Splitting Lanes

I guess this vacation had been lingering in my mind for awhile, but it wasn't until I read Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road, by Neil Peart, and perused Pashnit that I had a route picked out. On the surface, my destination was Las Vegas, and the reason was the Art of the Motorcycle Exhibit, which I wanted to see since it opened at the Las Vegas Guggenheim. But really, the trip was to Ghost Ride, something that I've defined as "a journey to bring one's self back into the benevolent universe"; as put by my friend Rob Stevens in describing Neil's book.

I was taking my first (and only) motorcycle, where I had previously spent about 23000 miles in the saddle. Sure. Sounds like alot given I've had it less than two years, but practically all of that is from commuting to and from work. I had basically only done one long ride before. at the end of September in 2001, to attend my sister-in-law's wedding in Reno. I remembered many things from that ride; being saddlesore always immediately (although I had ridden 80 miles that day before leaving, and spent the day skydiving), and being extremely cold going over the mountain (and being very hot coming back over it).

Oh, and if you're wondering why my odometer is off, it's because at 20000 miles or so, I needed the speedometer replaced...to fix my trip meter reset knob!!!

My departure date depended on the completion of a project at work. The beginning of December isn't the ideal time of year to undertake the Sierra Nevadas, or the high desert in Nevada. But, in retrospect, I wouldn't have had it any other way. I didn't want this to be easy! I needed it to be hard at times, and I needed it to be dangerous, and I needed to be scared. Just so I could feel "One Little Victory".

So the weeks before my target departure date (Nov 29 or 30th), I bought a -10F rated sleeping bag, new and actually functional saddlebags, and stitched on 80 feet of 26 gauge wire to a fleece jacket and glove liners. If you're interested (as I would be in planning a similar trip), here's my full inventory upon leaving (including what I was wearing).