Years ago, a Rochester man took a long-distance motorcycle trip from Rochester to Newfoundland, Canada, and realized he wanted more. He, like his father before him, developed a love of motorcycles and a lust for wandering far from home, and this was the year his dream of riding his Harley Davidson across country would be realized.
Davis Sullivan of Rochester works in the boating business and sits on the Rochester Zoning Board of Appeals. Back in July before a ZBA meeting, he announced that he was about to take some time off from work to ride his Harley Davidson across the country. A few of his associates seated at the table thought Sullivan must be a little crazy.
On September 2 during an interview, Sullivan described how he felt about his first significant solo trip to Newfoundland, and the inspiration behind his love of long-distance bike riding.
“After that trip to Newfoundland, I kind of got the bug,” said Sullivan. “So I decided to go cross-country.”
Sullivan’s late father got him into motorcycles when he was younger and made a cross-country trip of his own when he was in his 50s. It was always Sullivan’s dream to make a similar trip of his own, and now that he was 53 years old, Sullivan decided this was the year.
But first, he needed a motorcycle that would get him there: one capable of making the trip, and one that he could trust to get him there. In 2011, he purchased a 2008 Harley Davidson Road King, keeping in mind this 2014 trip from Rochester all the way to Vashon Island in Washington, where Sullivan’s sister now resides.
Sullivan organized the trip in such a way that he would spend his time off from work riding out west, and then have the motorcycle shipped back home so that Sullivan could take a flight back. He went online and coordinated the shipment with a shipping company near Seattle and planned his journey.
“A week later, I left in the pouring rain on Saturday, August 2,” said Sullivan. It was not an ideal start at all to the trip, especially hours later on his first day when he was stuck on the New York Thruway – 225 miles into his travels – needing to be towed because he lacked a sufficient repair kit. Of course, being a Saturday, all the bike shops were closed, which delayed his trip until Monday morning when a repair shop opened and finally got Sullivan back on his way.
“Believe it or not, I had two flat tires along the way,” said Sullivan. He said he also saw rain at least once a day for the first five days of his trip, which failed to dampen Sullivan’s spirits, especially once he started checking off the spectacular sites he would stop at along the way.
His first remarkable stop: Mount Rushmore, followed by the Crazy Horse Memorial in Custer County, South Dakota.
“I’d been to both coasts before, but I’d never seen the interior,” said Sullivan. He also rode South Dakota Highway 87 called the Needles Highway, a National Scenic Byway, steered his way through the Black Hills, explored the Wyoming Mountains from the seat of his Harley, and rode through Yellowstone and the Bear Tooth Mountains of Montana – all places to which Sullivan deemed his most memorable. “The landscape of the west was just incredible,” said Sullivan.
Weather was a big factor throughout the trip, said Sullivan. “It’s a drag,” he said about when he encountered a rainstorm along the way. “You got to suit up and get going.”
Sullivan’s second flat tire occurred while travelling from south to north through Yellowstone National Park. But he saw the buffalo, the grizzly bears, and the elk nonetheless – thanks to a can of Fix-a-Flat he had on hand that got him far enough to get his tire repaired.
Almost 3,600 miles later, he made it to his sister’s house on Vashon Island on August 12. On the plane ride home, Sullivan sat and wrote in his journal while the thoughts and memories were still fresh in his mind.
If you ask Sullivan why he took this trip in the first place, he will tell you his father inspired him to do it.
“Right after he retired, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease,” said Sullivan about his father who passed away ten years ago. “And basically, his retirement was done…” He continued, “So I decided to do it now while I could.”
It tested Sullivan. He said it was about getting out of your comfort zone.
“It just takes a lot of nerve to do it by yourself,” said Sullivan. “You kind of find out what you’re made of.”
By Jean Perry
