Route Planning

We have finally come up with a tentative route. Actually, it is not tentative at all; it is a lot of carefully researched destinations and scenic roads that we sincerely hope we can see and ride.

We have planned everything on Garmin Basecamp so we can upload the routes to our GPS's. That will, hopefully, take away some of the guess work as we navigate our way across the continent. It's hard to read a map when riding a motorcycle! The green squares on the map are planned night stops. As you can see some are quite short distances. We have tried to gauge how much riding to do in a day and cut down the mileage on those days when we know we will be stopping to visit sites and attractions.

Highlights heading West will be:

• Milwaukee (we cannot resist a return visit on our own bikes)
• Badlands NP, South Dakota
• Mount Rushmore, SD
• Devil's Tower, Wyoming
• Yellowstone NP, WY
• Crater Lake NP, Oregon
• Redwood Highway and NP, California

Heading East:

• Lake Tahoe, CA
• Loneliest road Nevada
• Various National Parks in Utah
• Grand Canyon, North Rim
• Monument Valley, Arizona
• Durango, Colorado and the Million Dollar Highway
• Telluride, CO
• Taos, New Mexico
• Sante Fe, MN
• Route 66 through Texas, Cadillac Ranch
• Talimena Skyway: Oklahoma to Arkansas
• Natchez Trace - Mississippi
• Joining some cruising buddies at Lake Powhatan, North Carolina
• Blue Ridge Parkway: NC - Virginia
• Gettysburg, VA
• Lake Placid, NY

So the line is drawn in the sand - lets see how much gets washed away!

Can't wait to roll.

Trip to New Hampshire

We're trying to take some long day trips to get "conditioned" for the trip. We took a 350 mile trip into New Hampshire and rode through Franconia Notch for the first time. It was a beautiful day and a fantastic ride.

We were on the Softails for this trip. We are trying not to put too many miles on the Tourers. They just got their 1,000 miles services so they are in the garage for now.

 

This was where the Old Man of the Mountain was before his face fell off. Not good for New Hampshire as the Old Man is kind of the State trademark. He is on all the road signs, T-shirts, souvenirs etc. etc.

But they have cleverly rigged up these posts, which if you stand at the right spot make it look as though he is still there - clever!

After we paid our respects to the Old Man we rode off in search of Lunch.

Trip Advisor comes through again - we would never have found this place otherwise. It was awesome! Great unpretentious Diner food. I do have to admonish myself that I cannot eat Diner food everyday for 8 weeks though!

All in all it was a good trip.

 

Posted with Blogsy

The Bikes

Although we loved our Softails very much and successfully completed a couple of 5,000 mile tours of Atlantic Canada on them, we thought we should at least test ride some Harley Touring bikes. What were we thinking? Next thing we know we have two more bikes in the garage - badness! Or is it madness? Both I suppose.

Here is Tom's bike:

It is a CVO Road King and is beautiful. It has a 110 engine and really moves when he wants to. This photo does not show full touring mode as he now has a Tourpak, a matching hard trunk which sits behind the passenger seat. The paint job on this baby is amazing with really subtle tribal graphics and a dusty grey/brown, metallic paint. Photos will never do it justice.

This is mine:

It is a Street Glide Special and I chose this over a Road King because I found it easier to ride. Of course, now I have got used to the bigger bike I would quite happily ride a Road King which I think looks "cooler". We always hated the looks of the ugly fairing on these bikes - but one ride and I was sold! I love having all the instruments at eye-level which includes a media player and a GPS. No Tourpack for me, I will be strapping an extra bag or two onto the passenger seat and luggage rack - not quite as stylish but needs must I'm afraid.

First post!

It's always hard to do the first post of a new Blog - but I know from experience that once you get going it gets easier. So here goes!

Firstly - what is all this about? If all goes to plan, in 4 weeks Tom and I will be heading out on a trip of a lifetime. We have exactly 60 days to travel across the country on our motorbikes. We plan on getting to the West coast and then turning East and riding home, a trip of approximately 12,000 miles! At least that is the plan and although we have spent many weeks planning our routes and stops, we know only too well from our previous adventures on a sailboat that it doesn't take much to derail the best laid plans.

The purpose of my musings here is really to post some photos and to document the journey for future reference. I am not sure how successful I will be in keeping up with posts as I know that I am going to be pretty knackered at the end of a long day touring - but I am starting out with good intentions so we shall see.

This Blog is dedicated to my lovely Daddy who, sadly, left us behind just one year ago. We had been planning to do this trip last year but the events of last Summer did not allow that to happen. So Dad - this is for you, I know you approved of our grand plan and I know you will be following us along. I will miss your comments.