The purpose
of this entry is to give the reader a bit of information about myself, and what
my plans are regarding my upcoming 15,000+ mile motorcycle trip. My name is Larry Goeller. I am married to Karen, and have two
young-adult children from a previous marriage. Karen has a young-adult son as
well. I live in Alexandria, Virginia,
where I have resided for almost 30 years.
I am a technical and cost analyst by profession, working for a company
that contracts primarily for the Department of Defense (like many people in the
Washington DC area). I am 57 years old.
On May 15, I
will leave on a motorcycle trip that will – with some luck – take me from Virginia
south to Key West in Florida, then northwest diagonally across the continent to
the Arctic Ocean in the Northwest Territories of Canada, and then on to
Alaska. Then back home. I intend to do this in about three months,
traveling on the order of 250 miles per day plus some scheduled days off. Karen, who would not be caught dead on a
motorcycle but nonetheless supports me in this, will join me for four separate
weekends over this period. In addition
to flying her to Key West, Anchorage, and other locations, I have paid up my
life insurance¸ updated my will, given her all my passwords, and agreed to some
other terms. Thanks Honey! A notional map of the route appears below.
Where did the specific
idea for this ride come from? After not
riding for about 25 years, I got back into motorcycles a few years ago. I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed
it; with one important exception, the riding in my youth it was just basic
transportation. This time around, long
day trips of 300 miles or more have become fairly common. Part of the decision to get back into riding
again involved my kids being college age, and part was having enough retirement
funds built up (plus life insurance) to take care of survivors in case I got
killed riding. I do not worry about
crashing very much, but I think one should consider the possibility and address
the consequences.
I had been
thinking about an extended motorcycle trip for a few years now. Perhaps US Route 50 from the Ocean City,
Maryland to Sacramento, California? Then
I came across a strange article in a motorcycle magazine regarding the Iron
Butt Association. (This organization actually
exists!) They offer citations for the
documented completion of “challenges,” such as riding 1000 miles in a day,
going coast to coast in 3 days, and the like.
I have no intention of doing anything like that; that’s not why I
ride. But one of their challenges
involves going from Key West, Florida, to Deadhorse (near Prudhoe Bay), Alaska,
in 30 days. That seemed both doable and
worthy of doing. I liked the idea of not
having a defined route but only defined endpoints, and I liked the idea of
riding more-or-less diagonally across the continent. Later I decided I would rather go to the Arctic
Ocean via a location other than Prudhoe Bay (which is the north end of the
Alaska pipeline and primarily an industrial “man camp”), and I didn’t want to
be limited by the 30 day requirement between the two. Nonetheless, this was a key piece of inspiration.
I’ll discuss the more
general motivations behind this trip, to the extent I understand them myself, in upcoming entries.
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