Glen Canyon National Recreation Area Rear View

Riding through Glen Canyon National Recreation Area on the California Sunrider's Best of the West Guided Motorcycle Tour

The human left me on the bike…alone!

Here's what really happens on tour…

One day this summer the human made the mistake of leaving me by myself and my seatbelt undone…*sniff*… something smells good and I'm hungry.

I know the silly human keeps snacks somewhere in here…

DARN…nothing, I can smell something good…
but it's not in here!

Okay, I smell food somewhere…and I'm HUNGRY!!! I want SNACKS!!!

then I saw them…could it be?…could I be so lucky?…

Look what the nice park people left for me…Bearnie Lunchboxes!

Check out the silly signs on them. Good advice for humans, but not for me!
I'm a bit smarter than the average bear, so this should be easy!

It says "Yosemite's Bears", nothing about Colorado Bears though…

Time to get started…Jump up to here…

Pull myself up to here.

Now Pull myself up…

…to the top…Whew…!!

Hmmmm………Alright! I've got it figured out…I think…maybe????

Okay, Let's see if this works…if I stand on this part…

…and lift here…

…and push with my foot Here!!

Urrrggggggghhhhhhh!!!!

…OW…OW…OW! $#!#X&%
I got my paw stuck …OW! &#!#!



…but I kept trying until my paw about went numb…

and suddenly it finally unlocked!!

I was just bearly able to …

…get these heavy doors open…ughhhhh!!!!!

I Know that smell…

…Food!!!!!!
Time to go find a quiet place in the woods and have a little snack!

…afterwards, all I had to do was put the trash in it, Lock it up…

…like it was…

…climb back down…

… without falling on my @&&…

…get back to the bike, climb up and get back into my seat…

…and the silly human would never know!
He soon came back for me and we had a great time looking around in Yosemite Valley…URPPPP…oops…excuse me!

Nine tours and 25,000 Miles later…

Nine Tours & 25,000 Miles Later…

…We're still alive…a bit saddle-sore but alive!

We had a great time once again, and met some great bikers in the process! Making friends along the way with people from all around the world. This year we were lucky enough to meet people from England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Holland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, France, Australia, Italy, Germany, Brazil, and of all places Iceland!

Let's get ready to ride!


Grab your helmet…

…Find your bike…

…put your hair up…

…and finish that ciggie…

…Let's RIDE!!!

We've got places to go…

…Big Places…



…Beautiful Places…



…Hot Places…



…Cool Places…

…with big Bridges…

…big Cars…

…and big scenes!!

More to come…check back soon!!

Four tours down…four to go…

Well the tour season is halfway over and the silly human has been taking me along again on the back of the bike. I'm not complaining…in fact I'm having a great time! We're meeting more really nice people and seeing some really great places. It's been a great year so far, with the exception of some really bad weather on the first Wild West tour…riding in the snow is never a fun thing (unless you're crazy like my silly human who still had a good time). So far we've met some really great people from all over the world. This year we even had a couple of really nice fellas from Iceland…wow! There's only about 320,000 people in the entire country, there's almost 2 Million in just the Denver, Colorado area (about 25 miles from our home).

Our Favorite Place to Eat Breakfast on Route 66
Lilo's Westside Cafe

Lilo and I enjoying a cup of coffee and comparing notes about the silly human Gary.

This year I met another traveling animal and mascot, Badger!

Wise Badger, What a delightful fellow!

That's about all for now…got to get back to keeping an eye on the crazy human. Without me around to keep him under control, you'd be amazed at the silly things he gets up to!

Road Man!

Hello Silly Humans!
Well we're back to touring again for the 2008 season!
The silly human and I have gotten back on the road and we've done 7 weeks and 9,100 Miles (about 14,650KM) so far! The silly human and his other silly human van driver Bill have been working on this video for a couple of weeks. They say they're not done with it and they'll improve and finish it after the next Route 66 tour we do!
Personally I think it's a really strange thing for them to do while on tour, but it keeps them from getting into too much trouble! Keep checking back for the next version!

Back home from England

After a long 20 hours of traveling we finally arrived back home in Colorado. We Had a great time in England and really appreciate all the hospitality we were shown, and would like to say a big thank you to everyone for giving us a place to stay while we were there. England is a very pretty country and we want to see more of it. We may be coming back next fall for the NEC show again…I sure hope so, it was a lot of fun! So when we got home it was time to rest up a bit and get over the time difference. It had also been snowing a lot in our absence, and there was snow piling up every where.


Gary had to put on the snowplow bracket on his old Toyota Landcruiser for the coming winter snow season. After some cursing, a couple of broken knuckles and a few hours we were ready to plow out the driveway and road to our house.

We get a lot of snow through the winter…normally I hibernate, but the silly human keeps me awake! We have a lot of fun so I really don't miss it. We play a lot of games outside, go sledding, skiing, snowball fights and king of the hill!

Then when the sun goes down and it gets really cold, we go back inside to get some hot Cocoa and play some video games

I do pretty good at some games, for a bear that is!

