"All My Bags are Packed and I'm Ready to Go..."

Despite Pratt's teasing about overpacking and overplanning, my bike is loaded with everything I'll need and plenty of room to spare, using nothing more than my Givi sidebags and a small tankbag.

Of course, the friggin' weatherman is predicting a low tonight of 25 degrees! No worries, by the time I hit the road about 8 a.m., the temp will have climbed to at least 28. Piece of cake! (Well, maybe. Last time I started a trip when it was this cold, I had trouble with my carbs icing up. It's not a show stopper, mind you; just means I'll need to stop occasionally and allow the heat of the idling bike to de-ice them. I can hug the headers and de-ice myself at the same time.) As you can tell from the parenthetical, my Kawasaki ZZR1200 won out over the BMW Dakar as to the weapon of choice for this trip. Something about having all that plastic to hide behind and a monstrous alternator (I think it puts out about 640 watts) to run my electric vest, grips, the portable space heater I'll be balancing on my lap, etc.


I'll post more when I have Internet access ... from some warmer clime.

Hope everyone had a merry Christmas!