I like to at least one long ride every year.  For this year, I had planned to attend the American Victory Rally, then continue onto Glacier National Park & Yellowstone National Park; the trip would take about 2.5 weeks starting around August 15th.

Unfortunately, I screwed up the scheduling with work, so my trip had to be postponed until the start of September. This left me with a quandary of whether to stick with the original plan, minus the rally, or return to the southwest US to visit friends and see sights I’ve missed on previous trips.

The main reason for reconsidering the northern trip is the weather: Glacier is on the border with Canada and fairly high altitude so the weather can change sudden & it might get snow, even September.  I contacted the National Park Service for both parks with questions and received responses within a few days.  The responses were great, but confirmed what I already suspected: the weather is great right now and visiting a little later in the year will help avoid crowds, but there are no guarantees when it comes to the weather.  A variety of friends on Facebook said the same thing.

Ultimately, I decided to play it safe and go to the southwest.  I was swayed by the uncertainty of the weather and I just love the desert (even though that feels strange to say).  Now it’s just a matter of completing all my prep before I leave September 1st.

Today I picked up the Kingpin from Trumbauer’s.  (Thanks to Dan, Linda & Sam for rides to & from.)  Trumbauer’s does pretty much all the work on my Kingpin and they always take good care of me, including checking out the bike before big trip.  This time they inspected it, installed new tires & brakes, and generally tuned it up.

Other preparations completed: my trusted travel computer – an aging 13″ Macbook – got a little more life with memory upgrades and new battery; I’ve ordered custom earplugs so the wind won’t make me deaf; and Mike is going to take care of the cats. (Thanks Mike!)

I still have to get some stuff to prep the house – pick up cat food, mow the lawn pretty short, etc – but the big stuff is ready to go.  Now I just have to get thru what looks to be a very busy week at work.