Motorcycling Road Trips:
2024 plains crossing, westbound#
Posted 2024-06-19
(no summary for day 2 because I didn't use the Beeline GPS)
The 985 mile return trip to the west -- on Tuesday, 6/18, and Wednesday 6/19 -- had a very different character than its eastbound sibling. Based on weather forecasts, I picked the only two days that assured a rain-free passage across my route. However, the forecasts were less optimal in regard to wind and temps.
I departed about 5:30AM Central Daylight on the 18th in cool temps and with cloud cover looming to the south. Riding conditions were frequently overcast but decent throughout the leg southwest from Viroqua, WI to get to US Highway 20 West near Manchester, Iowa (roughly 100 miles). However, once I rolled onto Highway 20 -- my arrow-straight path across all of Iowa and almost half of Nebraska -- I was under an almost unbroken cloud system that packed continuous, strong wind from the south randomly punctuated with strong gusts. Consequently, it was a day of attenuated counter-steer/counter-lean against buffeting cross winds -- a good physical and mental challenge, but a ride where nature wasn't "one with me" but rather preferred to show it had a mean streak. All of that said, there were still some beautiful plains-states scenery highlights, and the sky and clouds, too, offered an impressive show. I covered 690 miles to get to North Platte, Nebraska to rest for the night, arriving there about 6:30 PM Central Daylight.
I completed the journey back to metro Denver on Wednesday, 6/19. It was an unseasonably cool day, with conditions like the prior day, but with occasional gaps in the clouds, as well as less-sustained cross wind action. I departed North Platte about 5:45 AM Central Daylight and was home in Arvada about 10:14 AM Mountain Daylight. (The Colorado leg is the one part of the trip where I used an Interstate Highway: I used I76 beginning at Julesburg, Colorado and continuing all the way home. I76 is hands down the best connection between metro Denver and the northeast corner of Colorado, and to me it generally feels less congested and crazed than most Interstate passages.)
Summing up, this journey lacks the visual star power of a Rocky Mountains or Utah canyonlands area ride, but the plains states are beautiful in their own right, and these vast ranch and farm lands are North American treasures worth beholding. As with the eastbound ride, my 2018 Kawasaki Versys 650 LT, aka the blackbird proved to me again it was a rider's bike equal to any challenge.
Some highlight pics from the right-mirror-mounted mini camera follow, with brief captioning beneath each.
Rural southwest Wisconsin farmland as I start the trip
Crossing the Mississippi via bridge between Prairie du Chien, WI and Marquette, IA. On close inspection, a towboat can be seen pushing barges up the river (it seems strange they call them tow boats given they are lashed to the barge's stern and push rather than pull, but they do).
Winding northeast Iowa highway view
Another Iowa small-town stand out, Strawberry Point, complete with a main street giant strawberry.
On Hwy 20 in central Iowa, small trees along the shoulder show the magnitude of the cross winds, and the clouds are as they were for a majority of the day
Big-country view to the south on the final leg to North Platte on Highway 83
Speaking of big sky and big plains, this look west on day 2 when rolling along I76 near Sedgewick, Colorado (at about 81 MPH) is a wonderful example