Many Have Asked About Trip Pictures

Hi Everyone,

For those that are still following my travel blog site for Cruisin' For A Cure, many of you have been asking about pictures. I have added many more pictures to my Photobucket.com website and all you have to do is click on this link. On the left side of the screen, you will see links to other albums that I have uploaded. I have not necessarily titled all of the pictures but you get the idea from the picture.

http://s443.photobucket.com/albums/qq158/pwestjr

Also, some people have been asking about video. As many of you do not know Nathan (owner) at Moto Liberty motorcycle gear store donated a Motorsports Hero wide angle camera to me for the trip. I was able to take a little bit of video but it was quite cumbersome to get it mounted on my bike in particular. It wasn't the camera's fault at all as much as me trying to figure it out and test it at the last minute. The problem I'm currently having is getting it uploaded because the files are so big and it takes over two hours to upload. I have been trying to upload it to my "cruisinforacure" YouTube.com website but it is painfully slow. So as you can probably tell this may take some time. I realize that many of you might find this rather boring as well.

Pete West
PO Box 380001
San Antonio, TX 78268
(210) 563-0509 (cell)
pwestjr@gmail.com

"Cruisin' For A Cure" U.S. Motorcycle Tour to benefit The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (trip was completed but you can still donate)
http://cruisinforacure.blogspot.com ("Cruisin' For A Cure" travel blog site)
http://www.active.com/donate/cruisinforacure (donation website)

Day 30 (El Paso, TX back to San Antonio)

I woke up this morning (June 15, 2009) in El Paso, Texas with a sense of relief about being home around 4:30 – 5:00pm. I was so looking forward to being home but it also gave me some time to think about my journey around the country. I was going to be going 545 miles to make it to my front door and I thought after riding 828 miles one day that this is nothing. Well that is not allows the case because it always seems to take longer when you get closer to your final destination and the drive from Ft. Stockton to San Antonio still seems like it takes forever.

Luckily, there was nothing real eventful but I knew I was back in Texas when I had to go through the Border Patrol inspection station where they ask you where you are going and are you a U.S. citizen. How come they never ask you that along the roads up north where you are real close to the Canadian border? But then I never saw Border Patrol checkpoints either. Interesting!

I have to say though this eventually turned out to be a really hot ride during the afternoon hours. I had to pull off more times than normal just so I could cool my body temperature down and of course Texas is loaded with Dairy Queens so that always helps with heat reduction.

As I had said earlier, I had some time to think about what I had done and I felt somewhat depressed that I was not able to raise very much money, let alone anything near the $50,000.00 that I had hoped to raise for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. I had to face some real hard realities in my journey and yes, I finished going around the country (minus four states, due to schedule changes) but I just didn’t feel like I accomplished what I really set out to accomplish which was raise more money. Despite what some people may think, this trip really wasn’t about me at all. It was more of an honor to ride for people that have been stricken with cancer (remission or died) and for their friends and family who supported them through these tough times.

I did finally arrive back home sometime between 4:30 and 5:00pm. I couldn’t believe it at all. And today I spent a number of hours cleaning my bike because it was driving me nuts.

I hope that if you have not been able to yet, that you will consider donating to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society on behalf of “Cruisin’ For A Cure. This is not over yet despite my arrival back home.

http://www.active.com/donate/cruisinforacure

Note of Interest:

I am behind in some of my previous postings and will work on telling you about the travels I have had prior to my arrival back home. Stay tuned shortly as I need some time to go through my notes and pictures. I start back up at work tomorrow as well. I have some really neat stuff to share with you so I'm not posting previous blogs

The photo albums are located in my Photobucket.com website at:
http://s443.photobucket.com/albums/qq158/pwestjr

I still have photos from a while back that I need to upload so please be patient with me.

Pete West
pwestjr@gmail.com
(210) 563-0509 (cell)
http://www.active.com/donate.com/cruisinforacure (donation website)

Day 23 & 24 (Montana to Seattle, WA)

I know I'm a little behind on my postings but the trip has gotten a little more difficult due to scheduling coordination and last minute changes.

So I started my day in Idaho and eventually got a little bit of a treat. I happen to be looking over in a big marsh off of Interstate 90 when I noticed a young moose strolling through the marsh. I immediately pulled over very quickly to get my camera out of my trunk and I noticed someone else saw what I was looking at. It really was pretty cool to see a moose in Idaho.

