The Long Ride North

http://youtu.be/4xBXwVO4EkA

Here's a link to a video of our first planning session for the Long Ride North.

In June of 2014 I will turn 66 years old. At that time, my wife and I, and others, will leave on our Harleys and ride in a northerly direction for 15 days and then turn around and head back home. We’ll be gone for a month. So far we have four of us on three Harleys.


We started talking about this last summer in a rather casual manner, wondering how far we could get and what we might see along the way. All winter long this has been gnawing at me, so I booked a room at the Box Canyon Lodge in Ouray, CO (highly recommended by the way) and this past weekend we met with some of our traveling companions, got the maps out and plotted a possible direction. By the end of this initial session we had developed a route, a little over 7000 miles, and dubbed the upcoming adventure, The Long Ride North. It is now official, complete with T-shirts in the making and a resulting DVD and book filled with paintings and photos. WooHoo!

Turns out it is quite likely we’ll to get to Alaska. The plan is for me to document our travels by video and daily blogging as we go, so all of you good folks and others can follow along on this great adventure. When we return, I’ll edit and compile all the video into a releasable DVD. I’ll also edit and compile all of the daily blog posts, add after thoughts and anything else that won’t fit into the blog, go through all of the photos taken, include watercolor sketches done on the ride and compile it all into a book. Whew!

Sounds ambitious. Of course many others have made the ride before us and most without the fanfare we are planning on but that was their trip and this one is ours. It may be the trip of a life time for me…or, it could just be the jumping off point for a new career. I kind of like the idea of that.

While the idea has been rattling around in the back of my mind ever since brother-in-law Steve and his wife Loann made the ride a couple of years ago, it became more than a passing interest after watching the DVD set of Charlie Boorman and Ewan McGregor who rode their motorcycles around the world in The Long Way Round. Of course they were gone for three months and traveled almost 20,000 miles and they had sponsors and were much younger than yours truly.

Hmmm, sponsors. I hadn’t thought of that until now. What a great idea. I wonder if AARP would be interested? Sounds like a little fund raising is in order. I’ll have to look into this. I'll put this on the list of things to do, which is growing almost daily.

What we have planned for this trip is a little out of the usual because of the video and blogging to be included. This alone requires far more planning than I had realized.  Thin I'll use this summer's rides as practice.

Stay tuned folks and thanks for stopping by.