Dave and Redbone invaded Canada...

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Looks like quite the adventure.
Thanks for sharing guys.

I'm not sure I could survive that many miles on a motorcycle let alone a vmax. Quite impressive.

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[Redbone]

Looks like quite the adventure.
Thanks for sharing guys.

I'm not sure I could survive that many miles on a motorcycle let alone a vmax. Quite impressive.

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It was an adventure for sure, not sure I would do it again on a Vmax. Dave looked so comfortable on the Super Tenere. Redbone looked a little like the Beverly Hillbillies with all the stuff on her where Dave's setup looked like a proper touring bike.

 

[Miles Long]

It was an adventure for sure, not sure I would do it again on a Vmax. Dave looked so comfortable on the Super Tenere. Redbone looked a little like the Beverly Hillbillies with all the stuff on her where Dave's setup looked like a proper touring bike.

Brian, achieving the Beverly Hillbillies look can only be accomplished by the strategic placement of cooking utensils.
Great fun having you fellas visit this summer, as well as my little ride with ya.
Let's do it again sometime.
Cheers!

 

[Redbone]

Yes it was Miles, and mentioning our little ride along the beautiful stretch of road along the river to Gagetown was fun. A lunch time ride to the Boot pub would be perfect on a warm summer day.
You were wise to turn around when you did although you said you got a little wet on your ride home as well. To add to that last sentence not 15 miles down the road after saying my goodbye to Miles it looked bad ahead so I pulled over and donned my rain gear and jumped back on the freeway. I no more than get up to speed and the wind and heavy rain came pouring down! With my trusty Tourmaster Defender jacket, my normal riding pants (water resistance washed -in), Forma Adventure boots and Shoei Qwest with a pinlock shield I motored on through the rain slowed traffic (some even pulled over with their 4 ways on!?!) and nary a leak nor fogged faceshield would slow me down. 20 minutes later I was through the rain so I motored on until 45 minutes later more rain threatened but this time with ground to sky lightning so the first exit I could I pulled into a Timmies and took shelter.

 

[scuff]

great thread guys looks like the trip we all dream about taking, great roads great ppl, well done !!

 

[Redbone]

Pictures from my point and shoot, I'll have a much better DSLR with a long lens(200 or 300) and a mono pod next time I go. If anyone can make a specific of which setup to get for these long shots and huge landscapes I'd appreciate it.

 

[Fire-medic]

Wow, the "internet" of its time, before the Civil War! The Transatlantic Cable. What a great development in communications. Great pics, thank-you for the viewings. It was after that when we laid the "Gold Spike" into the North American Transcontinental Railroad, at Promontory Point UT (1869). https://www.nps.gov/gosp/index.htm What an incredible feat of engineering!

For those of you who are into such things, our tapping of undersea cable to detect messages during the Cold War, using our submarine fleet and certain "independent contractors," (the Hughes Corporation's Glomar Explorer, to salvage a Russian nuclear sub that was wrecked on the bottom of the ocean) makes very interesting reading.

http://www.maritime.org/doc/glomarexplorer/index.htm

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2602subsecrets.html

The second link contains the story of the newest USN nuclear attack submarine Thresher, which was lost at sea April 9, 1963. I was a kid vacationing in FL during spring break from NY when that happened, and I recall reading about it in the newspaper, the nightly news broadcast on TV, and wondering like everyone-else, "what happened?"

When you travel, you never know what historical sites you may encounter. That's why you want to take your time and to be on secondary roads. Yes, travel takes longer, but the serendipitous events you have are why you're traveling in the first place.

A trip I would like to take is from the start of US 27 just off Biscayne Bay in Miami FL to the top of the lower peninsula on MI, which I believe is its conclusion. Then I'll have my own photos to recall the fun of the trip, like these guys who've had such fun in the journey and the experiences. "Good on-ya!"

 

[davesax36]

One pic Brian didn't post is of the original cable and sticking up out of the water just behind the sign. Too bad they took down most of the displays in the museum. I really like going in there.

