this trip, as I was on a borrowed bagger that I was not used to.
I ride a Dyna Wide Glide, and I’m used to my apes, forward controls, and a nice stretched-out riding position, but my Dyna was acting a little funny two days before we left and I had a bad feeling about it. My Dyna had over 80,000 miles on it and it had been ridden hard, so my dad offered up his 2011 Ultra Classic.
Before we left for this trip, I removed the trunk to help with the weight distribution and added a Street Glide windshield to it, which helped me a little. Although I personally don’t care for windshields or fairings, the cramped riding position had me begging to stop, and I was thankful for my son’s little tank.
Tommy was riding a 2014 Yamaha Bolt R-Spec, which I had put together originally for me to ride cross-country a couple months prior. The stock seat had been replaced with a spring solo with only a half-inch of padding on the seat. No saddlebags, no windshield, bare bones, no frills, no BS.
He had a tank bag for gear and that was it.
I like the minimalist approach to bikes, and it rubbed off on my kid. Some may think it’s not smart to run cross-country without a windshield or saddlebags, but hey, I’ve done it before, and I will do it again.
And so will he.
My mom was riding a 2012 Heritage Classic, all stock. She absolutely LOVES her bike, and I have to agree, the Softail is a great platform.
Hey, enough about the bikes. Let’s get back to the ride.
We crossed into Idaho, over the Continental Divide, through some twisty roads and steep hills. It was a beautiful area and fun as all get up, even for being an interstate.
We rolled into Montana, kicked the speed up a nickel, and made it to St. Regis, where we stayed at the Super 8 motel right off the highway and across from a local market, gas station, and burger stand.
Perfect!
We rose early the next morning, as usual. We packed up the bikes and said our emotional goodbyes to my wife and daughter. It would be four weeks before we would all see each other again.
My wife is my best friend. We go everywhere together, and we don’t spend a lot of time apart from each other, so four weeks was going to be hell!
My son, my mom, and myself headed east on I-90, and as we rode we took in a beautiful bright red sunrise, thanks to the fires in Idaho, Washington, and Montana. Even Glacier National Park had fires going on at this point.
We rode on through Montana, Wyoming, and into South Dakota, where we exited the interstate at Spearfish to ride through Spearfish Canyon.
We continued to roll on into Sturgis for the 75th Annual Sturgis Black Hills Motorcycle Rally, or as I lovingly call it, “Trailer Week.”
I must say, Spearfish Canyon was an absolutely beautiful ride, with great roads, scenery, and small towns. Of course it was PACKED, and the ride was slow, but it was still worth it. I plan to go back with my wife, but not at the time of the rally, and spend a week riding the area.
Sturgis was fun. We stayed in Whitewood at the Iron Horse Inn, and that place kicks butt! It is set up with an alleyway between the two buildings that are lined with rooms, and it features big overhangs so that the motorcycles, which were parked directly outside our door, were for the most part protected from the elements.
We took the shuttle from the motel into Sturgis and played on Main Street and Lazelle, where all the vendors are.
Pretty small event going on this year. It was just me, my mom, my son, and 700,000 of our closest friends!
Sturgis is an experience I feel every biker should have at least once in their lifetime. For many, they long for it every year. For some of us, we want the experience, and then we want to get the hell out of Dodge for someplace a little less crowded.
The weather in South Dakota that summer was crazier than usual. We happened to luck out and not get hit with any of it.
I’m still not sure how we did that…
Oh wait. It’s because EVERY night, after we checked into a motel, my mom would turn on the Weather Channel and see what was happening.
We just so happened to have had perfect weather on our one day in Sturgis.
The next day we rolled off into the sunrise heading for Wall, South Dakota. We had planned to fuel up, then play a bit and grab some breakfast.
After gassing up the bikes and looking around us, all we saw were black clouds.
We looked at each other and decided breakfast could wait. It was time to get out of there before the storm hit!
I was a bit disappointed. I wanted to hang in Wall, see how much had changed, then ride the Badlands a little, but it wasn’t worth putting on rain gear. It’s only a two-day ride from home. We will come back another time!
Most of South Dakota, as seen from I-90, was beautiful. Some parts were a little boring, but it still had a beauty of its own.
As we approached Minnesota, we hit our final fuel stop for the day. As we were gassing up the bikes, another rider pulled in and asked, “Which way ya’all heading?”
“East,” I replied.
