Follow your nose(wheel)

Some people like to plan their lives to the smallest detail and far in advance. But I've made enough trips around the sun to know that life is what happens while you're planning something else. So I like to live life pretty much as it comes. It adds to the excitement. My latest adventure, however, surprised even me. I bought a motorcycle sight unseen on the East Coast, flew out to pick it up, and rode it back to California, from sea to shining sea.

I used MS Streets & Trips to make a general routing and to estimate how long various routes would take. I settled on a generally southern route which would pass through 19 states and DC, allow me to stop to visit with a couple of old friends, ride the famed Blue Ridge Parkway, and check out historic Route 66.

Sea-to-Sea Plan Map, modified to show actual route taken.

The trip would start on the long weekend of July 4. In this case the last-minute planning was costly, as I could get no flight out on Friday night and took the redeye out of Bakersfield thru Las Vegas to Boston Saturday evening. Sunday I slept a few hours then took the cover off the new bike and trailer. After a short ride I covered it up again until Monday morning.

By coincidence, Michele had planned a luau party for Sunday evening, so I was lucky enough to be able to see her great mother-in-law (up from CT) and many of her good friends. One of them offered her family home in Tennessee for a night's stay as I rode through. Great people.