The Joy of Good Internet

I have been unable to post due to bad internet at the places I have stayed. Motel 6 is not the only place with poor "high speed internet".

So, I plan to try to go back a week and post some Rally pics and catch up a bit. 

Will be having a nice visit with John and Carol, so not likely doing a lot of blogging, but will try to do some.

Just thought I'd let you know.

Day 17 - July 17 Internet Access is Back!

People arrived in force last Wednesday and completely overwhelmed the WiFi nets provided by both the Fairpark and MOA. My Chairman had a private T-Mbile hotspot and it too was not reliable or fast. As a result, I have do catch up. which may take some days to get done.

I left the Utah State Fairpark Sunday Morning at 8 am an proceeded to Boise. I was prepared to stop earlier but there was no room at the inn (actually, no inns to speak of in that considerable distance, almost 600 miles). Could not have done it without the water-soaked evaporative vest. I did not pass a rest stop the whole way, unless it was just before or after a gas/meal stop. Even so, it was over 32 C the whole way. On arrival in Boise, I found a Motel 6, a restaurant I could walk to, and got to bed early. Slept better than I had in weeks, was likely exhausted.

Left there later than planned, 8 am this morning. The day started cool, but noon saw me soaking the vest with water. By the time I got to The Dalles, OR I was through. Got a lovely room at the Shilo Inns for less than a shop-worn Comfort Inn. Restaurant attached and guess where I will eat later?

Off to Anacortes WA tomorrow to sleep over and catch the ferry to Sydney, BC near Victoria.

Catchup

This may continue tomorrow.

I am going to publish this, don"t know what you will see of videos, may have to further edit.

"Motels dont offer high bandwith....

Now 7 PM, can't see my own videos, poor internet. will post a few pics and go to bed. Will have to await better wifi before I can polish this post.

No joy. Later.

Day 12 - July 12 More Hot Days at the Rally Edit 1

Last night was a pleasantly cool night. I used a sleeping bag liner without the sleeping bag for the first time. Very pleasant.

I added a flag to the tent so my fellow Canadians can say hello if they pass by.

These folks (to the right of my tent) arrived yesterday. Seem to be all part of a big group.

I suspect the field will be filling up today and especially tomorrow.

By afternoon, temperature was 34 C. Skipped breakfast and felt poorly until I had something to eat. Will not do that again. Too hot and too high up. I did drink a lot of water and that is wise. Volunteers get lots of free bottles of water, fortunately.

Edit 1:

My alarm went off, as planned, at 5:30 am this morning. It was in the tent pocket right beside me. I opened the cover and swiped to unlock. I could not swipe to stop the alarm because of advertisements! So I tried to power off. Nope. Those ads again. Eventually, the alarm timed out. After a run to the washroom to clean up, I found the setting to prevent advertisement personalization and now have a useful phone back. It was infuriating and I apologized to my neighbors. But, none of them heard it, they said.

Day 10 July 10 Rally Volunteer Work Begins

The BMW MOA rally in Salt Lake City won't officially begin until Wednesday. Yet, people arrived yesterday to set up their tents and begin doing volunteer labour to get things ready for their fellow members.

It takes a lot of volunteers.

Arriving early helps get nice shady places for the tent:

So, I'm here, in a great location.

More to come.

Day 8 July 8 Arrived at Salt Lake City

From Grand Junction CO to SLC UT is some ride!

The first bit is badlands. Then, there is more of that, with exits that say "no services". No gas, no place to pee, nothing. I had gassed up so no worries on my bike which is made for long rides and has a 500 km range.

I gassed again in Price UT, just to be sure I had more than more than enough. More than. Gas is almost as precious as peace of mind.

Right after, the highway is declared to be a Scenic Byway. Sure was, Something old Western movies would use as scenery. And twisty. Mile after mile of twisties. Beautiful and great riding but my right wrist is still sore. But, I loved it.

