The Idea

Ever since I began riding motorcycles, taking a 2-wheeled cross-country trip has been an idea that has floated around in the back of my head. When I first started riding, it was just short trips on back roads near home - 100 miles was a long day of riding in those days. While a cross-country trip sounded great, I never thought I’d be able to cover those kind of miles. Over time, my rides got longer… 200 to 300-mile day trips began to be the norm. Soon enough, I was going on trips with friends where we would trailer the bikes to a destination, ride around that area for 3-4 days, then trailer the bikes back home.

It wasn’t until 2015 that I took my first multi-day trip on the motorcycle. In July of that year, my good friend Bill and I took a 6-day trip to ride the length of the Blue Ridge Parkway. This was the first time I had really traveled by motorcycle, and I absolutely loved it. I began spending lots of evenings on Google Maps/Google Earth planning multi-day motorcycle trips that I wanted to do “if I ever had the time”. Looking at all the places on the map I wanted to go began bringing back memories of the first long road trip that I really remember being on.

Bill and I at the beginning of the Blue Ridge Parkway

In 1976, my parents packed 6-year old me, and my 8-year old sister (and I am sure a whole bunch of other stuff that I don’t remember) in the 1968 Chevy Malibu and left El Centro, California for a 30-day road trip with the turnaround point being a family reunion in Michigan. While the reunion was (somewhat) the destination, the trip was planned to see many National Parks, visit military friends, and see a good bit of the US. What this means is we didn’t take the shortest route there and back, it was more of a circle tour of the United States. The route took us northeast to Idaho, east across Wyoming and South Dakota to Michigan, south to Arkansas, then west back to California. Some of my earliest memories are from that trip, and that trip may have been what put the travel bug in my head.

Kate and I in Singapore

In the 41 years that have elapsed since that trip I have been fortunate enough to travel a fair amount both domestically and internationally. Growing up in a military family gives you the chance to spend quite a bit of time in a car moving from duty station to duty station. My parents were very good about seeing National Parks and other attractions during the moves as well as seeing things that we lived near… most of the time by car. I don’t see how my parents didn’t leave my sister and I on the side of the road somewhere on all of these trips… MOM!!! SHE’S ON MY SIDE AGAIN!!!!!!

About a year and a half ago, I began seriously thinking about a cross country motorcycle trip that would somewhat retrace (in reverse) that 1976 trip. Thinking about it turned into talking about it… a lot. One day, my lovely wife Kate and I were at the pub. I was (again) talking about wanting to do this trip. She stopped me and said... “You should just do it… you aren’t getting any younger… do it while you can!”. She is pretty damned awesome!

I’ll document the planning, prepping and the entire trip here. Some posts may not be very interesting to some, but keep following… it will probably get better.

31 days to launch.