The Journey Has Begun Monday, 61217

Good Afternoon Folks,

LeRoy and I have finally commenced our ride to Alaska. We did some laundry yesterday so that we could leave with clean clothes for the ride.

We got up about 6am, Central time and loaded the bikes. My brother Al and is wife Judy were kind enough to get up to see us off and take part in the departure picture.

We were on the road at about 7:10am traveling west on I-94 toward Madison, Wisconsin, then the Twin cities of St Paul and Minneapolis, finishing up at Quality Inn in St Cloud, Minnesota after about 397 miles of riding and 7 hours in the saddle.

The ride had us cross the Mississippi River into Minnesota and riding around the Twin Cities.

 Traffic was not too bad but the temperature climbed from about 74 degrees to a high of 87 degrees. We had a bit of side wind but nothing we couldn't deal with.

In central Wisconsin, the clouds came in and there was evidence of rain before we got there. I brought down the temperature so riding was a bit more enjoyable.

Just north of the Twin Cities, the clouds built up again quite a bit and it looked like we were going to do a bit of riding in the rain but the road took us around the rain except for a short stretch about 20 miles from St Cloud. We quickly dried off while riding so no harm for foul.

There was not very much to see along the Interstate so not any pictures. Maybe tomorrow will be more productive on the photos.

We are continuing on I-94 to North Dakota and Montana.

I have managed to catch a cold so the coughs and runny nose are a pain while riding but on taking some meds to get that under control. Just inconvenient.

Bikes are doing fine so off we go in the morning.

Done for today.

Mike