Back to Plan A ...

OK, so following feed back from some of my Facebook friends (and some of them are actually real friends too!) I have decided to bite the bullet and revert back to my original plan. I feel like a weight has lifted!

So, on April 18th 2011 (yes, less than 3 months left to go), I will board a plane bound for Chicago IL, to start my journey across America to Los Angeles, and then up the Pacific Coast Highway to San Fransisco, about 3000 miles in all.

I'll be following Route 66 (roughly) to LA, with a few side trips to the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas. Also, purely by luck, I will be passing close to Laughlin NV at the time that the Laughlin River Run is on, so I will be calling in to check that out. This is the infamous event that, in April 2002, saw 2 motorcycle gangs clash, culminating in a shoot out in Harrah's casino, with fatal consequences. Hopefully it won't be that dramatic whilst I'm there!

I've been in contact with EagleRider and managed to negotiate a bit of a discount with them, so this is now the best way to do the trip, on a Harley Davidson Electraglide! I'm going to see if I can get any more discount, and then book the bike in the next couple of days.

Anyway, normal service has now been resumed!

Days to departure: 96
Paydays to departure: 3
Funding: $$$Not enough$$$

I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.

Ok, so it's 3 months, nearly, since my last post on here. Since then I have confirmed 3 weeks off from work, and gained acceptance from my family that I'm going on 18th April.

So why haven't I actually started to book things, like the ferry? I've been wondering that myself and have come to the conclusion that, for the last year, my head has been ruling my heart in deciding to tour eastern Europe. However, deep down inside, in my heart of hearts, I really want to do the American thing.

Not sure what to do really. For the difference in cost (about £1500), should I bite the bullet and just do Route 66? What would you do? On the other hand, that sort of money would get me started with a dirt bike, which is what I want to do when I get back. Decisions, decisions. Trouble is, all the time I'm dithering, the ferry price is going up. Got to decide soon..........

Taking shape

A good thing happened the other day - I asked my boss for 3 weeks off in April/May and he said - "OK!"

That's given me the impetus to start things moving again on the planning front. Dates are now almost set, and I will leave the UK on Monday, April 18th, 2011. This is the first day of the school Easter holidays, and as Easter is late next year, my 3 weeks away will also take in the May bank holiday, meaning that I will only have to take 12 days leave for the 3 weeks off. That means I'll have enough leave left for a family holiday later in the year.

My birthday is on 14th April, so I'm expecting SWMBO to arrange a surprise party on the following weekend + it's our wedding anniversary on the 16th, so am not expecting to be in a fit state to leave on Sunday 17th. Hence, leaving on 18th, by which time I should have recovered.

Also, by being away over the 2 week Easter break, SWMBO will only have 1 week when she has to get Nathan to school. A good result all round, although the weather is likely to be slightly colder.....

So, I said the dates are almost set - the only thing I need to do is get final sign-off from SWMBO, then I can book ferry tickets!!! Then there's no backing out.

As for the route, I've decided that East is the way to go, and provisionally, on arrival at Amsterdam I will head off across Holland and Germany stopping in Berlin, then on to Krakow in Poland, then make my way down across many of the former Soviet countries all the way to Istanbul in Turkey. Route back will take in Croatia, Vienna, and Prague along the way.

Still putting the detail together, but it's looking like around 4000miles in total. Should be do-able I think!

Time to departure: 170 days
Number of paydays to departure: 6
Money raised to date: Not enough (but getting there).

BTW, for those who haven't realised, SWMBO = Gillian, my better half.

Winter's on its way

It's been a while since I posted here, and summer has come and gone, all too quickly.

And a busy few months it's been. Plenty of motorcycling. A family holiday in Florida, a new kitchen installed at home (fantastic btw), and last week a business trip to Madrid - a fun city I'd never been to before.

But now the nights are drawing in, in about a month the clocks change and winter will well and truly be here. That's the time that the planning of my trip will really gather pace, and the thought that come spring, I'll be gearing up and ready to leave, will keep me going.

I was talking to SWMBO the other day (well, I have to sometimes), and she suggested that I plan my trip over Easter, as it's quite late next year. That would mean that the 3 weeks would span 3 bank holidays - thus saving me from using quite so much annual leave. I'll consider this as it would be a good idea. I think the stumbling block now could be getting time off work - I'll broach the subject with my boss over the next couple of weeks, but I need to start firming dates up now, as I want to get my ferry tickets booked.

GPS tracker - first try

I went out with the family yesterday to Kielder Water, so thought I'd try out this GPS logger that I mentioned in my last post. The results are here:




A few tweaks required, but overall very impressed! Geo tagging photos worked well, and seems to accurately place them on the map. I had the log rate set to 15 seconds. This is probably good for walking or cycling, but in a car or on a motor bike, it's not quick enough ( at 60mph, saving your position every 15s means you cover a quarter of a mile in between - not good enough). I did notice that you can set dual rates so for example, every 15s when your speed is below say 30mph, and every second when it's above that.

Warning: Geek Alert:
Another shortcoming is that the software supplied will only geo tag jpeg photos. As I shoot in RAW format on my Sony A200, this is a slight issue. Yesterday, I set the camera to shoot RAW and jpeg, so tagged the jpeg versions. Actually this is not a bad option, that I think I'll use more - it means you have a viewable version of the photo immediately without having to post-process them. However I'd really like the original RAWs to be tagged too. A bit of research, and I found you can do this, using the @trip software to export the track as a GPX file, and then a piece of free software called GeoSetter, which can tag most photo formats (including many RAW formats). Job done!

I think this will be a really good way of tracking my trip, and keeping track of the photos that I take, so a good investment I think!

