In the beginning...

My original plan had been to ride East, rather than South. My good friend Scott (a.k.a., "The Badger") and I were planning to ride to Newfoundland and back. Unfortunately, that fell through because I just couldn't string 5 weeks of holidays together at one stretch. (One of these days, Badger!) Scott has since started a business, and is currently preoccupied getting that off the ground. Three weeks riding through mountains and deserts just doesn't help with that.

While planning that first trip, my good friend Colin decided to get his motorcycle license, too. And then, while at a motorcycle shop, ostensibly to buy a helmet and other riding gear, he saw and fell in love with his V-Strom. It's an excellent, sturdy bike, with phenomenal range (approx. 400km/tank). I'd been looking at them myself when I bought what I've dubbed 'the Stuka'. I love the boxer engine on the beemer - my first bike had been an old R65LS - but what really sold me was and is the shaft drive. I am inherently predisposed to unfussy, low maintenance vehicles, and the prospect of messing around with a chain every couple thousand miles just didn't interest me.

Colin and I began with the vague idea of riding down to Texas or New Mexico - or, since they're so close together, Texas and New Mexico. Over the past few months, we've added destinations, plotted possible routes, and put together an itinerary that will be challenging but very doable.

We'll start with Hwy 20 through Washington's Cascade Mountains, cut across the top of Idaho to Montana, take the Going-to-the-Sun-Road, and turn South. We'll ride down through Wyoming, stopping at Devils Tower, and make our way to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. From there, we'll ride down through Eastern Colorado into Texas, stopping at Austin for a couple of days, then onto El Paso (queue the Marty Robbins!) before turning NW to New Mexico. We'll see Carlsbad Caverns, Los Alamos, Santa Fe and Chaco, then head back up into Colorado to see the old native cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde. After that, we'll head up to Moab, UT, and Arches National Park, then down to Panguitch or Kanab, to do some hiking in Bryce Canyon and Mount Zion. We'll turn NW again, and cut across Northern Nevada to Carson City or Reno, then over the mountains to California and up the coast through Oregon and Washington to home.

If anyone has any suggestions for places to stop, places to stay, things to see, detours that we'd be fools not to take, please leave a comment.