Thanks.

What exactly is the plan?

Travelling with a specific itinerary is helpful if you have one or two weeks for your holidays or have a long list of things to do and places to see in a short amount of time. You might imagine that the longer the trip the more planning there is involved. Although going away for an extended period of time can require more preparation, it's really not the case when you're planning on travelling for many months at time. In fact, planning every tiny detail of a journey that long is down right near impossible in my opinion. There are too many variables and inevitably something happens that slows you down or throws you off course.

My entire professional life has consisted of strict time tables, deadlines and doing many things at once. Always go go go. In fact we've both spent the last decade working in an environment where every second really does count. I often feel like maybe my brain is just hard-wired to run at warp 9. Lori thinks I'm just an adrenalin junkie. Maybe. I mean I do love to ride a motorcycle...fast (but well within the posted speed limits of course). One of the things we're looking forward to is that there are no strict time schedules, no deadlines to meet and the ability to slow down (I wonder if she meant on the bike? Ok so one of us is looking forward to slowing down).

With that said, we do of course have an idea or general plan of where we would like to go, places we want to see and some bucket list items to check off. And we’re also thinking it may be a wise to leave you with an idea of where we’re heading in case we really get lost, that way you’ll know where to look for us . You are going to come look for us...right?

Victoria Day weekend, we departed for Newfoundland via Ottawa and Gaspé. Although we've been to Gaspé, the Cabot Trail and PEI before, we think it's a beautiful part of the country that's worth another look, (and of course it's also between here and Newfoundland). We are planning on spending about 2-3 weeks on the Rock but we're leaving that somewhat open. They've had a particularly bad winter there (haven't we all?), and at this point it looks like it will still be very cold there at the end of May. From there we’ll head back west to Ontario via Mount Washington. We've ridden by Mount Washington several times before and for some strange reason have yet to stop and check it out, so we’ve added it to the menu.

Heading west, we'll stop by at (the place formerly known as) home, you know, to make sure the kids are alright and then take about a month to ride out to Alaska. Will we go up the Dalton or take the Dempster to Inuvik? Hmmm, ultimately the weather will have the final say on this one as the roads can turn quite treacherous in heavy rain. I’m actually quite excited about riding our bike into the Arctic Circle, the land of the midnight sun, and Alaska in general. Although I think Lori has some concerns buzzing around in her head about the size and lethality of the skeeters out there.

From there, the plan is to head south (duh) to Nakusp, BC for the Horizons Unlimited meeting in August. Then meandering down along the west coast before cutting clear across the continent to Asheville, North Carolina for the Overland Expo meeting in October. Its timing and location make this a bit out of the way for us to say the least but we would really like to attend.

After that we'll keep heading south-ish into Mexico and Central America, which are a blank canvas at this point. We would like to take our time travelling through this part of the world, enjoying the sights, the culture and the people. Then continue to make our way to Panama where we’ll ship the bike to Colombia and ultimately end up in Ushuaia, Argentina.

Of course that's all subject to change but for now it's a good start and gives us a general direction of travel.

I can't figure out how to embed this thing at the moment so here's a link:
https://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?msid=...218,150.644531

Google typically routes the fastest way possible attempting to get you to your destination in the most efficient way (or something like that). Although not representative of our exact path, it does give a general idea of where we're going.

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