Dawn's seahorse garden. Farewell 36g bowfront!

[YaBoyLaj]

Wow, sounds like fun! Always traveled by car, and probably will never use a motorcycle, it sounds like a pretty great time! Have fun!

[Felicia]

I have a battery back on both tanks just in case the electric goes off. I also have my powerheads on a separate circuit from the return pump. That way if one circuit trips the ponies are still aerated. Actually my powerheads are on 2 separate circuits so the chances of all 3 circuits tripping is about nil but then the battery back up would kick on. Its not high tech but its effective redundancy. The only piece of equipment that I could visualize crashing the tank would be the chiller, but its only a year old so it should be ok.

 

We are kind of hard core. I don't know many bikers that ride the kind of miles that we do. It is amazing though. You experience the country, not just see it. Iowa smells like corn and Kansas smells like ranches. You can breathe in salt spray or taste dust. It is very cool.

We are hoping that interstate 80 keeps us from high switch backs. Dave learned last year that he does not like those, LOL. And of course its a bonus seeing our kids! It will be epic!

Sounds like you have your tank pretty fool proof at this point! Mine isn't nearly as backed up in terms of power outages, but they're really rare here. I do have some battery powered airstone pumps ready to go in case of a long outage, but that's about it. Hopefully we both have our systems pretty well planned/thought out so that they'll be fine for both of our vacations

 

Yeah that's a ton of miles! I only ride my little 50 cc scooter for short trips. I think the longest I've been on it at one time is probably like 30 min. Its so fun on a beautiful day, so I totally get why riding motorcycles across the country would be fun. I love riding my scooter to work in the spring in Berkeley because you can smell all the flowers blooming and you get nice 70 and sunny weather I couldn't handle the midwest corn smell though because I'm really allergic to the pollen that corn tassles release. I have family in the midwest and if I go there when the corn is tassled, I am so stuffed up the whole time.

[YaBoyLaj]

Sounds like you have your tank pretty fool proof at this point! Mine isn't nearly as backed up in terms of power outages, but they're really rare here. I do have some battery powered airstone pumps ready to go in case of a long outage, but that's about it. Hopefully we both have our systems pretty well planned/thought out so that they'll be fine for both of our vacations

 

Yeah that's a ton of miles! I only ride my little 50 cc scooter for short trips. I think the longest I've been on it at one time is probably like 30 min. Its so fun on a beautiful day, so I totally get why riding motorcycles across the country would be fun. I love riding my scooter to work in the spring in Berkeley because you can smell all the flowers blooming and you get nice 70 and sunny weather I couldn't handle the midwest corn smell though because I'm really allergic to the pollen that corn tassles release. I have family in the midwest and if I go there when the corn is tassled, I am so stuffed up the whole time.

Claritin Clear!

[natalia_la_loca]

I have a battery back on both tanks just in case the electric goes off.

 

What kind of battery backup are you using? I'm still trying to figure out the best solution to keep my reefbowl running in the event of power outages.

[markalot]

Dawn,

 

how is everything going?

[vlangel]

I just got home from our motorcycle adventure and it was great. My sister took wonderful care of my fish and all are well. When I get more settled I will give more updates and some pics.

Dawn,

 

how is everything going?

Hi Mark, everything went great, (more or less). We arrived home Saturday late afternoon with 6406 miles on the trip meter! It was quite the adventure.

[gena]

I just got home from our motorcycle adventure and it was great. My sister took wonderful care of my fish and all are well. When I get more settled I will give more updates and some pics.

Hi Mark, everything went great, (more or less). We arrived home Saturday late afternoon with 6406 miles on the trip meter! It was quite the adventure.

WOW! That's a ton of mileage!!!! Welcome back .

[vlangel]

WOW! That's a ton of mileage!!!! Welcome back .

Thanks Gena, its good to be back. :-)

[Sk8n Reefer]

Welcome back, glad the tank is doing well? How'd the bikes perform?

[vlangel]

Welcome back, glad the tank is doing well How'd the bikes perform?

Ok, but not perfectly. Dave's bike after being in Yellowstone wanted to stall out. At first we just thought it was bad gas but it continued to act up after STP and multiple gas stops. Even now at home it is still acting up and he added an ethanol cleaner and unhook the battery in case the fuel injection needed reset.

My bike began halfway through the trip to not always start right away. I would flip the kill switch a few times, or turn it off and take the key out of the ignition and try again and got it going each time eventually. Ha ha, now that we are home it is dead in the gargage. At least it had good timing!

