1. The Big Picture

Jul 11, 2009 Uncategorized

Well, I was able to secure 8 weeks of leave from work.  I secured this little prize while negotiating my job offer.   Using my small amount of paid leave, I was able to push it to 9 weeks of vacation.  This leaves me with the time from 4th of July to Labor Day to do as I please. 

The original idea was to go on a motorcycle trip across America with my buddy.  We came up with the initial idea during the summer of 2008, but nothing really started to come together until the start of 2009.  Things were going as planned until April of 2009.  My friend ran into some financial woes and would be unable to go on the trip with me.  By that point the timetable for my leave had already been set, so there was no turning back.

In April I bought my 1st bike.  It was a beautiful (and unreliable) 1981 Suzuki GS450L.  Here it is in all of its glory

That bike had numerous problems that developed shortly after buying it.  It is currently not running and being worked on in a friend’s garage.  I was able to put ~50 miles on it before it stopped starting.  It’s not the best financial move I’ve ever made.

I was tired of dealing with the headache of the Suzuki, so instead I bought the new bike I had been planning on buying.  The Suzuki was bought to learn on, not for taking on the trip.  After some cutthroat negotiating at the local BMW dealership, I purchased this bike: a 2009 BMW G 650GS

Despite the famous BMW name and the reliability associated with it, this bike managed to find its way to the shop for warranty repairs with less than 500 miles on it.  That’s not the best moral booster for this adventure, but the problem has been fixed.  Hopefully it’s the last one I encounter on the trip.

I guess the goal for this trip is to see the different parts of the USA.  I haven’t traveled much throughout the states, so I figured it would be nice to take a break and see the sites.

I live in Washington.  I’ll start my trip by heading south to Pasadena, California to visit a friend before he embarks on a year long stay in Ecuador.  It was either visiting my buddy before he leaves or Sturgis for the big biker rally.  Personally, I thought Sturgis would have been awesome, but all my friends/coworkers/acquaintances thought that Sturgis and me was a terrible idea.  I still think Sturgis would have been a winning ticket, but the LA area will have to suffice.

After LA my trip is wide open.  I have friends in AZ, CO, KS, WI, and MT.  I plan to visit them all while making various stops along the way.  The basic plan is to make a loop of America and end up back in Washington when it’s all over.

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