March 2012 - The Bestmade Plans

Jody and I live in Texas.  It's a great place to spend the school year. . .but a good place to leave in the summer.  In 2009 we struck out west for Taos, turned north and kept going 300 miles above the Canadian border to the Columbia Ice Fields.  We turned around and headed down through family country in North Dakota, on down to the Sturgis rally, and home for a total of 6500 miles.  Last summer we used the same kit to camp through seventeen European countries in a Renault Wind.  That 2011 trip is  covered in parispqgreece.blogspot.blog.

This trip proposes to take only only the second half of the summer to ride the scooter from here, Wichita Falls, TX, up to Minneapolis to visit family, then up to Fargo, ND, west to Bismarck and Beach, ND. to see more family. Then up across Montana to Great Falls to see our old friend Eunice Neely, then up across the 'Going to the Sun' highway through Glacier and up into BC.  New country will be seen on the way west to Vancouver, onto the ferries and down to Port Angeles, WA. and then on down the coast to Tillamook, OR. to see my younger sis and her family.  Then south to Crater Lake and into the California redwoods where we should pick up son, Donald and his girl, Lacey.  We'll ride together down 101 to S.F. staying a couple of days and then start east to Yosemite.  Donald plans to return Lacey to S.F. and a plane back to their home in Austin, TX.  He'll catch up with us and go on to Zion, the North Rim, Monument Valley, Chaco Canyon, Taos, and home.  It looks like about 6,000 miles

Our equipment is all in pretty good shape from last summer's workout.  Of the 72 nights we were in Europe, we camped with our outfit 71 nights.  The '07 Harley Heritage Softail has about 27,000 miles on it and shows no appreciable wear.  I was looking tonight at tires.  It will be time for a new set before the trip.  We're getting Jody a new helmet - just like my HJC, with the tip-up faceshield so she can adjust her glasses, and take a drink on the road.  We'd used a pair of Scala headsets, in fact gave Donald and Lacey a pair like ours.  Both sets failed after the warranty period.  The Scala people have no interest in repairs beyond that point, so we've both switched to Sena SMH10B units.  I gave Jody an Air-Hawk cushion for Christmas and got one for myself as well.  Our tushes should be comfy the whole way!  I cut a new footprint for our Mutha-Hubba tent upon our return this summer, but haven't field-tested the wole rig just yet.