The departure date is almost here, you can smell the anticipation in the air. OK, well, to be truthful the odor is probably solder smoke, oil, rubber, and more than a little sweat (it’s been in the 90s here).
The bike is ready. It just needs a bath but other than that it’s ready to go.
There is other prep to be done. We’ve made gps tracks from the paper maps and have planned our route from the beginning in Tennessee to the end in Trinidad, Colorado. Depending on several things, primarily weather and time, we have three places where we will call it a trip and head for home.
The trip looks to be approximately 2100 miles of trail riding, with an additional 1500 or so thrown in to get to the start and to get home afterwards. That’s a lot of riding to do in a week (plus a couple of days if necessary), so there won’t be much lollygagging around.
I have grand plans to document the trip with photos, maps, and some writing – hopefully I can manage to do all of that and enjoy the riding, companionship of my good friend John, and the best part of all – being smack-dab, plumb in the middle of a genuine adventure of our own making.
This is also the shakedown trip for the western TAT that we are planning for next year. We’ll figure out what works, what doesn’t, what we didn’t need to take, and what we should have brought along. We should have our kit well sorted for next year’s adventure.
Stay tuned.