He looked at us and looked over our bikes and said, “Where’d you come from?”
I told him we had left Sturgis that morning.
He seemed pretty upset with me at that point.
As we got to talking some more, he said he had left Wall, South Dakota about 15 minutes after us, and he fought the rain until the last 100 miles or so.
Wow.
We got lucky, but it was time to keep pushing on. We were supposed to stop there for the night, but nope. We decided to get some more miles between us and the storm.
After Sturgis, our next destination goal was Freeport, Illinois, to see some family, get some Mrs. Mike’s potato chips, and see our old town.
Between where we were in Minnesota and Freeport, things were not looking too good. Heavy rains and tornadoes had been in the area and were expected to continue.
Well, they stayed away from us!
We exited the interstate in Minnesota and then jumped on some farm roads going through small-town USA. It felt pretty good to be “home.” Farmlands all around, the smell of cow manure, tractors, cornfields…
Yep. All was good.
Minnesota turned into Iowa, then into Wisconsin, where we really pushed Tommy’s fuel to the limit. We had been fueling up every 120–140 miles, and we pushed his tank to 160 on this leg.
His bike actually got 70 mpg by staying off the interstate!
We stopped in Monroe, Wisconsin, at a long-time family favorite, Baumgartner’s Cheese Store and Tavern. Monroe is a small Swiss-style town, famous for cheese. Baumgartner’s is one of my favorites in the area because the food is delicious, plus they took my favorite, Mrs. Mike’s Potato Chips made in Freeport, Illinois, and made them even better.
The last time we were there, they microwaved the chips to warm them.
Okay, so what’s the big deal?
Well, Mrs. Mike’s chips by nature are very greasy and salty, so when these guys warmed them up, the grease seemed to ooze out and the salt became more pronounced.
Mmmm.
Just thinking about them is making me hungry for their chips.
Road trip?
Okay, time to get back to telling our road trip story before I start planning my next one.
Anyway, after we fueled up our bellies and our bikes, we rolled into Freeport, Illinois, and hooked up with my Aunt Mary after we checked into the hotel. She kindly chauffeured us around as we checked out our old town, then ran us out to Lena for Root Beer Coolers, and then back to her place for a mini family reunion.
The next day we ran into Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and went to check out the House of Harley dealership.
The dealership was AWESOME!
I fell in love with that place. The people were nice and friendly, but the historical building was cool as hell and the layout was great. I wanted to ask for a job there!
Oh wait. I suddenly remembered that we were back in the Midwest, and they have…
(gulp)
…snow here.
I was happy to have moved away from there because of the winters. I don’t like the cold or the snow.
I’m the kind of person that, if I want snow, I will go to it.
I don’t want it to come to me!
From Milwaukee, we caught a high-speed ferry to Muskegon, Michigan.
That was pretty cool.
I have only been on the local Washington ferries—old, worn-out, slow ferries. This one was very nice, smooth, and cooler than any other “boat” I have been on.
It’s 88 miles across the lake, and it took just over two hours to travel it.
All motorcycles had to be tied down. Tommy was able to take care of his bike, and I took care of mine and Mom’s.
We met a cool couple from Paris, France. They had flown into Milwaukee and were taking a month to travel around the Great Lakes. They told us that the year before they had flown in and ridden around the northeast part of the U.S.
Tommy got a quick geography lesson because he was wearing his Sturgis 75th Anniversary shirt and some old guy asked him about it.
“There’s a motorcycle rally in Sturgis?”
Tommy said, “Yep.”
The old guy said, “In Sturgis, Michigan?”
“What? No, in Sturgis, South Dakota,” Tommy replied.
Tommy then asked me, “Dad, did you know there is a Sturgis in Michigan?”
What the hell?
Do kids learn anything in school these days?
I guess my grandfather was a bad influence on me. We would sit and look at maps all the time.
We docked in Muskegon, Michigan, after having just crossed Lake Michigan by ferry from Milwaukee. We were done with the flat farmlands and ready for some mountains again!
We got back onto the interstate, worked our way to I-69…
I love that.
I wanted a sticker that had the interstate symbol and 69 in it. Never could find one.
Oh well.
We rolled through Indiana and into Ohio, where the people were a bit crazy for my taste.
But the worst was yet to come.
Next up was Niagara Falls.
Oops.
Change of plans.
