2014 Glacier National Park on Motorcycle

Roxanne and Tim got an early taste of the empty nest this summer. In July, we realized that Erik would be taking summer school at Marquette and Kyle would be out of town on a service trip so we took on the challenge of a long-range motorcycle vacation. We had never done that but decided to give it a shot.

Our motto was "It is about the journey, not the destination" so we decided to take a couple of unexpected and unusual stops. Some of our stops included:

The SPAM Museum in Austin, MN:

The Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD:

Roxanne, of course, had to drive a tractor!

And Mitchell's High School team are the "Kernels"

The Badlands National Park

Custer State Park, South Dakota

Custer is known for a herd of Buffalo that roam the park. While the park is home to over a 1,000 buffalo, we got caught in the middle of a couple of hundred while on our motorcycle! I've been close to black bears and grizzly but this may have been just as scary! The buffalo were snorting at us as we sat pretty exposed on the motorcycle!

If you get to South Dakota, you must visit the prettiest State park we have ever been to!

Kalispell, MT – Fast Toys

Any story about our trip will include the story about our rear tire on the motorcycle disintegrating late on a Friday afternoon just before we were about to enter Glacier National Park from the west. Roxanne and Tim stopped to rest and enjoy a Huckleberry ice cream shake at the Huckleberry Patch when we noticed that the rear tire was literally coming apart. A quick internet search on my trusty Microsoft Surface 3 led me to recommendations to call Fast Toys in Kalispell, MT. We took a very careful, 20 mile drive back to see if they could help us. These guys were FANTASTIC! They stayed open late, found us tires and got us back on the road to make the trip over the Going to the Sun road before dark. I cannot say thank you enough to the team at Fast Toys. Their customer service is something they have every right to brag about!

Glacier National Park

OK…..Tim needs to go on a diet but look at the lake and the mountains!!!!! J

Browning, MT

Kyle's Service Trip was to the De La Salle Blackfeet School on the Blackfeet Reservation. Roxanne and Tim took a Sunday afternoon drive from their campsite to Browning to see where their service trip was.

Kyle's group stayed in a bunkhouse

Glacier National Park Lodges

Kyle's Service trip had been at the Glacier Park Lodge just hours before we got there. They boarded the train across the street for their Amtrak trip home.

Thanks to Tim's Dad and wife, Toni for hosting us in their 5th wheel camper.

Our view from the campsite was great!

We stayed in St. Mary's

Did I say we had fun?