I can't believe it has been over a month since I've posted an update. I originally planned on publishing a daily update but the daily routine of living out of saddlebags has been more work than I originally thought. I'm writing this from a Starbucks and this will be a quick summary of the first 5 days of my journey.
By the numbers:
- Days traveled: 5
- Miles driven: 941 which means I'm averaging 188.2 miles per day.
- Tanks of gasoline purchased: 5
- Nights spent in hotels: 2
- Nights spent in Airbnb: 1
- Nights paid for at Airbnb which I didn't use: 2
- Nights spent at cousin Laura's house: 1 (a big THANK YOU to Laura for accommodating my brother Dave and myself when we were too tired/inebriated to make it back to the Airbnb safely.)
- Nights spent camping: 1
- Failed camping attempts: 1
- Number of monumental screw ups: 0
- Number of minor mishaps: countless
- Nights of poker played: 1
- Number of times that I should have stopped to take photos but didn't: countless
- Number of times I've been mauled by bears, moose, caribou, and other wildlife: 0
- Number of mosquito bites: a bunch
- Number of times a bag has fallen of the bike: 2
Highlights:
- Riding is a hell of a lot of fun.
- All my stuff is in storage. Hooray!
- Cousin camping was a lot of fun and I wished I hadn't missed the first day but I'm so glad I went.
- The scenery has been amazing.
- I managed to circumnavigate all the forest fires in southern British Columbia. Air quality was pretty bad and reminded me of earlier business trips to China, the moon was orange once, and even the interior hallways of one hotel smelled like a campfire.
- Temperatures are much cooler up here in the Caribou region of BC and the weather has been downright pleasant.
- I am learning something new every day.
- Gravel roads are no longer scary.
Lowlights:
- Camping is more work than anticipated. The logistics of unloading gear/setting up tent/sleeping/packing/loading up gear is making me ponder a two night minimum on camping assuming I don't get an order of magnitude faster at setting up/breaking down camp.
- Bike maintenance is a chore. I'm just doing the minimum which means keeping my chain lubed and basic TCLOCKs checks.
- I am pretty fatigued. Might be time for a day off soon.
Future plans:
- Try to get to updating the blog once a day and post the few photos that I've taken so far. On day 2, I spent an hour trying to get Google maps to publish a route but it was too friggin nice of a day so I bailed on the effort. If you know of an easy-to-use map route generator, please drop me a line.
- I've been making a point of posting to Facebook once per day so peeps won't worry. Friend me on FB if you'd like to see my Facebook updates.
- Since I'm on the edge of civilization (the Hotels Tonight app says "nothing to see here"), I'll need to wire a USB charger to my bike which will be a bit of a challenge on the road.
- I need to figure out how to transport food.
That's all for now - thanks for reading and please provide feedback. Photos and daily turn by turn accounts forthcoming.
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