It was late afternoon when we rode into Petoskey; the sun was well down on the horizon. Late afternoon had painted the sky in brilliant autumn colours. And, there was a chill in a breeze that wafted off Lake Michigan.…

By 5.30am, I was out on the verandah; giving thought to the possibility of galloping the straits and riding to the ultimate tunnel. I’d already wandered up to the local service station to secure a large Columbian appropriately laced with…

Firestorms and a Fracture of Filial Faith is a fairly unusual title for a chapter about two old blokes on the road in Northern Minnesota; but stick with me, Hinckley is a fairly unusual town. The first settlers in this…

By the time we’d eaten, laughed about Rick until our sides hurt, talked over our day’s ride, and generally kicked back at Dennys, I was out of steam. My plan, when we got back to the room, had been to…

It had just gone 4am when I eased the door open as quietly as I could and stepped out onto the landing. Later in the day, we’d be visiting a palace as a couple of drifters on the Great Plains;…

Dawn was probably still an hour away as, with coffee in hand, I pushed through the front door and out into the car park. Though not raining, beaded water covered the chrome and painted surfaces of cars and motorcycles; and…

At a little after 4.30am I wandered outside with coffee in hand. It was pleasantly cool and dry, but the sheen on the car park surface betrayed overnight rain. The coffee was Columbian, black, hot and surprisingly strong; I like…

The Grand Gateway Hotel was actually not that grand, but was neat, clean, centrally located, and the staff were great. Decorated in what would have been regarded as kind of grand in the 1960s, it was nonetheless well maintained, convenient…

Morning dawned crystal clear and pleasantly cool with a thin cover of cirrus cloud. A good day for our ride from Billings past the site of the Little BigHorn Massacre to the City of Presidents. I’d woken and gone looking…

It was still dark when I woke; too dark to see what time it was. There didn’t seem to be a moon but I could hear the wind in the pines just outside the window. There were other sounds too…