If you are looking for more stories about my ride, check out my blog archive 50StateRide.
There’s also a text only 50 page PDF version here: Blog PDF.
Click on the map above to go to a Google map with interactive photos.
Here’s a collage I made of the all the state signs I passed.
I thought that the southern most point in Key West would be as far south as I would get in the US for a long time. It turns out the southern most point in all of the US is on the Big Island of Hawaii. I made it there for sunset which was one of the best I’ve seen. There was a low layer of clouds that reflected the red sun beams as the sun dropped below the horizon.
I owe a big thanks to Kevin and Rebecca, my wonderful hosts here on the Big Island. Kevin let my borrow his R1200GS and gave me the best tour you could imagine. In the past 3 days I’ve driven 830 miles, without any Interstate (there’s not one on this island).
Day 1: Kevin and I took the southern road to Hilo stopping in Volcanoes National Park to walk through a lava tube (think lava cave). We drove the amazing Chain of Craters road. In Hilo, we ate lunch at a local favorite Ken’s House of Pancakes. We drove back to the leeward side of the island on the Saddle road which passes between the two giant volcanoes Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. Even though it was foggy and rainy on the windward side, we had an amazing ride. This is one of the best motorcycling roads I’ve ridden. It has lots of twists and turns, beautiful scenery, and not much traffic. These two enormous volcanoes aren’t shaped like the perfect cones I remembered from 8th grade science (the volcano that Rett and I built was bright blue and blacklight reactive, way cooler than the drab brown). They are instead gentle sloping giants, that measured from the sea floor to the top are the tallest mountains in the world. We cruised back through some lava floes and big open spaces on the high road.
This one actually has the sun in it.
The colors for some reason aren’t as vivid in Firefox as they are in other programs on my computer, so if you want a better feeling of the last series of images, try downloading them.
I want to take advantage of this fast Internet connection while I have a chance. Yesterday we drove by the famous “Pipeline” on the North Shore where there’s a world famous surfing competition. Unfortunately the waves weren’t right, so everyone was waiting.
The white temple looking building is a Mormon temple with amazingly laid out grounds. It seemed to me like it was in the middle of nowhere.
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