Guy Boutin's Motorcycle Touring and Travel Pages

Adventures in Sport Touring with the Honda ST 1100, 1300 and the BMW 1200RT

Exploring North America...One Road at a Time

Fancy Free... that's a good way to describe the feeling I have when I 'm touring the country.  Riding where I want, and going where I please.   Visiting old friends, and making new ones.   I could not begin to name all the images and memories I have of the last 3 years.   That is why this web site has become an important of my life, and from the mail I receive, that of a few others.  For it is here I share my life of being Fancy Free.......... 

I was on a hill top overlooking the South Dakota prairie, when I caught this solitary 18 wheeler rolling north on U.S. 85.  The years and miles, have caused this long rider to come to a truce with the big rigs.  We both pilot vehicles that require a lot coordination and savvy.  It has been my experience they appreciate what I am doing, and know the feeling of being alone far from home

Morning in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho.  Sunlight has a unique glow just after sunrise.  Here,  I've just crawled out of my tent and was about to start the packing process.  I had slept like a baby, and I was looking forward to finishing my ride in the mountains.  As you can see, the mountain river was clean, and the air was the freshest I've sampled.  To experience such freedom and beauty, is the reason I do what I do. 

A retired couple from New York took this picture for me overlooking the Salmon River Valley near Stanley, Idaho.  By days end I was grilling pork chops in the Tetons.  A great ride on a great day.

My ride in New England last fall was everything I hoped it would be.  Great color, weather, and roads.  The quiet farm road in this shot can be found somewhere on Vermont 100A.  I noticed this road while making my way to New Hampshire.  The quiet local lane only witnessed a few cars per day.  I wanted to see where it went to, but couldn't work it in.  Perhaps on another trip.

Bear Butte, South Dakota, near Belle Fourche.  I was impressed with this hill jutting out of the prairie in the middle of nowhere.  I don't know how the small sign got stuck in the picture, like I said, I'm not a very good photographer.

The one thing that stuns me the most about the Grand Canyon is the silence.  This picture is from the South Rim.  Humans cannot comprehend the vastness of the canyon.  It overwhelms you.  You could set Manhattan down inside it, and still be thousands of feet above the skyscrapers.  In fact, it could swallow the city and not look back.  The canyon walls in this picture are a mile high. 

A ride is more than motorcycles, roads, places and scenery.  Sometimes it is the people.  My good friend and brother Long Rider Chris Knight of Concord, New Hampshire in the White Mountains of his home state. 

The view of the Delaware River from the Hawk's Nest, found on New York 42 near Port Jervis.  On this day I was working my way through the Catskills on my way to Albany. 

Long Riding has a way of making things right.  In this picture, taken at the TTT Tour in 2002, Rob Hart is giving last minute instructions to his son Tom, prior to tackling the Cherohala Skyway.  Rob and Tom had ridden down from Toronto to experience the great riding the area has to offer.  Long after his father is gone, Tom will always have this memory of being with his father.  No better reason I know of to go for a ride.

And sometimes it is ALL about the riding, like here on SR 70 in California, the Feather River Valley.  The ride on this day was remarkable.  Soon after leaving the Feather Valley I was in Lassen.  The kind of days legends are made off.

I hope all your rides, are Fancy Free......

 "Fancy Free," music by the Oak Ridge Boys