A re-plan

With the realisation that I would only be able to stay in the US for 90 days, I had some serious thinking to do.

I tried trimming the trip and abandoning the idea of the Lower 48, but every alternative I looked at which could be completed in 90 days seemed too much of a compromise and I would be missing out places I really wanted to visit – I wanted to eat Lobster in New England and a po-boy in New Orleans, I wanted to listen to rock in Austin and Seattle, to ride Death Valley, to lie under a redwood in California and to see Old Faithful in Yellowstone. And of course there was Sturgis!

This was going to be an adventure of a lifetime and I wasn’t going to accept a major compromise. There was nothing else for it, it would have to be 2 trips! I’d go for 90 days summer/autumn 2011 and ride the west and then return in spring/summer 2012 for 90 days to ride the east.

My tentative trips now looked something like this:

Two trips

The routes are very approximate and will certainly vary and be refined as I go. The first west trip (red) is more ambitious in terms of area covered, but if I don’t make it all in the first 90 day trip, I can pick up at bit more in the second trip.