 

[Redbone]

Yup, I liked the museum as well, very interesting slice of history. One thing I thought was odd, maybe a little out of place in my mind with the museums theme, was the snooker table on exhibit. I should have taken a picture but was probably puzzling over it's purpose.
Here is a picture of the original cable and I thought I took pictures of the concrete work depicting the direction of travel of the cable which had the original transmission written in Morse code and translated to what the code spelled out along that line. In the back ground you can see a pipe coming out of the water which carried a later installed cable.


FM; Following US 41 from Miami would get you to a very scenic location in the U.P.; the Keweenaw peninsula, Copper Harbor. A drive to the Upper Peninsula along US 41 in October you could see all the beautiful fall colors the area has to offer.
I have traveled most of US 2 across most of the U.S., on this trip I picked up the very eastern portion of it. I just need the section from West Glacier (Glacier National Park) over to Sunnyslope, WA. to finish that roadway. Sunnyslope is a town on the eastern slope of the Cascade mountains near the Columbia river as the land rolls out into the fertile apple and other crops of Central Washington.

 

[Fire-medic]

Yes, US 41 is known as, "Okeechobee Rd." in Miami FL. That's another mother road that serves the Midwest, and also is worthy of exploring. I've been to the U.P., but a long time ago, visiting friends at NMU at Marquette.

 

[06VMAXIMUS]

Great story, thanks for sharing! I have to agree with mike though, there is no way I could ride that long of a trip on a Vmax!

 

[davesax36]

Great story, thanks for sharing! I have to agree with mike though, there is no way I could ride that long of a trip on a Vmax!

It's really not as bad as you think. I did it last year on my vmax in 10 riding days. I had my vacation break in the middle, but it goes by fast when the scenery is changing.

 

[marsmax85]

I'd be lucky to get 200 miles a day in before hips give out but I am glad you guy's are enjoying the ride !! Stay safe

 

[davesax36]

OK. So at this point in the story, we've gotten to my inlaws and done our first run-out day. The plan was to take our time and work our way across the island. The more we hung out with the fam, the less we really wanted to go sleep on the ground and eat crackers for dinner. So we stretched our home stay out. The day after our run south for the Irish Loop, we made a run up the other side of Conception Bay, through Bay Roberts (where my father-in-law was born), and all the way up and around that peninsula to the very tip at Grate's Cove. This is where we had our first bad road turn around. My GPS swore that we could take Back Road down from Grates cove through to Daniel's Cove. Well that wasn't gonna happen. We rode up this hill on a ribbon of asphalt that was crumbly at best. When we got almost to the top of the hill near where Cabot Rock used to be (somebody took it, apparently) the road just turned into rocks. Not gravel... just rocks. I looked a Brian, and he said "It's not gonna get any better." So we turned around and when back the way we came, on this great road that wound around a bit before dumping us back at the turn-off for Bay de Verte. Remember the guy we'd met at the ferry whose family owned the fish factory? That's right. We pretty much went to his town just for fun.

So there's a gas station at the turn-off. "We" cough Brian cough needed gas so we stopped. As we pulled out of there, the harley guys and gals that had stopped to just hang in the parking lot stared at Brian so bad. That Redbone turns heads everywhere. We continued down the west side of the peninsula to Heart's Content... again... if you look at the route, we'd done sort of a figure 8 that day. There's a gas station at the western junction there, too. We stopped to have a snack, and while we're there, a Valkyrie and harley that had been at the last station pulled up. Brian had to walk up to them to say hi just to get them to talk to us. Then they were all buddy buddy with us for a few minutes. ALSO, there was a long line of Harleys that pulled up to the stop sign at the corner, and passed along their way. At the end of the line of harleys there was a guy on an SV650 who rode right up to us, jumped off his bike, and said, "Man, what a line to be stuck behind." We didn't know this guy, but we ended up hanging out talking with him for probably 20 minutes. He gave us he tourist book, even though we had one, and we all went on our way. On the way back in, we were watching these really bad clouds about half the time, but they kept the rain up in them and we stayed dry. I think this was the day we got passed by somebody on a v-max going about 85-90. We chased for a minute, but he was really moving, and didn't seem to want to slow down to even wave to us. Whatever. We were having fun, and knew dinner was gonna be on soon. Having finished out loops on the Avalon Peninsula, we would leave the next morning to head across the island so Brian would get a chance to see as much as possible, and head for his ferry.