Thanks to the Weather Channel, we missed the storm in Illinois by a day and watched the storm chase us to Ohio. Since we were a day ahead, if we went on to Niagara Falls, it would catch up with us and we would’ve been riding in it.
Since that stop wasn’t high on any of our lists, we skipped it and rolled on.
We cut across New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, and into Maine.
We had to stop at the Atlantic Ocean because my mom had never ridden her bike there before. I think this was the highlight of the trip for her.
We also thought it was pretty funny that Tommy rode to the Atlantic Ocean before he rode to the Pacific Ocean that we live an hour and a half away from!
After Maine, we made our way down to Massachusetts for the night, where we met up with the storm. We hung out there for an extra day while the rain blew through.
By this point, I wanted out of the Northeast portion of our great land.
The drivers seemed like they were out for blood, and anyone on a motorcycle seemed like the best candidates!
All I could think was, “Get me out of here before I do something stupid!”
Sanity wasn’t too far away. Just a few more states, but I had to chase it down.
We rolled on through New York again, staying out of the city, on to New Jersey and into Pennsylvania to Amish Country.
I thought Amish people were against technology, including power, automobiles, etc. Apparently there must be different levels of Amish, because the ones we saw had tractors, power, and credit card machines?
I’m sure the “true” Amish were further off the beaten path.
I thought we would start talking with kinder people here, but nope. The Amish did not like us.
That was kind of crazy since they owned many retail stores and non-Amish people are their customers.
The people may not have been the most pleasant, but the scenery sure was—awesome rolling hills, lots of green trees, and decent roads.
At the hotel, there was a hot-air balloon being launched. We watched it from the time they pulled everything out of the trailer to the time she was in flight.
That was a pretty cool thing to watch.
We didn’t realize just how loud they really are, but we could hear the “flamethrower” way up in the air.
I used to think people were nuts to just go watch hot-air balloons, but I soon realized how calming it was.
Good.
Because the most dreaded part of the trip was the next day:
Washington, D.C.
Surprisingly, this was a good riding day.
Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Maryland were great, and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge coming into Annapolis was pretty cool!
I thought for sure traffic was going to be hell, but we blew right through to Arlington.
We got into town way too early to check into our rooms, but we were able to drop-kick our gear with the friendly hotel desk clerk while we went for lunch.
After we ate, we wandered over to the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial, Iwo Jima.
We tried going into Arlington National Cemetery, but it was closed off due to a “suspicious package” that had been left, so we crossed over to the Vietnam Wall, the Korean War Memorial, and back to the Vietnam Wall.
It was very touching, and even though I did not lose anyone in the war, I know people who did. I have seen what it did to our soldiers who were there.
I come from a military family. Both parents served during ’Nam, Dad again in Iraq, and grandparents in WWII, so I have a lot of respect for our troops.
I did see some stuff going on there that made me sick. Some tourists were mocking and climbing all over our monuments.
I was pissed and thought, “Damn, show some respect!”
Arlington National Cemetery had reopened by that point, so we went in, looked at some headstones, wandered around, and watched the changing of the guard.
That was pretty cool to watch.
They don’t take crap.
When you are asked to stand, you better stand. The First Sergeant let one lady have it who thought she was too good to stand. As he was speaking, he looked right at her, held his hand toward her, and screamed that she was requested to stand.
She was too busy on her phone and showing no respect, so he stopped the whole ceremony until she stood and was off her phone.
It wasn’t too long before she realized it.
Loved it!
Rolling out of D.C. was a breeze, no issues at all.
It was there that the trip got better for me.
Don’t get me wrong, I had been enjoying myself for the most part before this, but to me the northeastern part of the U.S. was not for me. It was too busy, and everyone was in a rush.
So we headed for Skyline Drive.
Originally, we planned to run Skyline all the way down and to the Blue Ridge Parkway, but weather and roads again played a part in changing our plans.
Skyline was an absolutely beautiful ride.
We cruised through spectacular scenery, wonderful winding roads, and saw plenty of wildlife.
We came around one corner, where I saw something moving in the brush. As I started getting closer, I realized what it was.
There was a big-ass BEAR standing about 10 feet from the road!
“Well crap,” I thought. “I know I can make it around before he decides to grab some lunch, and Tommy might, but Mom? Nope. Mom would stop to try to pet the bear.”
So I stopped back a ways just so we could all look at the bear, hoping he would get spooked.
This is where I wish I had my Dyna and loud pipes to scare it off.
