Bring the Family

Intro:  This one was from 7/21.  I still have a ton of blog content from the end of the summer.  I’m going to start updating the blog every other day.  It’s the only way I’m going to catch up on the content.

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Quick review:  The Long Way Round was a TV show back in the early 2000s where Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman rode motorcycles east across Europe, up through Russia and from Alaska to New York.  There was also a book version.  The book version should be standard reading for anyone planning a big trip.

I’m struck by how sick the poor bastards were prior to leaving.  They were so upset about leaving their families that they didn’t sleep for the 4 nights before the trip.  Charlie (a very accomplished rider) dropped his bike twice on departure day.

When I first started planning this, I thought, “well shit, I can be gone a couple of weeks”.  Then I talked to my wife.  As usual she was more realistic and brought me back down from the dangers of assumption.  To quote Samuel L Jackson (which one can never do enough of): 

“When you make an assumption, you make an ass out of u and mption”

I live and breathe my family.  Not a day goes by that I don’t look at my wife and realize how wonderful she is and how lucky I am.

Take the feelings I have for my wife and multiply them tenfold for my kids.  I could probably write it out but I would need more time to create the symbols and syntax.  I’ll get to it in a later entry, for now, my kids are my reason for everything.  That’s it.

There is no fucking way that I could voluntarily leave my family for two weeks.  As usual, my wife had the solution:

“We would need to ride with you somehow.  I can’t stand the thought of you being away from us that long”.

And just like that the possible solution to several problems started to work themselves out in my head.  She and the kids will meet up with me several times on the trip and then at the end in Key West.  I’ll trailer the bike in Miami and we’ll all drive home together.  This way it’s an adventure for everyone and it gives us all a reason to get excited about the planning.

Just today my son asked what kind of bike he would be riding on the trip.  I had to tell him that I would do the riding and that he would have to ride with me.  His response?

“Cool.”

I hadn’t even thought about doing it that way until today.  All of these things that seem like they are problems, seem to turn into opportunities to make the trip better and more meaningful.  I’m so glad everyone will be involved.  Makes the whole thing matter.

There are still some big problems with all of this.  Money is one.  I intentionally haven’t sat down to crunch the numbers on all of this.  It will be a family vacation so I don’t mind spending some saved cash.  The problem is that I am also planning on buying another bike with that money (among many responsible things) and I don’t really want to skimp on the rig.  Given the cost, I may have to skip the adventure bike and ride my VTX.  I’m okay if it comes to that but it’s not my first choice.    Ah fuck it.  I’m not worrying about this right now.  Nothing to be done.

Main focus for the next few weeks:

• Lay out the days.  Schedule the rough route for each day and the logistical notes that will let Jules and kids travel at least some of the way with me.  Start locking this framework down so we can get excited as the months melt away.
• Work on the gear list. 
• Start acquiring the gear.
• Practice packing