We also both changed back tires, {Dave's was a blow out in the middle of no where in Idaho}, had to have the chrome handgrip cap fixed in Eureka for my bike, and have a new ignition key made for my bike after a gusty wind blew it off my seat while I was gassing up in South Dakota. Those last things are really of no consequence and not the fault of the bikes though.

I am getting ready to post pics so stay tuned.

 

These 2 pics are self explanatory.

[vlangel]

 

This is me freezing just after we crossed in California. We came in on I 80 near the Tahoe exit so it is higher elevation but I think it must have been in the high 40 degrees in some places. There was no place to pull off of 80 to take a pic of the welcome to CA sign so we went to the nearest welcome center.

[vlangel]

Sorry everyone, I am having a little bit of trouble with my photobucket acct. It wont show me all the pics I uploaded and it keeps defaulting to X sites so I am not sure what that is about. I will try and finish a little later. I do actually have a few pics with beautiful scenery, LOL.

[Astinus]

Glad U made it Home

[Arce]

Thats a long trip!. Good to hear the tanks doing well.

[Sk8n Reefer]

Doesn't take much to make it cold on a bike!

[vlangel]

Glad U made it Home

Thats a long trip!. Good to hear the tanks doing well.

Yes it was a long trip but so much fun! My 50 something body is beginning to feel the rigors of a trip like this. If we want to go to Alaska we know we better do it sooner than later.

Thanks guys for the welcome back...its good to be back.

Doesn't take much to make it cold on a bike!

You are right there Scott, ya definitely feel it on a bike...especially if you are riding 10+ hours a day.

 

How is your tank doing?

[ReefWeeds]

Welcome back! What an epic journey and I can't wait to see more photos!

[vlangel]

http://s36.photobucket.com/share/links?u=http%3A%2F%2Fs36.photobucket.com%2Fuser%2Fvlangelbike%2Fmedia%2F100E4431_zpsbkkqzhqb.jpg.html%3Ffilters%5Buser%5D%3D141606855%26filters%5Brecent%5D%3D1%26sort%3D1%26o%3D9

This was one of my favorite areas...the California coastline between Eureka and Cresent City on highway 101.

[yoshii]

What a trip! Glad you made it home safe

[vlangel]

Welcome back! What an epic journey and I can't wait to see more photos!

What a trip! Glad you made it home safe

Thanks girls. Its good to be back home even though it was an excellant trip. I am not sure about pics because my photobucket acct. is acting up and I can't seem to post anything but links right now. Not sure what is going on.

[Sk8n Reefer]

Tanks doing better.....still have the Dino's but they are not coming back as aggressive. Last week I added a shrimp/goby pair and a yellow banded possum wrasse ? I'll have some new pics up soon. The corals that survived are actually growing and the few acros left are slowly starting to color up!

[vlangel]

Tanks doing better.....still have the Dino's but they are not coming back as aggressive. Last week I added a shrimp/goby pair and a yellow banded possum wrasse I'll have some new pics up soon. The corals that survived are actually growing and the few acros left are slowly starting to color up!

Dinos are so tough but kudos to you for sticking with it and slowly beating them. LOL, I just read about the shrimp/goby pair and possum wrasse in your thread. I'm glad that the coral you have are starting to color up or grow, thats a good sign.

The only time when I can seem to download a pic is when I am posting to sk8n reef. Anyway the above pic is loading Dave's Yamaha on a wrecker because he had a back tire blow out on a very lonely Idaho road. I might add for drama's sake that we were doing 80 mph so we are thankful!

[vlangel]

The cool part of the flat tire saga is the wrecker's shop was off the same exit we were heading toward. We had a hotel reserved so we could go to Yellowstone the following day (we didn't usually reserve hotels on this trip). So what were the chances the wrecker could take us to our hotel and the tiny town of Rexburg had a Yamaha dealership to fix the flat? 100% and I was very thankful to the Lord.

O yeah, did I mention that our hotel was 60 miles from where the flat tire happened?

Of course you can't go to Yellowstone and not see Old Faithful. It was our 35th wedding anniversary too which was special.

This scenic gorge was pretty amazing too.

I loved this waterfall in Yellowstone too!

These sulfurous bubbling pools amazed me in black sand basin.

[gena]

Gorgeous photos! Sounds like you had a guardian angel looking out for you on your trip .

[vlangel]

Gorgeous photos! Sounds like you had a guardian angel looking out for you on your trip .

Yes, I definitely felt God protective Hand upon us.