Quick update
I keep meaning to post a full report in ride reports but not had the time so just wanted to post a quick conclusion to this thread I started a while back.
The trip was successful. We got engaged and then married in Las Vegas which was completely unplanned but obviously an added bonus to the trip! In total we did 6000 miles, starting in Las Vegas and finishing up in New York where the bike's currently waiting to be loaded on a boat and sailed home.
All up for four and a half weeks on the road, including all food, fuel, accommodation, flights and shipping costs it's cost between us about £6000, which I don't think is too bad. You could spend a bit less, but obviously you could spend a lot more. We camped a lot and tried to save money on food. To me it compared pretty well with guided tours which are about £3000 per person for two weeks without flights and food, or renting one out there, which out of Las Vegas BMW would have been getting on for £4500 for the GS for 4 weeks. Buying one out there, unless you had someone out there to help, or had more time, wouldn't have made sense for our trip.
So yeah, glad we did it. Glad we did it on our bike. And it made for quite a cheap marriage and honeymoon to boot. $200 to get married by Elvis in Vegas.
A few pics...
We passed through Grand Canyon the first few days into the trip. Awesome place, even if you've seen it before.
Nice to have company to share it with
A great piece of road between Grand Canyon north rim and south rim
Lake Powell, oasis in the desert, formed by the flooding of Glen Canyon
Impromtu marriage in Vegas by Elvis.
Awesome rock formations of Bryce Canyon National Park. If you buy an annual National Park pass for $80 you can access as many as you like, and camping in them is often around $15, so cheap.
Route 12, which is an awesome road just north of Bryce Canyon.
Another shot of Route 12
Monument Valley which is probably my favourite place in the States
Another one of Monument Valley
Forrest Gump road, near Monument Valley
Valley of the Gods dirt road, near Monument Valley
Half way up the Million Dollar Highway, north of Durango in Colorado
Awesome colour changes
Twin Rock cafe in Page
Moki Dugway - a road dug out of a mountain side
Another one of Moki Dugway
Passing through Roswell before heading east across to New York
Walter White's house out of Breaking Bad
The long flat plains of North Texas
Lots of pump jacks out here
Lots of derelict communities through here
Fake Eiffel Tower, Paris, Texas
Travelling through the south was sometimes a bit bland and flat, but still lots of interesting histories and communities
Cool tourist information centre
On the road, plenty of gear but the bike carried it well
Riding through the Appalachian mountains, on Blue Ridge Parkway and this road, Deals Gap
TKC70s lasted the full 6000 miles and had plenty of grip in the corners.
Great scenery in this part of America
And a final stop in Washington before reaching New York and leaving the bike at the depot to ship home.
As a quick summary I still think America is a perfect place to go on a relatively safe road trip, and you make it as adventurous, or not, as you like. Next time I'd aim to do more off roading around Utah and Colorado where you can do miles of trail without any tarmac. Probably not with the wife on next time!
10 years back a friend and I did this a couple times trailering our 650's out to Utah and back and had so much fun we found a place to leave them there and flew out and back. I found Suzuki's DR650 single, after fitting it with skid plate and a larger 5 gallon tank, to be perfect on everything from moderate trails and dirt roads to stretches of highway. For doing mostly serious rock crawling something even smaller, lighter, and geared lower would be better. Here's a few pics from those rides southern Utah.