A new toy

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I like my gadgets. And yesterday, I added a new one to my collection! This new toy is an i-gotU GPS tracker. This clever little device saves your location (latitude, longitude and altitude) every so often (say, every 15 seconds), so that a track of your travels is built up.

That's clever enough, but the really clever bit is in the software - so when you're back from your trip, you down load the track to your PC, and the software allows you to publish it in the form of a travel blog using Google maps - can you see where I'm going with this? You'll certainly be able to see where I've been!

Even more clever still, is this: You can use the software to automatically geo-tag photographs you took whilst on the trip (that is add location info into the photo's meta-data), and add them to the map in the right locations!!! This all sounds incredibly cool to someone as geeky as me, who happens to be going on a long trip. If it works as well as promised it'll be ideal for helping to keep a record of the Trip for posterity, and let family and friends know where he is whilst he's away.

I haven't had a chance to try it out yet, but will over the weekend, and I'll report back here!

Weekend at the BMF show

Well, I've just got back from a very enjoyable weekend in Peterborough at the BMF Show. I rode down on Friday, taking the long route over the North York Moors, and not really touching the A1. I came back yesterday via a stop at Lynsey's in Leeds. During the whole time I was away I didn't see a single drop of rain - very unusual!

In the tent next to me was a lad called Paul, and we got chatting. It turned out that he's spent time living in Poland, and knows a lot about Eastern Europe, and where to go. We spent a lot of time talking about my trip, which, by the end, went up to the Arctic Circle in Norway, across to Turkey, then over to Tunisia! It was a three continent ride, but alas would take too long - more than the 3 weeks I've got, to do it properly.

However, he had a lot of good advice, and places that I should visit, that I will be taking on board in my decision about what trip to take.

The BMF show itself was great with lots to do and see, and by camping on site you benefit from having access to the entertainment. On the Friday night there was a terrific Led Zep tribute band, and an awful comedy act, which went down very badly.

Saturday night saw a great 3-piece cover band whose name I forget. they were just young lads, but the guitarist/singer was very good. Top of the bill was Killer Queen - yes another tribute band. I was hoping for great things, but they were merely OK. They used too many backing tapes for my liking, and the Freddie Mercury wannabe has the most grating voice ever. He was very good at mincing about the stage though! Having said that, the crowd seem to like them, and I think they got better the more beer I drank!

Change of plan?

I wrote in my last post that I'd been doing some re-thinking about this trip.
Having totted up the cost it was apparent that the trip in total is going to cost around £5500 - assuming that the exchange rate doesn't get any worse. That's a lot of money for what amounts to a 3 week holiday for one! It also became apparent that even if I save every spare penny this year I won't have saved that much, so would be paying for it for a year or two afterwards. Do I really want to scrimp and save, doing nothing other than what is absolutely necessary, for the next 3 years, so I can have a 3 week holiday? Not if you put it that way....

So I started to look at where the money would be spent, and it was immediately clear that around half of that would be on the bike - i.e. hiring a bike for 3 weeks (about $3500).

Then it occurred to me that, for about one tenth of that (well, maybe £300) I could get both myself and my bike over to Europe and back on the North Shields to Amsterdam overnight ferry. Food for thought there. So if I was to do that, what would I do for 3 weeks? Well after pouring over a map for a while there seemed 2 appealing options:

1. Head east. From Holland the Czech Republic is only 600miles away, on the other side of Germany. From there I could tour around some of the Eastern European countries, eventually ending up at the Black Sea.
2. Head south. Straight through France and Spain to Gibraltar, and then across on a ferry to Morocco - that sounds adventurous!

Either of those could be done in 3 weeks, for significantly less that the USA option. But, I still want to do Route 66........ Maybe it's time to say that next year it'll be a trip to Eastern Europe or North Africa, and, when I've got more time I'll do the American trip - say, when Nathan's grown up, and Gillian can come with me - maybe for my 60th (now that's a scary thought)? We can spend more time over there, and make it the adventure I'd originally envisioned.

I'm still thinking about this, and will make a decision soon. But whatever I choose, there's now less than a year 'till I go!

Some re-thinking going on

Yesterday was my birthday, 49 btw, So now just a year away from "the trip". I spent the day painting the rendered outside walls on my house, and woke up this morning to see just how patchy they now look. Worse than when I started - gutted!

However, spending all day doing that mind numbing task gave me plenty of time to think about things, and enevitably my thoughts turned next year's trip. In the end, I started to rethink the whole thing quite radically. Now, I'm not sure if my new thoughts have legs, or will come to anything, so I'm going to take some more time to mull them over before I post them here. If they do stand up to scrutiny, then expect some big changes to my plans......watch this space.

Spring has sprung......

..... the grass is ris; I should really be getting the bike out now.

Yes, it looks like the last of the salt has been washed from the roads (let's hope no more cold snaps), so I figured it's safe to get the bike out of hibernation.

It was booked in for its MOT today (For anyone not in the UK, the MOT is an annual safety check-up that all motor vehicles more than 3 years old must have to be legally usable on the road), so it came out of the garage yesterday for a good clean and check over. Thanks to the Optimate trickle charger that it's been plugged in to all winter, it started up first time. A quick polish and clean up and it was looking good and ready for the test. An oil change/service will be done once it's passed.

I was excited this morning as I donned my gear for the first time this year, jumped on board, and roared off to Armstrong Engineering, where it was booked in. An hour later I was happliy holding the MOT Certificate which proves that it's good to ride for another year! I did notice that the rear tyre is getting down a bit, so will need to be replaced in the next few hundred miles. Next stop the Post Office for a tax disc, and I'm back on the road and leagal again!

Trouble is, doing all this has made me wonder about I'm doing the right thing in renting a bike for the trip? It would be so much more of an adventure taking my own bike. Will have to watch the £/$ exchange rate and see if it becomes a viable option