Ever since Jack Nicholson hacked his way through the bathroom door and said “Here’s Johnny,” I’ve been hooked on horror films. So when I heard the hotel that inspired Stephen King to write his novel The Shining was in Estes Park, it became a must-see on my trip itinerary. I also heard that the ride up to Rocky Mountain National Park is fantastic, the views spectacular, and that Estes Park was a hip community.

As much as I wanted to visit, I wasn’t prepared to get up as early as the train blaring its horn outside my hotel window wanted me to. But we had many miles to cover to reach Sturgis so I loaded up the 2011 Victory Vision 8-Ball and set out with Motorcycle USA’s videographer in tow in a rental car loaded with hefty gear bags and camera equipment.

Google Maps said it was only an hour’s ride to Estes Park from Fort Collins. Don’t believe Google Maps. Though it’s only about a 50-mile ride, Google’s approximation doesn’t account for the mad exodus of cars up the mountain and the signal-to-signal traffic through Loveland. The popular tourist attraction obviously attracts many fans from the Denver metro area. After about 45 minutes fighting traffic, we finally get through town and enter a tight, rocky canyon, so narrow there’s barely room for two lanes and the river below. Fly fishermen in green waders stand knee-deep in the fast-moving water, trying to land coveted river trout. Who knows where they park with the canyon being so narrow, but they’re everywhere in the river. This despite roadside signs that warn people to run to high ground in case of a flood. And with good reason. A catastrophic flood ripped through this peaceful canyon in the summer of 1976 and killed 145 people, leveling everything in its path. The rocky walls are so steep and the chasm so narrow, it’s easy to see how water levels could quickly funnel through there with devastating might.

Higher up the mountain, the canyon widens and fishing cabins and camping sites line the river. Bicyclists are pedaling their hearts out as they challenge the mountain. I have no battle to wage thanks to the power of the Vision’s Freedom 106 engine, which is easily handling every grade. Victory opting to outfit every one of their 2011 models with this powerplant is one of the smartest moves they’ve made this year. The road snakes back and forth past fruit stands and beef jerky huts. The speed is posted at 40 mph with 30 mph bends around every other turn, but it’s so heavily traveled motorcyclists never really get into a flow.

Highway 34 finally plateaus at Estes Park. The town sits in a fish bowl of rugged peaks at 7500 feet. We stop at the visitor’s center to find out information about The Stanley Hotel, the resort that helped fuel the imagination of Stephen King. All we had to do was look off the road to our right to see the grand white façade of what is billed as one of America’s most haunted hotels. The Stanley uses this reputation to its advantage, offering both daily $15 ghost tours and $50 ghost hunts. We don’t have time enough for either, but don’t think I didn’t entertain the thought. Instead I simply reveled in the magnificent architecture of the multi-storied building and its turn-of-the-century ambience. We do click off plenty of photography before heading back down the hill.

Jumping back on Interstate 25 North, there are definitely more bikers making their way to Sturgis than the day before. It feels good to be able to open up the Vision 8-Ball beyond a crawl. It's not long before we see a giant buffalo billboard mounted on the highest hill that serves as a “Welcome to Wyoming” sign. The land has flattened into undulating hills of dried chaffs and every time you come to another rise, tan fields stretch as far as the eye can see. Just outside of Cheyenne I jump on to 85 North and when the first sign I see says “Next Service 72 Miles” you know it’s going to be a long haul. It’s not long before we see buffalos, cows and horses roaming the ranges of the farms and ranches along the route. This is John Deere country, full of till-the soil, salt-of-the-earth types.

The road is straight and houses are far and few between. Every rise looks pretty much like the one before it. The sun is to our left cutting prisms of light blue through thin clouds. The sameness of the landscape would be monotonous if not for the smells along the way. First there’s the aroma of fresh fields of hay wafting from the roadside. Further down, green-stalked rows of corn warming in the afternoon sun fills my nostrils. A little later, the unmistakable smell of cow dung from a huge cattle ranch changes the experience from pleasant to putrid.

Highway 85 is straight and barren so I roll on the throttle, kick the Vision into sixth gear, and try to make some time. The one good thing about the lack of roadside vegetation is that there’s little place for cops to hide. We set about an 85 mph pace with another troupe of travelers with a wary eye out for speed traps but only ran across a few troopers along the way.

We stop for a quick photo shoot and encounter the self-appointed historian of a tiny town in Wyoming when we park the Victory 8-Ball in front of the Hawk Springs Trading Post, one of only three buildings in the town. She is a sprite elderly lady in her paint-stained pants and floppy hat who was mowing dead grass in a makeshift park across the street. She lets us know that the building was once a fire department before it was a trading post, but now “some guy just lives there.” The worn-down building next to it was a movie house in the ‘20s too, she continues. Going back to her task of mowing the sparse weathered grass, Eric, my traveling partner and Motorcycle USA’s videographer, walks into the park to ask her the population of the town and almost steps on a bull snake while wearing flip flops. She takes up arms, grabbing a spade to kill the snake in defense of “the bikers who might stop in the park.”

“Rattlesnakes are bad, too this year,” she continues, and in five minutes Eric and I have been made honorary citizens of Hawk Springs by this friendly old lady.

The sun is setting to the west and the wooded forests are returning as we get closer to Sturgis. It’s good to see green again after wading through a sea of brown all day. Curvy roads are back too and I’m enjoying tilting the Vision into the turns, its well-sorted chassis giving the bike handling that belies its size. The pines are getting taller and the air cooler as we roll through Lead and Deadwood. Though the rally is barely getting underway, the police are already picking people off right and left in Deadwood for little-to-no reason, so consider yourself forewarned. As we get closer to Sturgis, flood lights fill the sky above Main Street, beckoning us to join the party. But it has been a 500-mile day and I’m weary. Besides, lightning is filling the sky in the other direction and memories of last year’s hail storm fill my head so I call it a night and save my partying for another day.