We also have more time to update my blog, and since the crazy human has more free time I can get him to do more typing for me. Well that's about all for now, check back soon, the silly human is going to post his touring schedule for the coming season.

The Last couple of days…

Our last few days in England…

For our last few days in England we depart from London and make our way out East to Gillingham to see some more friends. After saying goodbye and thank you to our hosts Norm & Carol we get on a train and make our way to Gillingham. We rode for about an hour or so on the train looking at the nice scenery and just relaxing. When we arrive we give a call to our friend, who goes by the name "H" and he comes out to thew train station to give us a ride. We were soon at "H" and Kim's lovely house for an evening of good conversation and a few beers.

While we were there I had to go out to the garage to see both Kim's custom trike, and H's beautiful classic Triumph bikes. H is what we would call a "True Biker", he loves to ride AND do all his own work on his bike himself! No paying someone else to fix or improve his or Kim's bikes, he does all the work himself (and Gary says he's really good at it).

Of course I had to get my loony human to get a picture of me and Kim on her beautiful trike! One thing that makes her trike so special is it's a rolling tribute to her late daughter Lana.

Kim and H went to great trouble and expense to have a local art instructor do a beautiful paint job on her trike, putting Lana's image on the tank, along with Kim and H's too.

Here's what H looks like with his beard!


The pictures here don't do it any justice here, the artist who did this is first rate! In person it looks almost three-dimensional, one of the best paint jobs Gary said he's ever seen!

Here's Kim on the other side of the tank, a very good likeness! We looked at the bikes for a while, and then it was back into the house for a couple more beers while we waited for a couple more friends to come over from the Isle of Sheppy for dinner, Paul, Trish and my stuffed buddy, Kermit.

Here they are at the end of their Route 66 tour in 2006, when they first met Gary. My friend Kermit was trying to keep these two under control for the whole tour, but to no avail! They were on an extended holiday around the world, and Route 66 was just one of the many along the way.
It wasn't long before they found us and we were off to dinner at a nice local restaurant. H and Kim didn't know Paul and Trish before this evening, but Gary was sure they would all get along famously, which they did! Plus having the shared experience of riding down Route 66 helped too.

Here we are after a wonderful dinner and a few (hic!) drinks! A great evening all-round!

Since it was around Christmas I decided to bring a present for my froggy-friend Kermit. When he went down Route 66 he didn't have any proper riding gear (he rode in the top-box of the bike mostly), so I decided to bring him a Leather biker Jacket and a full set of Route 66 Badges. I figured that since he made it all the way down the road with these two nutters he should be rewarded for getting them through it alive! After dinner it was back to H and Kim's for the night for a good sleep. The next day we spent going over good times on the tour and just generally talking about riding before it was time for us to head off to the train station. We said thanks and goodbye to our good friends and got on the train to make our way back North.
We went back through London and changed trains to our next stop, Northampton. We had several friends in the area too that we wanted to see.
We got off the train in Northampton, and were met by our buddy from another tour, Steve.
It was late when we got into town and then drove to Steve's favorite Indian restaurant for dinner. So after a curry and a beer (or three) it was time for bed!
The next day Steve and Gary slept in and then had a good time lounging about the house chatting about good times on the road, truck (lorry) driving (something both Gary and Steve have in common), girls and more until we got hungry and decided to find a nice pub to have lunch at. We drove around the lovely countryside going from Pub to Pub until we found a very nice one having an early Christmas roast dinner. After a good meal it was back to Steve's place for some more conversation, and to watch some videos of Adrian Edmondson and Rick Mayall in "Bottom Live", very funny stuff. After the videos it was about time to go to the pub to meet some more friends for a few pints and a few laughs. So it was back in the car and we drove to a local "Workingman's Pub" to meet Robert (Bob) and John. They had some very good beer at this place, and Gary was very impressed by the quality, something which we never get at home! I gave it a try and was so impressed I tried to start drinking it from the tap, but before I could, my jacket got caught on the handle and I got stuck!

Here I am stuck on the tap trying to get some of this wonderful stuff for myself! I was just about to get unstuck until the landlords saw me and pried me off the tap handle.
They gave Gary a stern warning about me not getting any more silly ideas, and to keep me under control. It was a hard thing to do though, this bear doesn't get good beer very often so it was difficult to keep me (and Gary too…) away from it for long.

They were very nice about it though, and promised me that if I behaved myself they would give me a pint! That was all I needed to hear, so I was a good bear the rest of the night! So we had a good time chatting about good times and riding motorcycles, while enjoying the beer, eating pork scratchings and crisps and meeting more people.

After a couple of hours of behaving myself the barkeep was true to his word and gave me a pint all to myself, no more sharing with my loony human. Gary was enjoying the beer a little too much, and was quite silly by this time! So I had to finish the pint all by myself, that's a lot of beer for this little Bear! We had a great time until closing time and then it was back to Steve's place to sleep off all that good beer!