 

[davesax36]

Now it's day whatever of our travels, and we're getting ready to head across. The schedule for the day was... GO FIND PUFFINS!!! Brian had never seen them, and I knew that in Elliston there's a puffin festival every year as they have thousands of nesting pairs on this big rock out in the bay there. So we headed up across the isthmus onto the Bonavista Peninsula. We made it up to Elliston, got to the puffin island spot, and hung out watching birds and whales for a while. We decided to stay in Clarenville that night, since it was supposed to rain (I think). There were two big groups of side-by-side drivers there. Those things are pretty cool, but I like two wheels. We had a good dinner, gave the waitress a hard time, and got some good sleep. The next day we planned to ride up through Terra Nova park and up around the next land hump/peninsula thing.

While we were riding in the construction zone we took a little detour for some, uh, gastronomic irregularities, and were on our way pretty fast. The construction wasn't as bad as we'd been told by Uncle Dennis so we made pretty good time. We went up and over, and back down to Gander for lunch at Mary Brown's (chicken place -- good stuff). Then we figured we'd made such good time, we could make it up to Twillingate to look for icebergs and camp somewhere up there. We had this great plan to go to Fogo Island the next morning, but the ferries were apparently really wonky, and decided we'd just camp and head on the next day. There was only one campsite up there with space. It was, ummm... way better for RVs. We did find the flattest available spot on the "tenting field" which was really about an 8% grade hill. Some French people came and camped next to us. The guy had a really loud voice, and was aimed right at us, but we had moos bologna and crackers for dinner, told some more stories, watched the girls across the road, and made fun of the harley guys who were acting like they owned the place. We were greeted by one of them with a "How are the yammies workin?" We told him they were great, and that I had a little fuel leak. He was like, "That's pretty bad, you better go get it checked out." When I told him I was 9,000 miles into my trip, and the leak was from plumbing in my own aux fuel tank days before the trip, he shut up pretty fast. He and his buddy had come across from Nova Scotia on the ferry, and were heading back in a couple days. I'm glad they were out riding, but they had really drunk the kool-aid with the matching shirts, hats, and attitudes purchased new from the dealer (ok, rant over).

Good times, either way.

 

[davesax36]

Right. So we left Twillingate, having not seen the ice berg that was apparently in Crow Head. We headed down towards Grand Falls-Windsor. It finally started raining on us. Not terrible. just steady, and we were supposed to go through a bunch of construction. That didn't happen, but we camped out in Burger King in GF-W for more than an hour just waiting out the rain. We didn't have a schedule to stick to, so it didn't matter. The rain sort of let up for a bit, and we headed out towards Deer Lake. We stopped at the Irving Truck stop there on the TCH and started looking for a place to stay. We saw a group of Victory Visions and a sweet KTM 1190 Adventure. As we were eating, the KTM guy came back inside after he'd left to talk to us for a minute about our ride, route, and whatever. Good guy. I ended up meeting the victory guys on my ferry back across. They were from Quebec, and had some pretty serious setups with sweet little trailers.

So we're sitting there calling places hoping to find a room for the night and not camp in the rain, and there's nothing open. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Finally, Brian found a place on the way out towards Gros Morne, which was out destination anyway. It was only about 30 minutes up the road. We took one wrong turn, but realized that it was these nice cabins with a cool property that included a gas station, convenience store, and restaurant.. I was like, "Wait a minute! I've been here before!!! That restaurant is awesome! They fry their sausage in the fryer, not in a pan." So good job Brian for finding this place. We ended up staying here for two night?
First night had awesome sunset from the rain blowing through. We got up and we to the Table Lands. This is where the roots of the Appalachian mountains are actually the surface. It's the oldest exposed rock. One side of the road is all orange, and the other is all green. The orange side is that way because of the way the ground minerals resist vegetation. The green side is where the ground is not nearly as old. It's a really cool place, and one not to be missed if you make the trip. Also the road heading out there is just stupid good. We went all the way down through there through some super-thick fog into Trout river before heading back to the cabin for a couple hours before we headed north to western Brook pond for our boat tour.

