If anyone`s ever seen the movie, “How the West was Won,“ it paints a pretty vivid picture of how people moved west across the country in search of land or fame and fortune. In those days folks had to travel by riverboat and horseback to reach the wild west. Cathryn and I did it by motorcycle.

After hooking up with our Saskatoon friends Kim and Bob, in Deadwood South Dakota, we toured the Black Hills around Mount Rushmore, Keystone, and Sturgis. The area is a biker`s paradise, and home of the annual Sturgis Rally in August, when tens of thousands of bikers flock to the area.

The roads are as wild as Bill Hickock himself, offering fantastic scenery and a challenging ride. We used Deadwood as our base; it had plenty of good restaurants and bars to keep us fed and watered. If you think eating and drinking is boring, there are slot machines in every place so you can gamble too.

After leaving Deadwood, Cathryn and I headed west again, covering almost 1,100 miles, across Montana and Idaho, on our way to Kelowna B.C. High winds, temperatures from 45 to 85, and some rain, made for a challenging ride. Our last stretch of road, yesterday, was 430 miles almost completely in the Rocky Mountains. The scenery was amazing, but it was a very long day.

We`ve driven almost 3,000 miles so far, and we haven`t reached the west coast yet. It gives you a real appreciation of how the settlers must have felt, spending months on the trail to reach their destination.