Summer is officially here and we are gearing up for a great ride to the West Coast.  We’ll also swing North for a few days at Banff with Rob & Staci.  Although it isn’t as epic as Alaska, we will cover close to 7,000 miles.  On this trip we’ll visit 14 states and 2 Canadian provinces.  We’ll be taking a boring route North so we can pass through North Dakota.  This is the 49th state for me.  I am hoping to check off my last state of Maine later this year!

Highlights of this trek will include Banff, Olympic National Park, Mt. Rainier, Crater Lake, a trip through Valley of the Giants – (which I am super excited about!) Highway 101 down the coast with lots of scheduled stops and then a couple of fun days in San Francisco where we’ll be tourists & visit places like Alcatraz.  On the way home we’ll ride The Loneliest Road in America.  We’ll have a great mix of beautiful mountains, forests, beaches, and desert on this ride.

We aren’t planning on doing any camping this time.  That makes packing a lot less work.  It also makes the trip more expensive.  We won’t be staying anywhere fancy, but at least we will have a roof & a bed each night.

We did have to buy a few things in preparation for the ride.  My rain gear leaked in Alaska & I do not like being cold & wet!  I bought rain pants & jacket from Olympia.  I won’t need the jacket on this trip, but the pants should keep me dry.  I also invested in a new pair of boots from Tourmaster.  Mine are at least 7 years old and they are in pretty rough shape.  The new ones say they are water proof & hopefully they are.  Our most expensive investment is the new Sena 20 communicators.  I am excited to get them installed & try them out.  I am optimistic that they will work well & I can listen to music while I ride, which will be nice.

Our bikes will have the same type of tires we used on our Alaska trip.  They worked really well.  We’ll use Amsoil in the engine, we won’t have to schedule any maintenance stops for tire or oil changes.  The bikes are holding up well for the most part.  Shawn has nearly 90,000 miles on his bike and mine passed through 50,000 miles last summer.  I had a very frustrating oil issue – which was mostly a dealership issue, but I’ll save that for another post.

Less than 2 weeks until the kickstands go up & I am a long way from being ready to leave.  It’s crunch time!