 

[davesax36]

The Western Brook Pond boat tour is one of my favorite things to do. It's a crazy place, with documented glacial etching of the land that makes it an inland fjord. After a 2km (maybe 3) walk in, we hung out for a bit, and waited for our boat that was leaving at 4 p.m.

Did I mention that I love this tour? I posted a couple pics earlier. It's insane. The walls are 2000 feet high. 40 feet from the wall, the "pond" is almost 300 feet deep. It's just such a cool place. I'm not even going to write about it. I'll let Brian tell you what he thought of it.

We had the whole road to ourselves leaving, too. We hustled along some really clean, new, smooth road back to our cabin before the moose started to wander around. We successfully saw zero moose on the road the entire trip. Another night hanging at the cabin. Good times, a great sunset, and there was a bit of eye candy down at the last cabing. We didn't have the heart to tell her that he nice little BMW X3 wasn't actually a 2-stroke and probably shouldn't be puffing that much out of the exhaust. It was fun to watch her wander all over the property holding up her phone trying to send a message to her boyfriend, though. The pic of the two horses is from the porch of our cabin. The horses live on the property. Very cool. Also the restaurant. Brian can tell that part.

 

[davesax36]

So we were almost there to Corner Brook, where we were heading to stay with more family. It's nice to have real houses on both sides of the island. It really makes vacation easy. We rolled from Deer Lake (which is really a freakin' huge lake) down toward Corner Brook, which is only about a half hour once we'd gotten up late, had breakfast, taken our time packing the bikes, and dropped the keys off at the store. We had a couple days to spend just hanging out, so that's what we did. The morning after we got there, we went on a ride around in the car to see some places. Brian met my wife's grandmother. I felt bad dragging him along on family stuff, but he'd done everything to become family except get screeched in, so it was all good. Corner Brook is a cool town. More cruise ships actually go there than St. John's because of the depth of the harbor/bay area. I didn't realize that you can see the back of the table lands from the point out on the south side of the harbor. I guess I needed to bring a friend with me to get the full tour. I mean, I've been to Corner Brook probably 6 times, and nobody has ever taken me for a drive out to the point or even up the other side of the bay. Show up with Scary Brian? Done. We'll take you wherever you want to go. The next day we went up to the mall to meet up with a guy from the Tenere forum who I'd done a little vacation plan for. He had a couple good stories already, and he hadn't even been on the island a full day yet. We call him "Mike the Pole", since he's Polish. While we were talking to him in the parking lot, this old(er than me) guy came up to talk about Redbone. He was like. Isn't that the V-max that was parked up on Country Road? Pretty awesome. We're in town one night, and already the locals know where that badass V-max is hanging out. Once we'd done that we took a nice ride out to the north side of the bay, through a couple little communities, and up through some gravelly construction. Redbone was running on 3 cylinders for some reason, so we headed back to the house to do some fixing. We found a lot of corrosion on a battery terminal, and replaced a COP (of course Brian had brought a whole set). A little test ride, and we were good to go.

Our trip together was coming to an end, as Brian was leaving the next morning to go to his ferry from Port aux Basques, and I was riding straight back across the island to St. John's while my wife and mother-in-law rode back on the bus.

So Brian had ridden Redbone more than 3,000 miles, and was headed home. I was at 9,000 miles on my new-to-me Super Tenere, and was putting in another 450 mile day before my slug back down the Easter seaboard home. It was a great trip. I got to show off my awesome in-laws, some really fantastic roads, unique experiences, see some friends and meet a new one. If anyone is thinking about going up to Newfoundland. DO IT!!!

 

[Fire-medic]

A great travelogue, filled with enough details to entice someone else to try to find those spots, and whatever else comes their way. having family close-by is a good safety net, glad they weren't needed for that. I'm gonna bring up a map and follow your route. You told a good story for encouraging those of us not of the area where to go.

 

[dhornauer67]

Awesome story! Thanks for sharing. I like your choice of bikes, Dave. I have a '12 S10 and '01 Vmax as well.