For his 50th birthday Mike wanted a side-by-side ride with Carole. We didn't have to worry about over packing since we planned on 4 days in Las Vegas sandwiched with 250 mile riding days on both ends. We planned to take it slow, smelling the flowers and taking pictures along the way. This would be Carole's first multi-day ride on her ST so we planned everything to be unplanned. Once again, we just wanted to take it easy.
Pre-ride Setup
Mike's Take:
I used Microsoft Streets and Trips as well as our Garmin 2620 GPS to plan the route. I wanted to avoid the highly technical roads so I planned the route along major highways and freeways.... or at least what I thought was major highways. As it turned out, we traveled some extremely technical roads but they turned out to be just what the doctor ordered!
I had purchased a
JMCB-2003 so that Carole and I could communicate via CB and so that Carole could listen to some music as we traveled on her mini-disk player. Unfortunately when I went to install the unit I found it wasn't working properly. The audio was way to low and the CB would transmit and receive a carrier with no problem but would not modulate at all. We didn't have time for me to get a new one so Carole ended up traveling with just the sound of the wind and her 1300cc engine purring.
The night before we left I gassed up both bikes, checked the air in the tires and did a full pre-ride inspection. Then we turned in for the night for some restless sleep. (I can never sleep well the night before a planned ride as I get too psyched up.)
Carole's Take:
We leave for vacation tomorrow! I have all of my clothes sitting out, and I'm feeling good about the small pile that I see. I've decided that I'm not going to take many riding changes. I have two pair of stretch jeans, two "wife beater" tank tops, a long sleeved thermal shirt, a wool blend sweater, my turtleneck dickie and my mesh riding pants and jacket. Oh... and a good support bra that's red with Garfield pictures and hearts. I hate wearing bras, but my nipples get rubbed raw if I don't and this bra is much more attractive than sticking on a couple of band-aids every time I ride! Clothes for Las Vegas are packed also, but they have nothing to do with riding and everything to do with keeping my husband gawking at me while we're in the casinos. Four pair of sandals complete the deal. My riding boots are rather non-traditional. I prefer army issue combat boots for riding, and I doubt that I ever will change my mind about trading out for motorcycle boots. When Mike gets home from work, he'll lay out his clothes and we'll put them in our Rakit-Pak that sits on the back of Dori. All of our toiletries fit in a small pack that goes in the truck along with our hydration systems (small backpacks filled with chilled water that we can drink on the fly). Our mesh pants fill a pack that snaps on Dori's trunk rack. Shoes go in each saddlebag. Yes, Mike's bike is the pack animal. My saddlebags will be filled with our sweaters and other layers we take off as the day gets warmer. We'll be on the road around 7am. Still so much to do
Reading through trip descriptions can often be like sitting through your friends slide-show of their Disneyland Vacation so I'll end this page here. However, if you want to read about some of the roads we took, some of the challenges we faced, and view some of the pictures you can follow the links below.