I spent hours trying to figure out what to take. But, my starting point (the Browns Park house) is the furthest place I will be from a store on this trip. So, this morning I gave up, turned off the water, locked the gate and headed out:

I may be heading to Casper, then east to Michigan. I am not sure. But I have always wanted to visit Encampment and Saratoga Wyoming. So, I rode up Irish Canyon:

Irish Canyon is really beautiful. Today it was green, green, green. Clear sky.

Across Hiawatha:

This road across the top of Colorado and the bottom of Wyoming is really spectacular. Just amazing. I was the ONLY person on the road, other than two Williams pipeline guys. I rode around Hiawatha looking at their junk piles. Very impressive.

Past the new mega switch station on the new power lines:

I don't know what this station does, but it is really neat and looks super expensive. I think the voltage on the wires is really high because the insulator stacks are like 8 feet long!

Drank mate:

(I really like mate!) Then continued on to Baggs Wyoming for lunch, then drove down the road to look at sheep camps at the Powder River Museum:

then headed up towards Encampment. Along the way I passed the Continental Divide at Battle Pass:

It is 10,000 feet and was a bit snowy, but it was not cold. I passed two trucks on 60 miles of roads. 

I think if you click on the image below, it will blow up. This was back around Savery I think. Again, super amazing view:

On Saturday I am excited to check out the [ Grand Encampment Museum ] and then checkout the hot springs in [ Saratoga Wyoming ].

Every year the [ Sombrero ranch has a horse roundup ]. Maybell has 70 residents (I don't think that includes me, but it might.)

A couple of hundred people show up every year to watch the horses run through the main street. There are food carts (but some are pretty sketchy looking), there are vendors. Charlie sells books. I drink mate:

And, if you have $4,250, you can ride along! This year, I think there were more paid riders than horses.

Here is the video you have been waiting for:

And: engine protection, a center stand, aluminium radiator shields.

We are close to hitting the road for an American Road Trip!

When I got home, I washed it, filled it with gas and drove to Colorado and back to see if good gas would help it run better. It did. So I put the motorcycle in the garage and forgot about it for a few days.

Sunday I decided to move it out so I could put the new Africa Twin in the garage also. I started it up and then noticed that the oil cooler had sprung a big leak:

This is bad, right?

This is a known issue on DR650's. The replacement oil cooler is around $850 with shipping and new gaskets. I ordered them. 

But who would ever guess that the cooler would fail in my driveway after a 24,000 mile trip? Wow. I really am the luckiest guy ever. Amazing.

Oh well.

I rode to Ushuaia with a Sedici Duale adventure helmet that I found at the Riverdale Utah Cycle Gear shop. It fit okay, not perfect and I made it work.

Unfortunately it has an 'Adventure Visor' that is attached with two 1/4 turn retaining clips. I lost a clip around Honduras and used duct tape to hold the visor on. The second clip fell off while riding in Southern Argentina. So...more duct tape.

However, when the second clip fell off, the top visor flipped over and bent where it attaches to the helmet.

So, now I have a decent helmet with a $140 CartoPak Helmet kit that is unusable.

I tried to purchase an XXL helmet in Bogota and many other places in South America. Of course, an XXL or XXXL helmet is not obtainable. Most stores claimed they could have one in 2 to 3 weeks. 

I just tried to send a note to Sedici to see if spare parts are available. 

Their website just hangs when you submit a request. Classy.

So, full stop: Sedici is crap. Don't purchase their helmets. Anything else is better.

[ map ]

My buddy John Glenn came down from Lander to say howdy

and we decided to see if we could drive there. The drive in the FJ Cruiser was no problem of course, we had to stop and take a few pictures.

There was a whooptiedoo:

Lunch was an extravagant affair laid out on the front bumper of the FJC:

We then went to a secret (the image has exif data) location to check out these TiPi rings:

Returning home to another spectacular sunset:

Ushuaia Argentina
 to Buenos Aries Argentina
 to Browns Park Utah via Denver Colorado

March 6 [ https://photos.app.goo.gl/dEgJDi9DA4wWTofU8 ] Argentina!

March 19 [ https://photos.app.goo.gl/hbcaXeq1GPVGAQ7dA ] Argentina 2

March 30 [ https://photos.app.goo.gl/JAdwRfC1S2kSgbhu6 ] Getting Back

Heading south from Browns Park Utah to Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego Argentina. Each of the links below is a weeks travel, more or less.

[ Heading back home ]