So, where is the movie? I started the GoPro and thought I let it run. Got 10 minutes of video not worth watching. Battery dieded? Don't know.

Eventually I got to Provo. From there, it is industrial development on both sides of a highway like the 401. And then, exit, a few turns and I arrived at the motel.

Tomorrow, to the rally site and setting up my tent.

Day 7 July 7 Grand Junction CO

Had a great ride today, let the GoPro run until the battery died and edited what was there for you:

The tunnel is the Eisenhower tunnel, opened in 1973 and 1.5 miles in length.

Road is I-70, starting from Idaho Springs. No pics of the run along the river or the western badlands, sorry.

Day 5 - July 5 @Idaho Springs, CO

I am composing this post for the second time today. This morning I had one of those "the dog ate my homework" episodes. I was determined to master using the iPad app from Blogger that I paid for and it went somewhat ok until I tried to publish the draft. It looked like it worked, but did not and I could not recover the work. Loss of data is inexcusable.

So, here we are trying again.

The ride up route six was very interesting with a lovely curvy road and six tunnels. Eventually roadwork cause me to enjoy your at least a half an hour of stop and go traffic. Further, the road continued to curve and at each curve the camber was quite steep. Under stop and go conditions, it was very important to put the correct foot down when coming to a stop. Otherwise the bike would tip right over. In any event all went well and I arrived at Idaho Springs.

After checking into the hotel, I decided to take a walk in the town. I unloaded my Nikon D7200 and checked the battery condition. It was low, and I discovered I do not have the battery charger with me on my trip. I will have to obtain one down the road.

Before I take you on a tour, let me explain the above. A few days ago I went to a restaurant and found the prices on this bottle of wine to be rather intriguing. For 9 oz glass, $8, and for the bottle, $10! I asked if I could take the unfinished part away, and this was the result. Capped, receipt, sealed bag just in case police asked.

 

There is an artisanal distillery here. Quite pricey, but decent enough as a conversation piece.

Kyle is a chem eng student at Colorado School of Mines.

After checking into the hotel, I decided to take a walk the town. I unloaded my Nikon D7200 and checked the battery condition. It was low, and I discovered I do not have the battery charger with me on my trip. I will have to obtain one down the road.

Day 4 - July 4 York NE to Brush CO

It was a long and hot ride today. I was on the road at 8am and rode until about 2:30. Really that waa 3:30 as I passed into Mountain Time. Mr Garmin detected that and told Mr BMW to adjust his clock, which I saw happen. 12:00 became 11:00. Maybe the 00's were some other numbers but it was around then. Was looking forward to lunch in a cool place by then.

Colorado at first looked like Nebraska, naturally, but became a little more rolling hills ranch land in appearance. I was started to fade in the heat, Brush CO exit said there were hotels and restaurants. The signs did not actually lie. I am in a Microtel hotel, a bit expensive for what you get, and the restaurants are closed for the July 4 holiday, both of them. McD's was open though.

No wifi. Went through a difficult time getting the staff to reboot routers and me trying to log in again and again. I gave up. If I publish this today, it will all be to McD's credit and their network. Else, tomorrow. Was going to post some previously taken pics, but that will have to wait for a good wifi connection in the near future.

So, let's try publishing.

An Appology

I have run out of patience and time. Sorry if the last post was not up to acceptable standards. I don't know if it is slow internet, the Blogger PC app, or the Blogger iPad app that is giving me problems, but I can't seem to set a post with placeholders on the PC, then add photos from the iPad into the desired place. On a trip, one does not have unlimited time to fight with apps!

I apologize for the bad post, and will tell the story behind the wine bottle when the adrenaline wears off and I can avoid swearing.

Day 3 - Des Moins to York, Nebraska

Route Today

Straight run along I-80 from Des Moines to York, Nebraska. I stopped at some rest stops. The ones in Iowa were large, but no tourist advisors. In Nebraska, they had no place to sit down, as in Iowa, but did have a person to give travel advice. Restrooms were equally immaculate.

