The Planning Goes on

It’s final, my wife, daughter and I are getting ready to journey on the bikes in a couple of weeks, weather permitting. We gave our daughter a choice of going to Disney World for Christmas or spring break. She chose Christmas. My wife thought why should I have all the fun, and decided she wanted to go on a long motorcycle ride. Of course this means we had to get approval from my daughter to take the bikes, since she would be stuck with me for the trip. She reluctantly agreed to take the bikes. However, now that I have two new long distance people, I’m going to have to shorten our daily rides. I simply don’t see either one agreeing to do 800 miles in a day, like I did on my trip out to California recently.

The entire trip is about 1200 miles each way. The plan is to do 2 1/2 days for the trip, I haven’t planned the route yet, but I suspect Day 1 will be a day where we just put the miles on the bike, that will be our 1/2 day. The remaining two days, we’ll take our time, stop along the way, and as is my usual way, find some smaller out of the way roads. The advantage of only doing 400 miles, is we’ll have plenty of time to stop and see the sights and then continue moving on at our pace. If it takes us 12 hours to do 400, so be it.

I have to be honest though, I’m not quite sure how all of this is going to work out. My wife has never ridden her motorcycle that far in one stretch, but we have been taking a few trips recently that are shorter, and should help. Likewise, my daughter has never been a pillion for that long. For her, life is going to be very different than riding in a car where she can watch DVDs, play video games, and sleep. On the motorcycle she can’t do any of those. With my Starcom intercom she will be able to talk with me, and we can listen to music, but I find that I really enjoy the peace and quiet when I’m riding. Having a passenger for this long will be a challenge for me.

My checklist
        ❑        Put new tire on Teri’s motorcycle
        ❑        Plan route - both ways. Find interesting things to do along the way.
        ❑        Watch the long range forecasts
        ❑        Buy additional tire plugs for trip
        
I’m sure I’m missing something, but right now this is pretty much the list of things I have to complete in the next week.