The humans sat around a bit watching more silly videos and chatting before bed, which gave me a chance to sneak off to the kitchen to find something more to drink! That's when I discovered Strongbow cider in the fridge. I never had it until now, and now I'm hooked! Who knew that you could get something so good from fruit? So while the humans were distracted watching the tele I finished off a whole can by myself (b…u…r…p)! I really don't remember much after that, but I must have had a good time!

This is where I woke up the next morning, apparently a couple of Steve's roommates saw I was a bit drunk and were nice enough to take care of me the previous evening. Today also was the day we had to go back to Birmingham to catch our flight back home. Steve had the day off and was nice enough to give us a lift to the airport in time to make our flight! Thanks Steve, we couldn't have done it without you! So after a drive it was time to say Thank you and goodbye to Steve and go get on the airplane. Our trip to England was over, but we had a great time and who knows…maybe we'll be back next year for the show again! Both Gary and myself were feeling a bit delicate after last night, so it was time to get on the plane, have a few Aspirin and go back to sleep for the nine hour flight back home.
Both Gary and myself would like to say a big "THANK YOU" to everyone in jolly ol' England for a great time and their extremely generous hospitality…we really had a brilliant time!
Cheers!

Day Two in London

At Least it's not Raining today…Yet!

So after a nice relaxing evening with friends and a good night's sleep it was time to catch a train from the south suburbs of London back into the city center.

We got off again at Charing Cross station again, mainly because it's just so easy to get to everything worth seeing (and it's Carol and Norm's stop too). We stopped for a nice breakfast at a little local eatery down one of the small alleyways they call streets here. You couldn't get a car down it if you tried, but they call it a street anyway. We had our breakfast with Norm before he went to work and went about our merry way!

Today we traveled around London using "The Tube" or "The Underground" as they call it here, to me it looked a lot like a Subway, like those in New York City. They do have some silly names for things here, like an Elevator is called "The Lift", cigarettes are "Fags", a trashcan in called a "Dustbin" and a lot of other silly names for things.

On our day out today we didn't have as much time as yesterday, so we were only able to see a few things before we had to catch a train. Since it was a nice day out we walked around a little more, passing by places we had already been to. Since it was nice out today the horses were standing outside their shelters, enjoying the nice warm sunshine while it lasted.

Even the humans seemed a little happier to be standing outside today, even if they weren't allowed to move around much.

By this time in the trip I was getting a little homesick and decided to call home. I got into one of these telephone booths alright, made my call, and promptly got stuck in the door on the way out of it. Gary thought this was hilarious and started to giggle almost uncontrollably, and after a few minutes he calmed down enough to hear me yelling at him to get me unstuck! He finally quit laughing enough to prize me out of the door and resume walking.

On our way to the next stop we passed by Parliment's east tower (Big Ben) again, and Gary found a much better place to take pictures of it. So we stoppe for a few minutes to take a few pictures.

So after a few good shots like this one we walked a few hundred feet more and we were at our next stop…Westminister Abbey.

This is another really big church, and this one is special because this is where all the Monarchs (not the butterflies) go for religious ceremonies, like Weddings and funerals. It's also where there are a lot of really important and famous people are buried, including some of the Monarchy.

It may be a church, but it also has a part that looks a lot like a castle. For several hundred years the church was almost as powerful as the government or Monarchy (some people said it was more powerful), and was very important.

It's a really big building, and I guessed if the bigger the building was, the more important the people inside were. Since all I was used to was our little house in the Rockies, these places seemed gigantic to me, so they must be a lot more important than just little 'ol stuffed me! Gary said that was completely and utterly wrong, and that they were compensating for a lack elsewhere (I really didn't understand this…), and that I was much more important to him than any of these silly humans!

No matter… it was still a very pretty building to look at, and I thought it was almost like a piece of art. Gary said that it really was a piece of artwork, something called "Architecture". Whatever the call it I still think it's very pretty. It's just a bummer we once again don't have the time or money to get inside.

So we just wandered around outside again, and Gary seemed to be happy enough to just take some pictures of it.

He found lots of good places to take pictures from too.

So we finished up taking pictures and Gary said that we needed to get moving to see the next thing in time. So we started walking again to go back to Buckingham palace to see the "Changing of the Guard".

So we walked back through the park, looking at all the nice tasty fish swimming around in the lake! Before I could even ask though, Gary said not to get any Ideas about jumping in after them for a quick mid-morning snack!

Apparently the guards standing outside the palace get replaced by new guards all the time. I guess this is so they don't fall asleep at their places. Gary said that the changing of the guard was another of these special "ceremonies" that the still have for the family of Monarchs (extremely silly humans). They have a bunch of guards dressed up nice march around a bit and take each other's place. They do this very precisely and even have a marching band play music for them while they do this.

By the time we got there it was a little too late…since it was a nice day and not raining all of the other tourists were already there (some for several hours) waiting to see it. So we weren't able to get even close to it, so it was time to give up, go back to get our bags from Norm, and catch our train to go see some more friends in Gillingham.
That's it for now…keep checking back and we'll finish this story soon!