Below are pictures from across all the 99 day journey of my trusty Triumph Explorer “Nicodemus”
“The Plan.” Note restaurant placemat on the right with the original concept of the ride. On the left was the initial formalized plan. The model bike was a BMW 1200 GS Adventure which was my original planned motorcycle.
But, after I rode the Triumph Explorer 1200 XRT, my motorbike aspirations changed. Below is the day of purchase, November 2016, in St Petersburg FL.
Start of 8 Corner ride, Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend, 27 May 2017.
Day 1 ride, south from St Petersburg to Miami, under very hot, humid conditions.
Day 2, at Corner 1: Southernmost tip of the United States, at the marker buoy in Key West FL.
Blue Ridge Parkway (TN, VA)
LL Bean ‘cathedral for campers’ in Freeport ME
Corner #2: Madawaska ME, northeast corner of the United States:
Fall #2, off to the right down the little embankment (after being helped by a passing motorbike getting my bike back up). In the downhill skiing world this is known as “yard sale.”
Top of the US, where Route 41, which starts in Miami, ends at Copper Harbor Lake Superior.
Medora ND
Glacier National Park, MT
Crossing from Montana into Canada (photobombed by a random biker).
Dawson Creek, British Columbia CANADA, the start of the ALCAN highway to Fairbanks.
On the ALCAN highway
100 miles north of Fairbanks, “near the Arctic Circle,” and my northern most point.
Alaska
Homer, Alaska
Road to Valdez, Alaska
Northwest Territories CANADA
Watson Lake, Yukon Territory
Jasper Alberta CANADA
Blaine WA, the official northwest corner of the continental United States.
Tillamook OR
Pacific Ocean, near Tillamook OR
Redwoods of Northern CA
San Ysidro CA, the southwest corner of the United States
UT
Zion National Park UT
Colorado
South Dakota
Nebraska, hiding under the roofline of my motel because of hailstorm
Fall #3, on the way to Paducah KY to see the total eclipse.
Kentucky
Hope, Arkansa (at an appropriate center for how I feel each evening at the end of a day’s ride)
Texarkana, Arkansas and Texas
Jackson, Mississippi (getting Nicodemus some [more] new tires)
President Jimmy Carter’s church (Maranatha Baptist, Plains GA) where he just taught Sunday School from the 1st Epistle of Peter to the 30 or so members, 600 of us guests, and a phalanx of Secret Service Agents:
‘Downtown’ Plains, Georgia
Savannah, Georgia
(Learned that if you ask permission to leave your motorbike under the canopy at the front door, the answer is “no, can’t allow you to do that.” But if you just leave it there, the people at the desk, and others, will say “hey, is that you’re cool bike out there?” So after the first two nights, whenever I stayed at a ‘regular motel,’ I never asked, I just parked there like I belonged…unless the space was only one car-width wide. I think Nicodemus actually ‘classed up’ the places I stayed, and sometimes was joined by fellow motorbikes, and Harleys–which, BTW, are never referred to as “motorbikes,” ever.)
Cocoa, Florida (by Cape Kennedy) my final road picture
Saturday, 2 September 2017, back home 99 days, & 23000 miles, later, and so thankful that no people, animals, or property were damaged in the making of this Adventure.
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