Getting Started

This is going to be a daily(?) blog of our upcoming vacation. Last year we did an (almost) daily email to all our friends and relations and they seemed to enjoy receiving it. This year we'll blog instead. Our conveyance will again be our 2006 Dodge Ram 2500 truck (KB Truck aka Kick-Butt-Truck) and our 2001 Keystone 21' Tail Gator Toy Hauler Trailer (Ali-the-Gator). We'll be traveling with our two dogs, Buddy and Peanut who are the reason for us having the truck and trailer. (It's hard enough to find a motel that will allow one dog much less two!)

We'll be leaving on or about July 18th and doing a two day run up to Durango, Colorado. There we'll spend a week at the International Norton Owner's Association National Rally. After the rally we'll head north and visit my cousin Melanna in Vale, Colorado. Leaving there we'll head up to Sturgis, SD for the Black Hills Rally. We have a campsite reserved for the whole rally week, but Sturgis can be a bit overwhelming with 100,000 plus bikers crammed into a 7000 resident town, so we may well leave early.

I've been to Sturgis twice, the first time in 1975 when I rode my Norton from Virginia with Paul Custer, and a second time in 1990 for the 50th Anniversary of the rally. That was a big one with over 200,000 attendees.

After Sturgis we'll head west to Yellowstone park. Cheryl has a friend, Pam, in Montana and we'll do a "Hi There! Surprise! We're here! Where do we plug in?" visit.

After Pam & Richard's we'll continue west to Washington State to visit Cheryl's kids. Then we'll head south and subject ourselves to California and return to Phoenix.

The trailer is in the shop now getting new shocks and shackles, the truck just got four new tires, and will go into the Dodge dealer for a pre-trip look-over next week. I built new cabinets under the couches/beds in the trailer for heavy storage and installed additional cabinets in place of the old "swing down" bed that we never used. So we should be in pretty good shape when we leave. Time will tell. The good Lord does have a sense of humor and it will be interesting to see what he throws at us.

Ride On! Ride Safe! Ride Often!

Frank & Cheryl