Trip Wrapup & What's Next

Well folks, the big summer trip is long over. It was easily the best thing I've ever done for myself. Since my return, I've gotten married, honeymooned with my new wife and road-tripped up to NorCal to see my brother get married. Even lined up a job when it was all over. It was, without a doubt, the best summer of my life. Since I've been 'back', it's been non-stop busy at my new job. I have been stalling on the wrap-up post...I think that was the last task in my summer of fun. That doesn't signal the end of this blog...rest assured, I will be doing another adventure soon enough. And smaller ones here and there as well. :-) Anyway, on to data.

This is a map of the whole trip, as captured by my GPS. Put together with Google Earth. My computer struggled to draw this image, due to the sheer number of datapoints...one per second for the whole trip..duplicated multiple times, as my saved files generally had overlap.


Here it is again on EverLater, with dates, etc: http://www.everlater.com/n8foo/n8-moto-2009

Some stats:

9723 miles
194.46 gallons of fuel
50MPG
49MPH avg speed
66 days traveling
198 hours on the bike (approx avg)
6 hours per day riding (approx avg)
23 US States
2 tires (front + back are done)
1 space shuttle launch, 5 scrubs, 10 days waiting on it

Sleeping Arrangements:


I was out a total of 66 days. Of which, I stayed with family: 27 days, friends: 20 days, motel: 15 days and camped: 4 days. The weather made camping a bit harder, since I really had only packed for dry camping and there was quite a bit of bad weather in the mid-west and south-east. I'd like my next trip to have very little hotels, if possible. Camping & staying with people you meet is very rewarding, I want to do more of it.

Planning my next trip is now picking back up. I've currently got it in my head that it'd be great fun to do Fairbanks to Key-West - The entirety of North America. Sounds doable in a month - 6 weeks at a pace that would allow some adventure. Also been reading about crossing the USA on dirt via the Trans America trail. I've got a good job for the moment so that stuff is on hold, but I expect to do a few long weekend trips this summer to tide me over until I can take a few months off once again. :)

Fairbanks to Key West
http://www.mctourer.com/rides/2004UCC/UCC04.html
http://roadtrip.apehangers.org/alaska/
http://www.ridermagazine.com/output.cfm?ID=2184769

Trans Am Trail
http://www.transamtrail.com/
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=153795 (awesome read!)