Basti and Denis rode through Detroit and were making good miles towards Chicago. To our surprise we managed to get to the center without a lot of traffic jams. We had a lot on our plate for the next two weeks. Denis' parents were visiting, Basti decided to fly back home to meet his parents and his girlfriend in Munich. And first and foremost we would finally meet back up with the crazy Americans Scott and Kevin from our first tour through Turkey.

At first we rode to the Hotel where Denis' parents were staying. After more than a year without their little boy they were more than excited to hold him in their arms again. After a lot of hugging they decided to get dinner together to exchange some stories. Afterwards they had to say goodbye because Denis and Basti were heading to meet up with Scott and Kevin. We had met these two five years ago on our first adventure outside of Europe. Istanbul is where we had connected and from that year on we had managed to spend some time together once or twice a year. In our ongoing tradition we spent the first night in a couple of bars and ended up in some dive bars. We went back way past midnight and had a great first impression of Chicago.

Basti went to the airport around noon the next day still hungover from the night before. His plan was to fly back to Munich for almost two weeks. After sleeping in Denis left to spend some time with his parents in Grand Haven. On his way he met Steffi and Fabi that were on their way from Canada to Chicago. Denis was quite surprised to see that Mission "Steffi's own Motorcycle" had been successfully accomplished in Canada. After it had looked quite impossible for the first month Steffi was now owner of a Canadian Honda CBF 600. After a glorious breakfast at Wendy's (Denis' parents had to experience some of the local cuisine) we split up again and Denis went towards Grand Haven (Michigan) and La Porte (Indiana). On the following weekend Denis took a short brake from his parents and came back to Chicago to see the nightlife with Fabi and Steffi. Since Fabi and Steffi had not been part of the first bar tour we started another one with Kevin and Scott.
After the weekend it was time to say goodbye for Fabi and Steffi because they decided to head North into Wisconsin to visit Fabi's former guest parents near Merrill. Denis rode back to La Porte and Basti rode around somewhere between Munich and Slovenia.

The two weeks went by ever so quickly and Denis soon had to say his farewells to his parents once more. He is so happy that they managed to visit him this far away. He met back up with Basti, who had flown back to Chicago and Kevin and Scott to spend one more weekend with the crazy Americans! Another bar tour obviously followed!

But even the longest bar weekend had to come to an end eventually and so they had to say goodbye to our Americans for 2017 and get back to our journey.

Thank you Scott and Kevin for the fun times and we can't wait for 2018! :D
Denis: Thanks to both my cool parents for stopping by! :-*

The journey to the great Parks was quite uneventful, a lot of straight roads and some minor winds left us hanging on to our handlebars, yearning for some corners and excitement. Heading into Teton National Park we got our hopes up, the route looked curvy and at first we were pleasantly surprised at some high speed curves. Quickly we headed up to the entrance of Teton just to find ourselves in traffic for the rest of the day. Any fun that we could have found in the curves was taken by the sheer masses of Trucks and RVs.

On the other hand it left us with more time to gaze upon the beautiful countryside. Some snowy mountain tops in Teton looked like photoshoped behind this vast lake. Before heading into Yellowstone we spend the night near the entrance still in Teton National Park. Once again we met some incredible people their. Toni, Laura, Bob and Ed were our neighbors for the night and the nicest of people. We enjoyed the evening with them very much and exchanged many different stories. The following morning we packed up in quite a hurry because the mosquitoes made breathing difficult... The North of Teton and the south of Yellowstone were so mosquito infested that stopping became a burden. So we decided to go further into Yellowstone in the hopes of escaping those pesky beasts.

Yellowstone is enormous, most places are not reachable by car or bike even though there is a good road cut through the park. The road is built in the form of a figure 8 so we decided to take in as much as possible. What stunned us the most was the vast size of the entire park. One can easily spend a week there without seeing the same place twice. Or if you go crazy and wander further maybe get lost forever. Stunning size aside we were excited to see some more real wildlife. We have to mention that we are pleasantly surprised by the fact that we saw a lot more wildlife like deer, prairie dogs, hogs, birds and so on through the United States than anywhere else. But Yellowstone took it to another level. We saw grizzly bears, black bears, wild bisons, elk and more deer. Especially the bears and bisons impressed us very much. For bear watching one should definitely bring some goggles since you do not want to get to close to a bear. This also applies to bison but one can get a lot closer obviously. The large herds that strutted or ran across the fields impressed us very much. We really felt taken back in time when gazing over the big grasslands with the bison herds roaming the fields. This is what early explorers must have gazed upon when first discovering these lands.

But this is not even the end of it. Yellowstone is world renowned for its active geysers, sulfur and mud puddles. The smell of the "mud volcanoes" and sulfur puddles was breathtaking, but especially the colors of the basins made for great pictures. What really left us in awe was the geysers. Watching them push water up tens of feet into the air was marvelous. One could not leave this place without being a little impressed by what nature has to offer.

After two days of Yellowstone we headed further north towards Glacier Park and Canada. We had received an invitation from Lindsey, the cousin of our long lost brother Gail, whom we have rode through large parts of Asia. And what we always like to do, we followed up on that invitation and soon found ourselves near Seeley Lake at Lindseys house.