WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15, 2011

The Day Before Departure

View From the Apartment

This will be a short post - it's getting late and departure day is tomorrow.  I've spent the evening packing it all up, doing a test set up on the bike to see that it all fits (it does!), and watching the Canucks lose the Stanley Cup to the Boston Bruins.  It's very quiet around the city tonight - no screaming, no honking of horns incessantly through the night.  Just quiet crying in our collective beers.  Maybe next year!

Rachel gave me a gift of Traveler's Stones, to protect me and keep me upright, and sons Devin (in New York City) and Jacob (in Boston - damn those Bruins!) gave me an appropriate book to read along the way - The Motorcycle Diaries by Che Guevara.  

I took a last look at the evening view (above), then sat down for the final, promised effort - The Route. Well, it's the sort-of route, but I offer it to give you a general view of where we're going individually and together, in some form or another.  It's not a big fancy deal - I'm new to the blogging game and waited until the last minute to kind of get it together, so the map is a bit hand-crafted.  Well, the map's not hand-crafted, but the annotation is.



The Route

1.  I ride from Vancouver to Placerville, California, with stop-overs in Tacoma to spend the night at my nephew Mike Lafo's place, then in Ashland, Oregon, to stay with Tom Winter and his wife Margery;

2.  Al rides from San Diego to Placerville, with stop-overs at a couple of bars along the way;

3.  Al and Joe spend the night at the home of my long-time friend, Dale Leyse, with his Very Close Friend, Myanna Stovall, visiting from Denmark.  To add to the festivities, my brother-in-law, Don Rosenfield is coming over from San Francisco;

4.  Al and Joe ride to Reno, Nevada, where his friend - and fellow-traveler - Tom Bodine lives;

5. Al, Joe and Tom ride across Nevada, up through Idaho into Montana, to Seeley Lake, Montana,where our sister, Les, and brother-in-law, Gary Berkey, live; also the home of my niece, Amy, and her family, and step-father, Bud Anderson.

6.  Al, Joe and Tom head north to Canada, then west to Vancouver, where they will drop me off and head south.  The route I have shown for Al and Tom is mere speculation, given that they haven't given an ounce of thought to that part of their journey; the northern part - skirting around Seattle to take in the Olympic Peninsula via Whidbey Island and lovely Port Townsend - was my suggestion.

The above is an outline of the trip; as previously noted, Dale knows a number of interesting side roads between Placerville and Montana, so we'll make decisions as we go.

The Riders greatly appreciate our arm-chair companions, watching our progress via the Internet - friends and family who have expressed best wishes for our safety, interested in how we're doing, where we're going and our thoughts along the way - shallow as they might be.

As I get ready to hit the sack, I get a final, heartfelt send off from Al:

Joe,

As you know from their e-mails, our extended family and friends apparently have taken a less than professional approach to our upcoming, groundbreaking, never been attempted, odds defying, trip to test the limits to which mankind has never dared probe.  One (Rachel) suggested matching bandanas.  The other (Susan) suggested matching leather vests and chains.  Our cousin Ron pipes up with the suggestion that we wear SS helmets.  Your friend, Steve Bush, makes a not too subtle dig at our reproductive organs. Your own flesh and blood, Devin, has employed sarcasm in openly questioning our manhood.  Emily and Jacob's idea of constructive criticism is matching "tramp stamps".  

It is my belief that none of these suggestions will burnish our credentials as bad-ass men who people toy with at their own peril.  They don't realize that their men/friends are off on an adventure so grueling, so arduous, so challenging that it would put the Labor of Hercules into the category of "a stroll in the park" (why just the energy spent repelling the hundreds of groupies we're sure to meet would probably be enough to power a small town for a month).  It saddens me to think that our own friends and family are not treating "The Great Motorcycle Adventure" with the gravitas worthy of great men.

PS - Don't forget your pillow and jammies.

PPS - RIDE SAFELY, and I'll see you at Dale's.

"God speed," as they say!