Don't miss this one, Mt Rushmore pales into insignificance compared to Crazy Horse in the Black Hills of South Dakota. It blew me away!

Following is a quote from the web site "When completed the Crazy Horse mountain carving will be 641 feet long by 563 feet high. Crazy Horse's completed head is 87 feet 6 inches high. The horse's head, currently the focus of work on the mountain, is 219 feet or 22 stories high"

http://www.crazyhorse.org/

Enjoy
Glen

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Feb 2014, currently travelling the America's on a Tiger 800XC

Live every day like it's your last, one day you'll get it right!!!

If you ride through the Rocky Mountains (Colorado > Wyoming > Montana > Canada) you won't be dissapointed-

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2001 Kawasaki KLR650
KLRWorld.com/Forums

Stay on I-5 until you are north of San Francisco. 101 is so crowded it is crazy. Yes, it is beautiful, and with the traffic you will have LOTS of time to admire it, suck up the fumes, become agitated. AFTER San Francisco head for coastal route until you cross the Oregon border, cut inland to see the Redwoods, continue east to Grants Pass, I-5 to just south of Eugene (Drain< Yoncalla exit) and go back to the coast, stopping at the Elk refuge for photos of wild elk grazing in the pastures, then the Sea Lion caves, camping is all over. Stick to the Coast highway to Alsea, Lewis and Clark's winter camps at the beginning of the 1800s, the Pig War site in Washington. In Oregon, speed will not matter until you exceed 75. In Washington, the state police will nab you on I-5 for speeding and they really love to nail bikes. I will not exceed the speed limit in Washington. Time permitting, you might also forego the coast route at Alsea and cut east again to north Portland, picking I-80 easst for a short wasy to see the Bonneville dam and the wonderful falls along the Columbia Gorge. Just too much to see everytiing in 3 months, but these are a few things you might consider. Let me know when you are coming and if I am stateside, you have a place to rest, sleep and eat as long as you have some good tales to share.
joe

re Crazy horse - totally agreed . . .2 years later and every time I feel I'm up against it I think of the crazy horse project and feel humble. one of the most awe inspiring things I've ever seen . . .

Wow! Thanks!

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Simon

London-Cape Town 2004-06
Buenos Aires-Vancouver 2008-10:
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/tstories/fitzpatrick

With a three month span to see the USA you should have enough time to to cross the country several times so you will be able to check out the east, the west and the middle.Also since you stipulate an exit from the US to Vancouver,Canada you have pretty well framed it so that the time of your visit must be during summer.That is a very good season for motorcycling across all the USA. Unfortunately Mollydog's suggestion that ...
" summer can be way too hot for much of the country to be riding a bike '...
is too negative an assessment. Perhaps Pat meant that it might be too hot to be engaging in the extremely strenuous exercise of off-road racing dressed in all the protective gear , or road- riding around cities in full leathers during a heat wave.
As an experienced bike traveller in Africa you no doubt are already familiar with riding in hot weather, and after travelling fom Argentina north to USA you should be well aclimatised for anything you might encounter in the States.
My own opinion , formed in 40 years of motorcycling all over North America,is that I have never seen a single day where I thought it was too hot to be riding a bike . I have seen plenty of warm days, make it to the southwest deserts during July and August often, have crossed the Mojave when it was 118 degrees Fartinhot, the length of Death Valley when it was over 55C at Stovepipe Wells and lots of days elsewhere in the 35C to 40C range even in Canada(very rare ,that).Visit the USA during other seasons and you run the risk of too cold weather in the northern and the mountain states , no fun.Winter is absolutely out for a motorcycle in the great interior.
The solution is to adapt your route for any hot spells- stick to the pavement,avoid cities and their slow traffic, dress lightly and stop often to drink lots of water . The most strenuous thing you need to be doing is turning the throttle and putting the bike on the sidestand for fuel and water stops.
The smaller US , state and county highways all offer a variety of riding and scenery and the option to explore, but don't hesitate to do the occasional stint on the Interstate Highway for another aspect of the "real USA". There is something totally American to experience if late on a hot evening you set out with the sun at your back and head off onto the superslab across the desert , the car lights come on and you see a string lights crawling across a distant pass maybe 30 miles away, the fancy big rigs with their bazillion decorator lights,perhaps a distant thunderstorm providing a fireworks display with no worry of getting wet, the occasinal oasis of lights that looms up as you near some crossroads with the typical franchise restaurants and services.And , in the middle of the night you are still riding in a light jacket and it is still warm. Germany has autobahns where they can still, on certain sections , ride verrry schnell, elsewhere you can find heavy traffic, or hot weather but the combination of good highway, warm nights, and longhaul superhighway are summertime Americana .
As for the middle bit of the country , the Ozarks of Arkansas and Missourri have many great state routes running in all directions,pick nearly any one of the squiggly black lines on a map and you will have fun riding through mostly hills and forest.In Colorado the Rocky Mountain National Park is a great ride for a hot sunny day when you can look from the crest east onto the plains.So many good roads, so little time.

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http://advrider.com/index.php?thread....207964/page-5 then scroll down to post #93

Others have chimed in with particular destinations and there are so many it would be hard to know where to start anyway. However, I would think that with three months you could see a good bit. I do have a couple of pieces of advice.

The first is For God's Sake Stay Off the Freeways!!! The sideroads and little towns are what make travel the most enjoyable. You never know what sort of little unadvertise attrations you will run across in small town America. And you will miss them all if you travel those wide pieces of pavement we have crisscrossing the country.

And dont skip through all that flat space in the middle. The vastness alone is something to experience. And you never know what you might run across. The missus and I ran across this in Oklahoma a couple of years ago.

http://www.shattuckwindmillmuseum.org/

We woud have missed it for sure traveling down I-40.

Also, most all resturants, motels, rest stops and welcome centers will have little displays set up with handouts about local attrations. Some cost money however many are free or quite inexpensive. Be sure to check them out and adjust your plans according to what you come across.

Yankee Dog

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