It didn’t take long for the bear to realize we were not going to be his lunch that day, so he walked back into the woods and we continued on.
We made our way down through Virginia, heading for West Virginia, where we pulled into a gas station and had problems with the pumps.
Two hillbillies walked out together. One asked me if we were having problems.
“Yep, the card reader ain’t working,” I told him.
He told me he would try it for us, so I handed him my card. He swiped it, it asked for our ZIP code, so I told him what it was.
As he typed, he said, “9, 8, 5… 985, where ya’all from?”
He then looked at the license plate as I said, “Washington.”
He said, “State? Dang gum, you’s far from home!”
How wrong he was.
I felt right at home.
These were cool folk. Down to earth, humble, not in a huge hurry.
How I missed rednecks!
The rest of our gas-stop story was more visual than anything, but basically he asked where we were headed. I told him, and he advised us not to take the bike down the road because of the twists and turns, cliffs, and mountains.
Wrong!
That sounded great to me.
So we continued up the road as planned into West Virginia to a viewpoint pull-off.
Holy crap, those good ol’ boys were right about that road, and we were happy to have experienced it!
Back into Virginia and heading south to North Carolina was spectacular.
I could see living down that way.
Beautiful roads, scenery, and people.
Man, this was the life!
We were getting close to South Carolina, and the plan was to clip a few miles and move back on through to North Carolina and into Georgia for the night.
We stopped for gas again before the South Carolina state line and ran into a couple more “country boys.”
We BS’d with them for about 20 minutes. They were heading out to ride dirt bikes, but they also said they did Civil War reenactments.
I found out this guy works for Homeland Security and his wife works for the FBI.
Really?!
Man, he did not look or act like it. He looked like a backwoods shine runner and acted like it too.
He was cool as hell. I could have sat and talked with this guy all day, but we had to keep rolling. We had a storm to meet up with at the hotel, and not before.
So we cruised on into Dillard, Georgia, for the night, had an awesome dinner, truly some of the best food on the trip.
The hotel?
Well, that’s another story.
The next morning was one I was really looking forward to:
heading for Hwy 129 and the Tail of the Dragon!
We had started the day off by checking out of our hotel room in Dillard, Georgia. I was looking forward to this final leg of our trip and experiencing the Tail of the Dragon.
After a quick breakfast, we hit the road and headed north again, making our way up to Moonshiner 28, or properly known as NC28, and then on to the Deals Gap Motorcycle Resort.
On the way, we rode along one of the most beautiful roads I have traveled—a twisty, winding road, with great scenery and plenty of bees.
I had a full-face helmet on at this point. I did not grab my beanie helmet for this trip, as I figured I would be without when I could and deal with the full-face when required.
Big mistake.
While riding along with the visor open for ventilation, I got stung by a bee.
Not once.
Not twice.
Three times.
Then we stopped at a scenic overlook to check out the beautiful area for a few minutes, and as I threw my helmet back on, I got stung two more times!
We continued on with the ride even though I was in pain, but thankfully I’m not allergic.
I had calmed down a bit when another bee came through the small crack in the visor and stung me just below the eye.
I couldn’t believe it!
We made it to Deals Gap Motorcycle Resort, where we had breakfast and bought some T-shirts, but damn, they didn’t have any beanie helmets.
As we were about to depart and cruise the Tail of the Dragon, the shop across the street opened up, so we checked it out.
I found a couple stickers for my kid, and as I went to pay I saw that they had one small beanie helmet.
And it was my size!
I would’ve paid $300 or more for that $100 helmet. I didn’t care. I just didn’t want any more bees trapped in my helmet.
When she told me the price was $120, I couldn’t get the cash out fast enough.
Next up, we were off to ride the Dragon.
I had heard about this road for many years.
Was it a bunch of hype? Was it overrated?
Yes.
Was it worth the trip?
Hell yes!
Would I do it again?
Planning on it!
There were 318 curves in 11 miles with no driveways, roads, or other means of cross traffic. The curves were tight and fun. The only things to watch out for were drivers crossing into your lane, cops, photographers, and more cops.
I saw a cop on a marked Harley, cops driving marked patrol cars, a C6 Corvette, and an SRT8 Jeep Grand Cherokee.
There have been many injuries and deaths on this stretch of road, so you must watch out.
About a half-mile after leaving the resort, we entered Tennessee, twisting and turning through the countryside. As we rolled out of the Dragon, it opened up to a great view of the water and dam. From there we continued through the green landscape and headed northwest.
