Summer Trip Seattle

[2slowTrophy]

Well it's that time again I'm going to visit friends and do some RIDING.

I have a little over 5000 miles so I changed my tires oil and final drive oil added LED driving lights.

The hard part is packing last year on my trip to Northern California it rained 5 days of the nine days we were gone.
Camping gear is easy I have backpacking gear so it packs away the street / riding clothes will be the hard part , I have mesh pants but they are very bulky but I can wear street clothes.
 
This will be the first long trip on my Trophy to see how it would do I ran a SS1000 in just under 15 1/2 hrs. it was a much better ride than my Tiger 1050 but it should be and with the larger fuel tank it was great.   

I have already watched "Wild Hogs'' for pointers.
Havein Withdraw ,,, Time is Moving TO Slow.

[2slowTrophy]

Does anyone know anything about the roads in Gifford Pinchot National Forest just east of Mt. St. Helens in Washington state?
I'm wanting to make sure the roads are not in bad shape as to make for a arduous trip.
Thanks

[r1pete]

Good question, it was in the 90's when I was last up in that area. Perhaps one of our members from the state of Washington will chime in and let us know. If we don't get an answer, I will make some calls and see what I can find out.

[r1pete]

So when do U plan on being in that area?

[2slowTrophy]

I'm looking to be there around the 11th of July.
Trophy ready to go new tires  , new oil , LED lights , loaded items in panniers and top case and checked the weight to make sure one pannier was not to heavy.
Made sure Brother in Law's Tiger Explorer 1200 was ready new tires and 20,000 service done.

[2slowTrophy]

We started out on July 8th , My Brother In Law From Abilene TX on a 2013 Triumph Tiger Explorer , myself from Dallas TX 2014 Trophy and we linked up in Dumas TX in the Pan Handle of Texas the
temp's were in the lower 80's by lunch.
The ride was uneventful till we were just outside of Raton NM it was looking like rain and my BIL was leading I was hoping he would pull over so we could put the rain gear on , he did stop and as we started to get the rain gear out it started , no not the rain it was hail.
My first hailstorm on my Trophy , the hail was only about 9mm 1/3 inch so no damage but it did sting a little.
The first day we made it to Colorado Springs a little over 700 miles for me and about 500 for BIL.

The next day would be the long one we would ride to Twin Falls Idaho 880 miles it was a nice day starting out we went through Denver CO before to many people got going and around Fort Collins we ran into rain we had checked the weather and were ready it rained hard but it let up a little to Hail On Us again second day and hail again !! what Luck.
Cars pulled over to stop but there was no safe place for us to stop so on we went. 

The road work was a growing pain we had road work in Texas , Colorado , Wyoming and now the GPS took us on a bypass of Salt Lake City it looked like a good idea setting in a line waiting for traffic to move.
We ended up in the Uinta - Wasatch-Cache National Forest it was a great ride nice place to see if we had planed for it but we wanted to get to Seattle in three days.
We did get to Twin Falls after a long day and found our hotel.

Day three we had 501 miles to go great day no hail nice ride till we got to I-90 to go over Snoqualmie Pass an accident with traffic delayed one and a half hours we did find a way around the mess.
We made it to my friends house about 6 pm and we went to dinner before a well deserved rest.

The next day we headed to Mt. Rainier through Ashford WA on 706 the west side of the park , we stayed a Cougar Rock Camp Ground we did take a few hikes and went to Paradise to see a few places.
On the way up to Paradise I was riding my Trophy my BIL and friend were in his Sports Mobile F350 van that is setup as a camper like the old VW vans but much larger and 4X4 there were 38 signs that said "Motorcycles use Extreme Caution" lots of road work.   


On the way out we had talked to a Ranger and he told us that the road going out to the east was much better.
AND IT WAS nice road I had to stop and wait for the van a few times as the Trophy was just having fun 

We went back to my friends house and got things ready for the trip home it was to take four days.

The weather was cool we left a little later than I would have liked.
With all the road work we wanted to miss as much of it as we could , headed towards Spokane to miss the Salt Lake City mess.

On the way back my BIL was going to stop in Denver CO to visit family and I was going to be free to leave Casper WY and head back to Dallas TX on a Saddle Sore 1000 even with all the road work I finished up in 18 hours the Trophy never missed a beat.