The Trip

The trip. This one I sort of talked myself into it. I will explain. After watching a certain travel show about these two guys who go about a trip around the world, I thought, "gee, wouldn't it be fun to do something like this?". That would have been fine had I left it there. But thanks to my big mouth I started to tell people about my idea. I would get a new bike, then go here, travel great distances and see wonderful things. I kept going about it and pretty soon everybody wanted to get in on the thing: they wanted pictures, they wanted videos, they wanted a dairy of the damned thing. Now I had a bunch of people all worked up about a trip that I had concocted while sitting on the couch having a drink and watching some guys on TV.

Years ago when I was in academia and had to go and present papers at conferences, I would submit a title about something I thought would be interesting, but on which I had written nothing yet. That way, when the conference program was printed and I saw my name plastered on the thing and a nifty title next to it, I had no place to hide, so I just did it. It worked like a charm. This trip thing, it seems, was working along the same lazy idea: make it public, then make it happen. So, why not?

Time is the key

When doing any sort of motorcycle travel in the US, the first thing that comes up is time, time being a function of the enormous distances you need to cover anywhere you go. How much time you have determines where you can go. And if I was going to do a motorcycle trip, I wanted to go far. Like Utah. Considering I live some 2,000 miles away from Salt Lake City, this was going to take some time. After deciding what I wanted to see along the way, I decided that two full weeks might do the trick. Hours passing checking places on Google Maps finally began to produce a mental picture of where to go, what to see and what route to take. I settled on a trip that would allow me to see the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, and Arches National Park. On the way back there is the Million Dollar Highway down through the mountains in Colorado. On the I can visit some friends in Albuquerque, NM, and in Lehi, UT.

The road

When I look at it, it reminds me of a kite on a huge line. The "line", from Jackson MS to Albuquerque NM, is made of 2 days' worth of nothing but empty road, with little to see. The trip really begins in Albuquerque. But I have to get there first. The way it stands it covers about 3,700 miles round trip. This is a big country indeed. To fly this kite, you need a lot of rope.

NOTE: After going through Dallas I decided not to repeat the experience. This map is the modified route I ended up taking: