One of the many things that come up when planning a major trip of any kind is the required annual leave or vacation leave that you have to ask for or bid for from your normal work schedule. For those folks that I know that are retired this is not an issue, but planning and laying out a six week trip on a motorcycle that will cover around 15,000 is a major job.
So one of the most important parts of the equation came to fruition today. I got 6 consecutive weeks of leave in the books from May 18th – June 30th. That is so awesome. Even if all my plans fail and something physical, mental, or family forces me to cancel my trip, I got 6 weeks off.
I have all winter to put the finishing touches on my routes and do whatever I have to do to the motorcycle. The motorcycle as it stands today is ready to go and the only other thing that I need to figure out is how I mount my spare tires that I will carry and re-mount my extra fuel containers. Riding gear and 90 percent of my electronics are ready. One more device that I will want to figure out and mount is the GPS tracker for a few reasons. One you guys will be able to follow my track as I progress via Satellite. Another reason is the wife can follow me, send me messages in case out of cell coverage, and finally SOS messages that I hope I will not need can be sent.
Those that do not know me well or haven’t asked me why I want to do this trip are about to read the answer. My Dad passed away July 1999 and one of his dreams was to drive an RV to Alaska and back after he retired. Circumstances at the end of my Dad’s days on this Earth were stacked against him, some of his doing and some that he could not control. My mother had some serious issues with her back and carpal tunnel amongst other things that got in the way. Then he had a quadruple bypass surgery and then a few years later died suddenly of a heart attack. That is the very short version but at his funeral, I slid a small matchbox RV into his casket and made the promise that I would complete this dream.
So there you have it. Now it is up to me to put everything in order and use all my motorcycle experiences from past trips to plan and pull this off.
