Where I live there are lots of roundabouts. These roundabouts are mostly big grassy islands, and during spring-time they are resplendent with hosts of golden daffodils. Well, this week I am really excited because said daffs have started to grow. Their green shoots are poking out of the soil of the roundabouts and other grassy banks around town: a sure sign that, after a quite harsh winter, Spring is just around the corner. The thought of this has made me get my arse in gear and get the bike out of the garage again. Unfortunately, that's as far as I've been able to take it because the MOT's run out, but it's booked in for the test on Thursday, so something to look forward to this week if it passes!!
As for my US adventure (or holiday, as SWMBO calls it), planning is well advanced. Bike rental: sorted. Flights to the US: sorted. Route: sorted. Even a few hotels are now sorted
So I am now getting down to planning at a more detailed level. For example, the route, in terms of which town I'll be stopping at each night, is pretty much decided. With a GPS I can input these towns, and it'll come up with a route that connects them all up. However, this is very "destination-centric": the route it chooses will be the "best" route to get you to you chosen destinations, which which is exactly what you want most of the time. For example, if I wanted to go to an exhibition at the NEC in Birmingham, the GPS will direct me there by the quickest, or shortest (I can decide) route, I'm not really very interested in the actual roads I use, as long as I get to where I want to be.
But for this trip the individual destinations are not the important part. It's not about riding from town to town in the most efficient manner possible, because I'll spend all my time on Interstates, which is plain dull. No, this trip is about the journey and seeing things on the way. So what I'm doing now is using the Garmin Map Source software (and this is where Garmin beats TomTom hands down, IMHO) to modify the routes between night stops, by adding in points of interest that I've gleaned from many months of research, roads that follow the old Route 66, and generally massaging the route to make it the most interesting possible. Having done this, I can upload these routes to the Zumo, and it'll guide me by my chosen route.
All of this is, of course, quite time consuming. It was also quite enjoyable, until I lost an entire day's work when I hit the wrong key and deleted the route I'd been working on. At that point my laptop nearly went through the window, and the trip cancelled! However I eventually calmed down, and re did it all again.
I'm finding this process very useful for collating and bringing together into one place all the research and information that I've found from many sources. The number of post-its that are scattered around the place has reduced significantly! However, my recent "finger trouble" has reminded me how easy it would be to lose it all, so I will still need to bring with me good old paper maps, in case the technology lets me down.
Days to departure: 35
Paydays to departure: 1.
Funding: $$$OK, with help from my Flexible Friend$$$
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