I’m finally getting close to departing solo to Alaska by motorbike.  Since returning from Ushuaia in February, I have spent the past several months prepping my motorbike, toy hauler/camper and pickup truck for travel.  Well, in actuality I did take a break during month of May and part of June visiting Belgium, France and Turkey – off the motorcycle traveling by planes, trains and automobiles.

I do really want to offer my sincere thanks to Marybeth and Ken in Virginia, Jason in Colorado and Steve and Ellie in Brussels for allowing me to stay with you while I am homeless (traveling).  You guys really are amazing and I throughly enjoyed the good times spent hanging out together.   Ken, you get an extra thank you for use of your shop and all of your help with my various projects prepping for Alaska.  I could not have accomplished everything without your help.  I’m really fortunate to have a friend with your mechanical and practical knowledge!

Today I am finishing up the last few preparations before heading north.  My plan is to travel in the truck and toy hauler up to Spokane where I have storage arranged while I continue north into Canada and eventually to Alaska on the motorbike.  I’m leaving a little later than originally planned so hopefully will not run into any issues with the weather.  I’m planning to be back in the lower 48 by early/mid September.  I’m hoping to cross the border  into Canada by the weekend.

The bike for this trip is a Suzuki DR650 I have had since 2015.  I had originally planned to take this bike on the trip down to Ushuaia, but purchased a DR350 in the final months leading.  I’m kind of glad that I changed bikes back then, otherwise the 650 would have been sold down in Chile and unavailable.  I had considered taking my BMW 1100GS that went around the world in 2014 but decided to go with the lighter DR.  The bike set-up is basically the same as the trip to Ushuaia – soft panniers, top and side bags for the tank, duffel bag on the rear along with heated grips and heated jacket.  I’m also bringing the same theme of camping gear, sparse clothing, tools, spare parts and electronic gadgets that traveled south on the last trip.

This trip will be different in many ways – English spoken throughout, easy border crossings, only two currencies to juggle…but the main difference will be traveling solo this time.  Ken can fix pretty much anything so that security will not be present on this trip.  Although I have learned a lot (mostly from Ken) about motorcycle maintenance since purchasing my first motorbike in 2012, I still consider my mechanical skills to be fairly weak.  There will most surely be plusses and minuses to travel solo – both of which I’m surely about to experience.

I’ve also recently switched my blog platform from Blogger to WordPress – Google has just made it too difficult over the years to use Blogger with Apple gadgets.  For those interested, our (w/ Ken Showalter) 2014 trip around the world can be viewed here– and the recent winter ’17/’18 trip from Virginia to Ushuaia can be viewed here.

Thanks in advance for following along!

The rig…