US MotoGP D-Day -2

36 Hours to go

The time is approaching - but not fast enough. Adam and I are both watching the hours tick slowly by like the last drops of oil dripping from your bike's drain plug. Drip, drip, drip - oh the agony. The bikes are completely ready and we did final packing tonight. Every nook and cranny of our Coretech softbags are stuffed full. No souvenirs for us. We have clothes for 5 days and will be doing laundry on the trip. Adam and I both took the bikes out for a quick test spin in the neighborhood to get a feel for the weight and to make sure everything was strapped down good. I think we are set.

Being the adventure traveling family, we don't have a set route for our trip. No hotel reservations, no firm dates we have to be anywhere except Friday morning at Laguna Seca, nothing but our bikes and gear, credit card and some cash and a general idea of where we want to go.

Our general plan is to ride out I-40 so we can make time across the hot Texas panhandle and get to the cool air and twisted roads of the mountains as quickly as possible. Our first night we plan to spend in Red River, New Mexico. This is one of our favorite stops. The town is a small mountain ski town, just right for motorcycles.

Next we plan to ride up into Colorado and catch a bunch of winding roads up and down through the Rockies. Maybe spend the night in Cortez, before launching off our third day for southern Utah. One of my all time favorite roads is Highway 12 out of Escalante. We want to cross the Colorado River basin early in the morning while it is cool and get to the mountains west of the river before it starts getting hot again. Third night maybe stay in the Salt Lake City area, then high tail it across the Nevada deserts to California and ride those roads until Friday morning when we get to the races.

After the races we plan to ride the pacific coast highway north to Oregon and Washington, then across the US/Canadian border to Montana, then follow the Rockies back south to Colorado and home.

That is our plan in general, we will modify it as we go.

35 hours and counting!