The open road
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Our 2002 GL 1800 Goldwing Summer of 2007 |
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The open road
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My Wing at |
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Members of GWRRA  #260562
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Summit Lake Summit Lake weekend trip near Nakusp B.C. Camp is set up. Time to kick back! |
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Lees-ure Lite Tent Trailer |
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Love the garage, for it was raining Opps! pole is not straight |
Bike is staying dry, it rained buckets last night |
On this side comfort for us |
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| "Billings Montana Wing Ding 2007" | |||||
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The Trip to Billings was a lot of fun. This is the first Wing Ding we have been too. It was a relaxing three day ride there. We traveled with one other member from our chapter. The weather was perfect the whole time we were there .Well it was a little hot it would have been nice to have air conditioning in our TENT. We camped at the Yellowstone Campground, however they had a swimming pool to get out of the afternoon heat. This trip I used the video camera and I did not take very many still pictures The pictures you are about to see are taken with the video it is not as clear as I would have liked. |
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Our home before we bought the Tent trailer
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On our way back we would stay in hotels , motels , cabins.
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Me putting on the windshield cover getting ready to turn in for the night. we put on 747 klms. today a long ride put it was mostly flat prairie country. Left billings in the morning and arrived at St Mary's around dinner time. We are going to go over Glacier Park in the morning. |
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Glacier National Park in Northern Montana this is the Mountain we are heading for in the morning |
Glacier Water , cool crisp and clean |
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The view was spectacular in the park we climbed up to the snow line just beautiful.
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The ride down was slow but scenic |
Pulled over for a rest and to take in the view |
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" OH SH.....,we hit a Deer"...... Later on that day we made it over to the other side of Glacier Park. Stopped for a bite to eat and then headed off. We thought we would take the back roads so we looked at the map and found a road the would go to Yakk Montana. a little off the beaten path . We did end up in Yakk after a beautiful ride through the mountains again. We stopped for an ice cream and water. The town of Yakk was not much more that a general store and a pub across the street that was closed.After finishing our ice cream we mounted up and headed off towards Bonners Ferry Idaho. I brought the bike up to highway speed, 110 klms per hr and set the cruise control, when all of a sudden out of the corner of my eye I saw what I thought was a large bird flying out of the right ditch. Not until it was in front of me when.... Whammm! it was a deer it hit the bike on the left side, I yelled to my wife in a startled voice through the intercom.. "OH Shit we hit a deer we hit a deer.!" The bike did a little nudge at impact. I saw and heard glass breaking, I then started to apply the breaks, I looked over my left shoulder and saw what seamed like slow motion a deer flying through the air, head over heels over and over. I brought the bike to a safe UPRIGHT stop. Yes thats right, we did not go down . After getting off the bike the adrenalin started to flow Monique and I looked at the damage to the bike in disbelief. Boy that sure says a lot about Goldwings ! Monique headed back up the road to see how the deer was doing . I took out my video camera and started to film the aftermath. I walked back up the road to where my wife was standing looking down in the ditch where the deer was lying. The little white tail doe was no longer with us. Good thing for it looked like its neck and back were broken. We went back to the bike and started to assess the damage. the left side of the bike took the hit the lower cowling where the driving lights are was broken, including the light as well. ( that was the glass I heard) The left fairing was cracked and the radiator air intake was broken and needed to be taped on as to not flap in the wind. There was deer hair wedged in the fairing I left it in there so I could show the insurance adjuster. ( Good thing I did because the adjuster was surprised at what little visual damage was done to the bike but the deer hair proved that I did indeed hit a deer.) Total damage came to $4300.00 it turned out that I needed a new radiator, as it started to leak after we got home. The top of the radiator was bent and develop a small crack that caused it to leak. Once again the reliability of the Goldwing proved itself to me as the 2002 GL 1800 held together long enough to get us both safely home to Lumby, British Columbia. We talk about this to many people and to this day are still thanking our lucky stars that we recieved not even so much as a scratch on us. I often thought that it may have been an advantage that we had a trailer on the back. I feel that the trailer helped keep the bike stable. I also found out that my Auntie Helen who is so worried about us riding a motorcycle, was saying a prayer for us every night while we were gone on our trip. It makes you think, .......seams like someone was watching over us. My first Goldwing was a brand new 1979 GL 1000 and I have been riding them ever since. I am a firm believer in the Goldwing and always will be, for they have never let me down yet.
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Broken driving light and cowl this was the glass I heard on impact. |
The radiator side inlet cover broken |
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Here you can see the damage to the inner fairing and the deer hair |
But from a distance it is hard to see that it came to $4300.00 in damage |
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________________________ Don's Woodworking Site See what Don does when he is not riding is Illusion Red GL 1800 Goldwing ___________________________
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"Illusion Red" |
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