I continued on towards Washington State where Lisa and I lived for many years before we met and eventually I was there for a total of 16 years. I had been driving all day when I arrived at the state line but I wanted to continue on through the night so that I could go to my former church to watch a very special young girl (Emily) get baptized on Sunday. So I sucked down a 5-hour Energy drink and headed west to Brier, WA where my friends Doug and Mary live. I think I arrived around 1:30am and who came to the door but the shirtless zombie (Doug). So he got me settled in at his place and the next morning I woke up and went to church to watch Emily get baptized. It was so great to see everyone there. It made me miss being back in Washington but I like the ability to be able to ride my motorcycle year round and to have a better cost-of-living.

I did take some time to drive around to see if much had changed. Some things were new but all in all, it was as Lisa and I left it back in September 2006. Unfortunately, I was not able to see everyone and I ended up leaving a day early because of needing the travel time to Tuscon, AZ. I went to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle on Tuesday (2:30pm PST) and met with Kit Herrod who gave me a very thorough tour of the main facility. I was really impressed with the three people that were Nobel Laureates. (Noble Prize winners). These individuals are still very active doctors and scientists.

After my visit at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, I wanted to visit the Seattle Chapter of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. I met with their Executive Director, Anne Gilliam (hope I got her name correct). Pretty much everyone was gone after working a big campaign fundraiser but I was glad to meet her. I decided to get a bite to eat and then headed southward and finally got a hotel in southern Washington State. I'm just amazed just how easy it is to have a hotel drop there rates when you can see that hardly any rooms are occupied (curtains opened on vacant rooms). Yes, I was working it for all I could. This is on my dime and not anyone elses.

Day 21 & 22 (Wall, SD to Three Forks, MT )

OK, I'm going to go ahead and post this (6/9/09) even though I didn't get it done last night. I need to head out and get onto the Pacific Coast Hwy. down in California. Busy schedule coming up. I will complete this tonight.

Started this the evening: 6/8/09:

Wall, South Dakota sure felt like a long way to what ended up being a small town in Montana where I actually found a very reasonable hotel that actually turned out to be better than I had thought...for the price. I had hoped to make it to Helena, Montana but with all of the rain that kept me company, I thought it was time to call it quits. I was actually warned by some ladies at a local store/gas station that the pass is not something I want to do on a motorcycle because of deer and other wildlife up there. But that was before they realized I was riding a Goldwing. :)

You know, I just realized that I left something out that I think was very important. I have traveled across the country three times in my life and typically never stopped to smell the roses and see some of the significant landmarks that are along the way. One in particular is Mount Rushmore so I finally said to myself that I was going to see Mount Rushmore. I love history so this was way cool to me. It was about 28-30 miles off of the freeway and I am so glad I stopped to see it. It was amazing and if you have not seen it and are anywhere near Liberty, SD then you have to go see it. It feels different being there as opposed to seeing it on TV. So I bought a T-shirt, magnet, and a pin for my leather vest. I did not have enough time to stop at the site of Custer's Last Stand (The Battle of Little Big Horn). I wold have loved to do that as well.

There really was not anything eventful in my ride from Wall, SD to Three Forks...and a Spoon, MT., other than a miserable amount of rain and 37-40 degree temperature and of course, Mount Rushmore.

Now the next day was nice because it was nice and cool as I was packing up the bike with all my gear. It basically stopped raining and made it a little more pleasant but that didn't last long. As I was about 70 miles east of Helena, MT, I encountered a bit more rain. Even though I was pretty dry, I felt a slight chill in my journey to Helena. I did finally arrive and decided to get something hot to eat and drink before calling someone that Lisa knows indirectly through her work. There is a company in Helena, MT that merged with her company and one of the guys that heard about my trip wanted to have me come to their office to meet everyone. What I discovered is that this gentleman (Tom) that I was to meet was diagnosed with leukemia a few years back as well as his own father around the same time. I will tell you that they are both in remission and have a fantastic oncologist in Helena that treated them both with a great deal of success.

So to get back to the story, I called Tom from the Burger King that I stopped in at and he came out to meet me. We decided to go to Starbucks to grab a cup of coffee there which always works for me. I really enjoyed talking with Tom. Because it was morning time, I decided to have my oil changed at the local Honda shop (Outdoor Motor Sports) and Tom offered to show me around Helena while we waited for the bike to get serviced. He showed me his company where he is the Director of Tax and his wife Patrice works there as well. As a matter of fact she will be visiting the parent company in San Antonio so Lisa will get to meet her in July. So Tom took me to the local catholic church that was incredible. This church looked like one of the really old catholic churches in Europe. It has an awesome display of stained glass windows. I didn't take any pictures, out of respect but believe me, I would have loved too. If any of you ever visit Helena, this is a place you have to go to. So did I mentioned that it was snowing really big? Oh, I must have missed that part. It was not sticking to the ground but the flakes were real big and it was rather cold.