York, Nebraska

Major intersection on I-80 with many hotels north and south of the intersection. I found the Motel 6 to be quite adequate.

Fellow at the front desk said the hotel was recently renovated, had been a number of different names in the past. Once was hit by a tornado, but they never hit twice, right?

Route Tomorrow

Going to go south to US 36. Not an interstate highway. I have been told these older highways are the way to see the US. It may be a bit slower, but we shall see. I hope to end up just east of Denver tomorrow by about 2pm. Hopefully, this will avoid the late afternoon thunderstorms that can occur. JB is advising me on the weather. Skype lets us talk every day. His help is appreciated.

Day 2 - July 2 Madison to Des Moins

Finishing Day 1

So, about those videos...

 OK, I talked Richard M's advice  and loaded up some videos to YouTube. That required me to download the Capture app for my new iPad 10.5.  All of that was another learning curve. 

Day 2

The ride from Madison on Highway 151 was extremely nice. There was a lot of farmland and some spectacular Cubs through rock. Eventually, the GPS took me on to Highway one down to I – 80. I Dash 80 was a bit of a slog over to Des Moins where I took a motel.

Had a very nice steak dinner, reorganized my pack again, did some laundry, created this post, and I think that's about all I really want to do for this day.

Day 1 - July 1st Toronto to Madison WI

This is the 3rd time I have done this leg. I'm writing this on the Lake Express catamaran to Milwaukee. Left at 5am, arrived 600+ Km later at about 1:30. Searched for a gas station, had to backtrack, but still arrived first in line for boarding the ferry. Lake Michigan is like glass tonight  waves less than 1 foot, I was told. I paid a bit more for the Premier cabin, as it is quieter. Oh, wait, is it quiet because I am not wearing my hearing aids? LOL

Have taken some photos and should add them. The movies will require a bit of editing...else they look amatureish. David Masse has set a certain standard for us bloggers now has he not? Must not let our side down , right?  Well, I am going lo w tech, using iMovie. Not ruling out the $700 video editing route, but I find the learning curve to be just too much. The people who write the help pages for all of these programs need a serious kick in the ass, IMHO.  I was standing at the rail of the ferry taking a movie. I thought I stopped recording, but no, I added the usual pan down to my feet. That needed to be excised. It took way too long to find out how. These help guys don't provide strategies.

My strategy is to split the movie I took, keep the good bit and delete the split-off crap. Fast. Easy. Not presented as a strategy. These fools don't relate to you and me and should be confined to the waste heap. That strategy works for most short clips, or put another way, amounts to about 90% of what most people will take as videos.

Because my other passion is phography, I do have a sense of taking a relatively short clip. There may be some start and end stuff to delete but if you get the clip mostly right, a simple edit cleans it up and you can add it into the movie. Where do the help writers tell newbies that? When David reads this he will say "programmers do this stuff all the time". Yes, and I can't not.

Back to the non-rant stuff now. Sorry.

And, movies!

Oh, I thought the cloud ate my edits done on the ferry with a slow " fast internet " but I was wrong. 

Now, to add those movies. Can't do it. Un-intuitive,  not a hint as to what to do, just crap. Will publish this and add stuff later. Terrible.

Day 1 - July 1st Toronto to Madison WI

This is the 3rd time I have done this leg. I'm writing this on the Lake Express catamaran to Milwaukee. Left at 5am, arrived 600+ Km later at about 1:30. Searched for a gas station, had to backtrack, but still arrived first in line for boarding the ferry. Lake Michigan is like glass tonight  waves less than 1 foot, I was told. I paid a bit more for the Premier cabin, as it is quieter. Oh, wait, is it quiet because I am not wearing my hearing aids? LOL

Have taken some photos and should add them. The movies will require a bit of editing...else they look amatureish. David Masse has set a certain standard for us bloggers now has he not? Mussent let our side down , right?