TRAVELING CHOPPER

                I was reminded yesterday as to why I enjoy travel and why I think it is impoprtant.  We woke in the morning excited to drop our motorcycles off at the shipping warehouse, the next big step towards our travels in Europe.  But what happened at the warehouse, the experience we had, was an eye opening one.  There we were, dropping off two expensive Harley-Davidsons, leaving on what most would consider a trip of a lifetime.  Spending an extravegant amount of money to, at the end of the day, take a vacation.  Though I do feel there is more to it than that, ultimately, that is what it is.  In this warehouse we were surrounded by luxury items such as riding lawnmowers, vintage cars and crates of Tesla motors...all of these items being shipped overseas to people with plenty of money.  What we didn't expect to see was three train cars, tucked in a corner of this monster establishment, packed full of bags of...

          The riding through northern Georgia, Alabama and into South Carolina is hard to beat.  The roads are narrow, lined with plenty of trees, grasses and amazing flowers that send an unbeatable aroma through your nose.  Along the way we stayed with our friend Kevin "Mailman" O'brien, Kaylas' Uncle Tom and her brother in Charleston, SC.  I'd have to say that Charleston is one of the nicest towns I have been to in a while and it actually inspired us to stay for an extra day to explore the town further. With the cobblestone streets, buildings from the 1700's and the salty coastal air the town is full character and history.  Another noteable experiance in Charleston was North Ridge Custom Cycles.  We spoke to a fellow there by the name of Thomas Black.  He was kind of enough to let us use his back lot to drain the oil in my bike and adjust the clutch on Kaylas.  From Charleston we took our time, as we have been this whole trip...

          4 days ago, on May 20th, my girlfriend Kayla and I set off with our wheels pointing east for our first big ride of 2015.  The plan is as follows:  Take our time getting to Wilmington, NC, seeing friends and family along the way.  From there, we and our motorcycles are scheduled to leave aboard a container ship on April 3rd, spend 11 days at sea and eventually port in Antwerp, Belgium.  From Belgium we will head south towards warmer climates into Spain, Portugal (maybe), Italy and so on.  The route is rather loose at this point but we are hoping to catch a boat from Italy to Greece and work our way back north through Montenegro, Romania, Albania and eventually as far north as Sweden. So there you have it, that is our very basic itinerary that could change at any point.           Since our embarkation we have only covered about 1,100 miles but enjoyed a nice evening with my parents in Salina, KS, caught u...

           Alright, where was I?  Oh yes, we were stuck in Hermosillo and I just connected with a Yamaha dealer to help us out.  Turns out these guys were pretty great and gave it there best effort to help us out.  Though they were expectedly unable to repair the now oversized paper weight we once called a motorcycle, they did offer us free storage in the back of their shop.  So, from here we spent three days basically scratching our heads, trying our best to maintain our composure and devise an exit strategy.   What ended up happening was that we left both our bikes at the dealership, knowing that there was no other option, and caught the next bus out of town.  Thats right, a bus.  By this point we had resigned ourselves to the fact that the motorcycle part of our adventure had come to a close, but the adventure itself was far from over.             24 hrs later, deep in throws of Montezumas ...

           For the last month I've been thinking a lot about what I would say in this post, how much I would reveal.  So, here I sit, on the eve of my 2nd birthday typing away.  A long stretch from what I would have been doing on a Saturday 2 years ago.  There are a lot of directions I could go with this.  I could tell you about every drug I've done, everything I've lost due to being an alcoholic and what my rock bottom looked like or I could tell you about all the postive changes I've made in my life and how much better things are.  I've decided to give you both, but I want to focus on the positive because that is the real reason why any addict decides to put down there vice and aspire to something better.            I've known for the majority of my life that I have a very addictive personality with an affinity for the booze.  Though I was able to keep it in check for years through involving myse...

        We woke in the morning nervous and excited.  Today we would be crossing the Mexico border at the Nogales port of entry.  Fortunately, the ride from Phoenix to the border was uneventful.  Though Phoenix was experiencing record low temperatures, it was still far warmer then it had been.  We approached the border around 11 AM, a bit later then we had hoped but still within our window of exceptable.  Our plan was to make the crossing, then proceed to push quickly a minimum of 250 miles south to the coast.   250 miles was what we felt would put us a safe distance from the violent border towns.  Interestingly, the Mexican government has put in place an American Hassle Free zone that covers the area from the border to 250 miles south of the border.  Within this zone, if you any issues such as mechanical breakdowns, you are promptly towed and escorted, for free, to the closest edge of the Hassle Free Zone.       ...

          Day 2. Morning sun and clear skies brought bitter cold temperatures.  The current temp was 15 degrees and the forecast wasn't calling for a warm up.  Our destination for the day was Phoenix, Arizona via interstate 40 and Interstate 17.            Sticking to protocal we were on the road by 8am, west bound on I-40 where we would remain for the next 400 miles.  The moment we left we were instantly in the trenches battling a wind chill that would make a snow man shiver, the sort of cold that threatens to freeze the marrow in your bones.            After a speedy and painful 50 miles we quickly came to the conclusion that we needed to seriously assess our situation and devise a plan.  We came up with this:  We decided that we would tackle no more then 50 miles at a time.  If we came upon a gas station at 40 miles we would stop there instead of pushing on to the next. ...