After this we went to Tom's home to chill out and I noticed he lives extremely close to work. Now that is convenient! After I bit we eventually worked our way back to the Honda shop and the bike was sitting in the back and I noticed it looked really dry even though it was raining. Well the shop pressured washed my bike off and cleaned it up for me so that it looked a little more presentable. Great customer service! The bad news though is that it rained again and eventually got dirty again. Great job Outdoor Motor sports!

Anyway, after much appreciation for Tom's hospitality, I head up McDonald's Pass and discovered that it was clear and I eventually made it after a long cold and wet night and found a hotel in Idaho.

Day 19 & 20 (Rochester, MN to Wall, SD)

First of all, no pictures this time. As I hope, most of you probably read my last blog posting about me losing my wallet when I was getting gas in Rochester, MN, on my way out. I somehow forgot to put it back in my back pocket and left it on the dashboard of the bike. So you'll have to read the previous blog posting to get the details but I'll update you on what has happened since then.

So Lisa had to wire me some money to hold me over in Rochester, Minnesota for two days extra until my financial institution sent my new ATM/debit card with a Thursday (today) delivery day. After going through a lot of hassle, as you can imagine I thought things were back on track again and that I would have my new debit card and I would be on my way, right? So very wrong!

So I call USAA today to get a tracking number that they apparently could not provide yesterday. That seemed odd to me if you are overnighting a package of some sort. So, I speak with a completely different agent and discover that they don't have a tracking number for some unknown reason and the agent found that very off himself. I then ask to speak to an supervisor and after two lengthy on-hold sessions, I discovered that the original agent never processed my ATM debit card correctly and that it never got sent out to Rochester, MN as I was promised.

Well, for those that know me I was not at all happy but I had to keep my cool because other people were in the room. So now, I'm being promised by this supervisor that they will overnight it to Seattle for me to receive at a friends house. We'll see how this plays out but it is not going to be good when I get back to San Antonio. I personally find this unacceptable when they knew what my situation was from the beginning. I should say that I did file a report with the police department in Rochester which someone at the Brentwood Inn & Suites recommended. They were awesome and even let me hand wash my bike on site.

Again, Lisa wired me enough money to hold me over until Seattle. So I decided to leave Rochester and head west and it felt so good to get back on the bike. I was originally going to go through North Dakota but since all this put me behind, I decided to take I-90 through South Dakota, Wyoming (corner section), Montana, Idaho, and to Seattle, WA where I will tour Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center on Monday morning. I am currently in a hotel after driving eleven and a half hours. I'm in Wall, South Dakota where the famous Wall Drugs is located. If you have ever been through South Dakota you know exactly what I'm talking about. In short...a tourist trap. It has definitely grown though since I went through here back in November 1990, when I first moved out to Washington State.

Apparently a major thunderstorm is coming through from the west according to another biker here at the hotel. He drives a touring Harley-Davidson and apparently they are thinking about heading back to Minnesota instead of going through it. I'm not surprised though. I'll be going through it no matter what. No, not arrogant...just confident of my Honda Goldwing's capabilities and it has already been tested a few times during this trip.

I will tell you that there was nothing eventful in my trip from Rochester, MN to Wall SD other than a rather funny thing that happened. I ran into this guy at a gas station in Minnesota and he was gassing up his BMW GS1150 (just another bike) and we chatted briefly before he left and I finished up and then went over to McDonald's (give me a break...there was no Starbucks nearby) and then I left. So quite a ways down the road, I decided to take some "personal time" at this rest stop. As I pulled in, guess who I saw? Yes, this guy named Dave from West Virginia. So no big deal right? Then much further down the road in South Dakota, I pulled into this tourist trap gas station with an old western town (1880 Town) in the back (houses were real but moved to this location from throughout the state) and after getting gas and having a Dove ice cream bar, I was talking to Lisa on the phone and guess who came around from the back of this place? Yep, Dave. He leaves after saying hi again and that was it.

