Day 1-Fri 9/3 -GO!!

We set 3 alarms just to be sure. Few minutes before 3:30 Sue woke up and then the alarms started, hehe, we were up and getting dressed, eating our morning snacks to hold us over, down to the bikes by 4am to move them out of the underground garage to the street so we wouldn't get caught in the rush. Maggy then discovered she'd misplaced her start card, which has to be turned in before you can take off.  The panic started as we rummaged thru her bags and DeeDee found it. Went in for the riders meeting at 4:30 which didn't happen til 4:50, tension rising, getting nervous, and excited, they gave us the final details and started collecting start cards, now the race to the bikes, dark outside, roads clear except for us. On the bikes and away we go. Some ahead some behind some not leaving yet, we jump on hwy 6 heading to the border. We are amped up now. Made it to the border, about 20 bikes back, one by one, it took us 30min to get to the front of the line, by the time we left there must have been 100 bikes lined up, wow. We rode like the wind, fun to see so many other bikes everywhere all day long, knowing they were all doing the same thing. We rode and rode and rode. Finally getting to Deadwood, SD for the first checkpoint was a rush. Lots of bikes and storytelling going on. They had all kinds of snacks for us but no time to linger we still had 100 miles before we were in for the night. Exhausted but feeling very accomplished we had a great dinner at 7pm showered. organinzed for the next morning and fell to sleep immediately. One province, 2 countries, 3 states, 643 mi, made it safely. gogogogo More later, we're having to catch up as we have more evening time. By for now.

at the border