We were bussed to the Eaglerider location to pickup our bikes and start the trip. No bike for me, until the mechanic turned up on it (seems he'd taken it home). After they eventually found my bike (apparently the mechanic had taken it home last night, despite the BS they tried to spin).
After way more ginning than required, we headed inland to Squalamine Falls then up to Shohomish (which is parallel to the top of Seattle).
The first corner marking failed miserably with almost everyone spearing off to sit on the side of the road behind the corner marker (they all nodded when it was explained last night
We left Winthrop and continued on Washington 20 and then up to the Canadian border. A bit of pine forest but mostly open dry farming land.
The border crossing was a bit like the Q store at the end of an exercise - thorough for the first few then almost waved through the remaining dozen and a half bikes in the group. From there it was up through a fruit growing region up to Okanagan Lake (seems to be the local Lake Geneva equivalent) for lunch.
Then it was inland, first by freeway then a nice fast sweeper type backroad (5A) where we had a free ride, and then into Kamloops. Only one real photo stop (lunch) with the others being truck or fuel stops with nothing worth photographing (and the stupid phone decided to turn on live mode
Today we did about 450k up Route5 from Kamloops to Jasper. The road follows the aqua Thomson River upstream along the valley. And it just gets better and better the further you go. Great stop at some falls then the park entrance.
It should have been a short day in the Icefields Parkway down from Jasper to Banff (about 200miles). But we did a detour up to Edith Cavell, then Athabasca Falls, along the Parkway to the Columbia Icefields (Glacier).
After lunch we hit a traffic jam due to a head-on down the road and lost two hours. We stopped in at Peyto Lake but didn’t have time at Lake Louise.
This road is spectacular - you think you’ve seen the best of it then you go over a rise or round a bend and there’s some new spectacular snow-capped mountain range. I’ve got to get back here
Last day of trip, via some interesting spots in the mountains behind Salt Lake City including Huntsville and Park City. The hail on the way over the top from Park City and a very steep tight dropping right hand turn at the bottom were fun.
I did a bit of a walk around SLC (unfortunately the main Temple was covered in scaffolding).
All up I did 3058 miles ~4,900klms) on the Street Glide. Other than the incident, it’s been a great ride - amazing roads, spectacular scenery, good friends. There’s been tons of roadworks and a lot of gravel, but that adds to the adventure. So many places I want to come back to and spend more time: Banff/Jasper and Yellowstone are the standouts but there are others.