Well as I stated, I came into Wall, SD and as I'm looking for a reasonable hotel (OK, cheap), guess who I saw pulling around to this hotel. OK, this is on the border of stalking now so I had to drive over and Dave and I just busted up. Well come to find out, the rooms were only $53.00 a night so of course, I'm sold. He is going back to drive through the Badlands of South Dakota tomorrow and working his way up to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska where a friend lives. That is adventurous now.

Well enough for tonight, it is 10:20pm (Mountain Time) which means 11:20 in Texas and that is too late for me.


Pete West
PO Box 380001
San Antonio, TX 78268
(210) 563-0509 (cell)
pwestjr@gmail.com

"Cruisin' For A Cure" U.S. Motorcycle Tour to benefit The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
http://cruisinforacure.blogspot.com ("Cruisin' For A Cure" travel blog site)
http://www.active.com/donate/cruisinforacure (donation website)

Day 17 & 18 (Mayo Clinic & Lost Wallet)

I'm going to go backwards on this blog posting because of what happened this afternoon and then I will work my way back to when I left Milwaukee, just morning.

Let me start by saying what a wonderful visit I had today at the world renown Mayo Clinic. Apparently, people like the King of Saudi Arabia have come here to be seen by the Mayo doctors. I think what impressed me the most was the actual history behind the Mayo Clinic. I would encourage anyone to Google "Mayo Clinic". My hotel stay was not all that great because the hotel that I stayed at was old and had thin walls so I had a TV playing through the night on one side and then two elderly ladies chit-chatting on the other side. I wasn't going to make an issue of it though. Did I mention that the hotel room door had an opening at the bottom of about 2 inches as well? I should have known better but wanted to try to keep the cost down.

So I got up at 5:00am and packed up all my gear and checked out of the hotel but they did let me stow my gear in their office until after my Mayo Clinic tour was over. I took the shuttle over and you definitely see a lot of people that are sick in one way or another or they are family members who come along with them. Rochester really is a busy town with all of the people that come to the Mayo Clinic. It is my understanding that they saw over 500,000 patients last year alone.

I finally got to meet Nicole Engler and she was so nice. I really felt very welcomed to be there and I must say I felt overwhelmed by the Gonda building on the Mayo Clinic campus. It was incredible and it even had a walking subway system (no, not trains but feet and lots of them) under the city within the buildings. In the winter you literally never have to worry about getting out in the cold weather to find almost anything you need. You will notice some of the pictures with the walking subway entrances.

I got to meet and talk with Jeri who I believe oversees the "Stephen and Barbara Slaggie Family Cancer Education Center". You know for some reason, I never thought to ask her. See the education center was the first one of this type that I had seen and I was so very impressed with the various resources that they have for patients and family members. It amazed me how much is available to people and these folks are here to help in every and any way they can.

My public tour started at 10:00am in the Judd Auditorium where we watched a film on the Mayo Family and how the Mayo Clinic started. We started on the walking tour and I really was intrigued by the history of this facility. This visit was mainly about the history behind the clinic as opposed to visiting research labs and I found it very highly interesting.

So, after my tour, I took some more pictures and then went back to the hotel to load up my motorcycle and head out. I must confess that part of me wanted to see so much more, such as the St. Mary's Hospital which along with the Rochester Methodist Hospital is part of the Mayo Clinic as well.

So as I stated in the beginning, I somehow lost my wallet and was completely stressed out. I wasn't worried about the money as much as all the work that Lisa and I had to go through to cancel and renew my debit cards and get cash to me through money wire. So I had to check into another hotel and have my bank FedEx my new cards in the next day or two. I suppose I can go visit some of the other facilities now and check out more of this walking subway system they have.

Great news in regards to pictures. Below is the link to the photos that I have taken since I left. They are not necessarily identified so you'll have to figure it out until I can label them. Looks like I have some time now. My trip from Milwaukee to Rochester, MN was uneventful but it was nice and sunny.

Since I am going to be behind a bit, I have decided to make up this time by driving non-stop (via a brief stop over in Helena, MT) to Seattle with little catnaps along the way and a little boost of energy drinks.


Posted Pictures (not all labeled yet)
http://s443.photobucket.com/albums/qq158/pwestjr


Pete West
PO Box 380001
San Antonio, TX 78268
(210) 563-0509 (cell)
pwestjr@gmail.com

"Cruisin' For A Cure" U.S. Motorcycle Tour to benefit The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
http://cruisinforacure.blogspot.com ("Cruisin' For A Cure" travel blog site)
http://www.active.com/donate/cruisinforacure (donation website)