ADVENTURE BLOG HERE WE GO! COME ON JASON, KEEP EM' COMING DUDE!
THAT'S MY OWN LITTLE PEP TALK! :-)
Okay, I'm writing a short blog on whats happened the last few weeks
In on of my last blogs I was sitting in a basement in Denver Colorado and now I am at my parents place near The Dalles Oregon. I have actually been home for two weeks today. Holy moly time flies! There has been huge effort since I've been home. I'm going to use the word "we" because many people have helped the last two weeks in all the various tasks. We started by unloading, servicing and doing maintenance on the Suzuki after its 6,400 miles of toting me and all my stuff around. We Finished the mega adventure build (Huge thanks to my dad and my pals both named Jerry for their efforts) on the KTM 690 Enduro R by installing the accessory gas tank and putting it all back together. Then I said a big prayer to the motorcycle Gods and fingers crossed while I fired it up for the first time after major addition of accessories, pulling stock systems off for conversions and truly lots of other parts and upgrades, etc. Vroom, Vroom! She fired right up! (I guess i think of my bike as a girl! I don't usually walk up to it and say, "uh, how's it hanging dude?" I usually walk up and say "hey baby, hope your up for another adventure today!") Anyways, it was a huge relief that it started right up and minus a couple small details after a short ride it was a matter of several days of packing details to get it ready. Actually more than several! I gotta tell you all that this is the hardest adventure type packing of my life! Sooo many careful details! I have less space on this bike than the Suzuki and way more stuff because of the need to carry more tools, lots of spare parts, extra tubes, hefty bike retrieval kit, etc, etc for this type of off road motorcycle and the nature of this next adventure being primarily dirt roads and out of the country! There was another trip to REI, motorcycle parts from Fun Country in The Dalles, multiple trips to Staples for printing maps(I stood at the printer for an hour and a half making paper copies of the Benchmark atlases because they are too bulky to carry all four states for navigating the discovery routes) and laminating important paperwork. Ok enough about chores and details! Other events were spending time with friends, family and Courtney. We had a great gathering and send off party thanks to the hard work of my parents,Courtney, Raven and Richard and Tova! And thank you so much to everyone who helped out, took the time, brought some food to share and made it important to come and support the Inspired Journey. Truly, thank you so much! Their has been so much love, kind words and support from so many people. I am so honored and so thankful to have so many wonderful friends in this life!
Here's a couple pics of the KTM.
This is just after installing the black accessory gas tank to up front to double my range to 300 miles. It would be hard for a non motorcyclist to tell but there has literally been hundreds and hundreds of hours of research and garage time to get it to this point where you see it in this picture. Oh yeah and thousands of buckaroos!
Is that outrageous or what!? Holy modern iron horse! That their my friends represents one of the lightest with good torquey engine power adventure motorcycle's on the planet earth! I don't know what their riding on other planets but this one is neato! Technology these days is pretty impressive considering the first motorcycle was invented in 1885. They've come a long ways! Remember I am truly self contained and living off this sucker. And I'll be able to ride some pretty challenging terrain with all that gear on there and of course when I get somewhere and I can unload the gear, I really have a lightweight adventure machine.
So, I am off! I left yesterday to start the next leg of the Journey, THE BIG ONE! This will start in Washington state and be mostly dirt roads to the tip of south america if all goes well. Stay tuned and remember you can alway go to the website and click on the FOLLOW to see where the blue dot(Thats's me) has been and where it is currently blasting along! Thanks for your support and following along!