I fell in love with that area too.
The people and the scenery were wonderful all the way to Nashville.
We continued on toward Kentucky and found some rain, but it only lasted about 10 minutes.
The ride through Kentucky was pretty short as we were shooting for Missouri for the night.
By that point it was pretty warm and humid, and I was dying to ditch the brain bucket.
Not too far from Illinois, a no-helmet state, I could see the river, so I unstrapped the skid lid.
As we got on the bridge, I took off my helmet and ran my hand over my head.
As I looked over to my right, there was my son flipping me the bird…
while wearing his full-face helmet.
Sorry dude.
My choice, my right, and you’re only 16.
As we rolled on through southern Illinois toward Missouri, I was watching these dark, mysterious, and downright mean-looking clouds.
Not liking this, I looked at the GPS, and how the road followed, then looked back at the clouds again.
I watched the GPS and the clouds for what seemed like an eternity until I saw we were two miles from the hotel.
We’re going to make it, I thought.
We just need to go up a couple blocks, catch the interstate for a mile, and the hotel would be right there.
As we got to the stoplight close to the interstate, we started to get hit with a few drops of rain.
I had on a sweatshirt and I’d put my beanie back on. My kid had a full-face helmet and a waterproof riding coat on.
We looked ahead and all we could see was rain literally bouncing off the pavement.
My son looked over at me, pointed, and laughed!
I’m thinking, “Oh, hell no. We’re almost there.”
So we made a right turn, followed the road that paralleled the highway while staying dry, made a left turn at the next big intersection, and shot over the freeway to the hotel, evading the rain again.
We parked the bikes under the covered drop-off area, and as we got off the bikes, the downpour hit.
The next couple days were spent in the heartland as we rolled through Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska.
We had to hold up an extra night due to tornado warnings, but again, no danger was met face-to-face.
While in Nebraska, we were noticing a haze on the horizon. When we dipped into Colorado, it was still there, as well as in Wyoming.
It wasn’t until we stopped for food and fuel in Wyoming that I asked the waitress what the haze was from.
She said, “It’s the smoke from the fires in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and California.”
Damn.
We could see that haze midway through Nebraska.
We stayed the night in Rock Springs, Wyoming, a small town with a great hotel and nice scenery.
We watched the news in the morning and saw there was no way around the fires, so we planned to just jump on the interstate.
We ran I-80 through Utah to the Bonneville Salt Flats, and of course, being racers, we had to run the scoots down the salt.
Which, by the way, we are still cleaning off the bikes.
It was a great time on the salt. I really want to get back down there and run my Dyna in the time trials. Unfortunately, the last couple years Speed Week was canceled due to the water on the salt.
All of the mining is having a major effect on the salt beds.
We made it to Twin Falls, Idaho, for the night, and breathing was difficult from the smoke.
The next day, as we rode through Oregon, I didn’t recognize it.
The air was smoky.
The ground was black.
It wasn’t the Oregon I knew.
When we arrived back in Washington, my wife met up with us in the Tri-Cities.
We opted to stay the night just for the heck of it, even though we could have pushed on and made it home sooner.
But it sure was nice to have a hotel room alone with my lady for the night too.
The next day we cruised over White Pass and made our way back up to Olympia to my mom’s house.
My son and I dropped her off, I got my Dyna back, and we headed for Shelton.
The Ultra Classic made for a cushy ride, but it sure felt good to be back on my Dyna, feeling the road beneath me and the power and noise that my bike makes.
My son and I ended the trip riding side by side the rest of the way home.
All in all, it was a great trip.
No major problems. No accidents. Little rain.
I’m looking forward to doing another trip with my son and this time, my wife.
I would like to give a very special thank you to my mom for making this dream a reality for all of us.
Love you, Ma!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tom Neal is the founder of Bigfoot Trails Basecamp, an independent adventure media project built around real experiences. He’s spent most of his life around vehicles, motorcycles, racing, travel, and projects that tend to take longer and cost more than originally planned.
After decades of doing all that stuff, he’s learned that the best stories usually aren’t the ones you planned. They’re the people you meet, the places you stumble across, the things that go wrong, and the moments you never expected.
That’s what he wants to capture with BTB.
He doesn’t want to write about adventure from the outside. He wants to go experience it, then tell you what happened.
Bigfoot Trails Basecamp | Independent Adventure Media
