3000 Miles of Hard Pavement

I have been planning this trip for many years but no matter how I planned the route I knew I had to first go across the country, roughly 3000 miles of hard pavement ahead.

My plan was always to start Mexico in Baja California and that meant riding from New Jersey all the way to San Diego, an almost diagonal line across the heartland of America.   About a month before the start of my trip we started planning a family vacation.

We picked Colorado which my wife and daughter had never visited.  We also had friends to visit in Denver.  I love Colorado and the eleven days we spent there weren’t enough. We visited lots of places, including National parks, mountain tops, Indian sites and beautiful towns. We visited Pikes Peak at 14114 feet, Mount Evans at 14,265′, Rocky Mountain National Park at 12,000′ and visited famous cities like Durando, Silverton, Ouray, Aspen, Vail, Boulder City, Denver and others. We all had an amazing vacation.

Anyone need oxygen?

Mount Evans in the Rocky Mountains National Park

Mesa Verde National Park

Great Sand Dunes National Park

Lake between Silverton and Ouray along the Million Dollar Highway

Why am I mentioning my family vacation? because it caused a delay to the start of my solo trip.   I had so many things to check off the list before I could leave, financials to take care of, arrange for a lawn guy, sell a car, deliver photos to baseball and softball coaches, scan documents, buy a few missing items off my list and on and on.  Originally I planned on leaving on the 5th, right after the 4th of July but then it was the 6th, then the weekend but finally I settled on the 9th, the beginning of the week and the beginning of the adventure.  

Monday came and I still had to visit two banks, close one bank account and finally put everything on the bike.  You would think I would have the bike packed days ahead but no, leave everything to the last minute.  Finally at 12:30, after many goodbyes and embraces, I threw a leg over the seat and with one last look back at my daughter and wife, I left Jackson and started the long ride west to San Diego.  

My first stop was 40 minutes later in Hamilton where I worked to close a bank account.  I walk into the bank in full motorcycle gear on a very warm day.  This first day would be nothing compared to what was to come a few days later across the heartland of America.

A beautiful McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II on a pedestal in Hamilton

My first day route took me through Hamilton area, New Jersey Turnpike then the horrible Pennsylvania Turnpike until Harrisburg where I took Interstate 81 south until Hagerstown then started west on Interstate 68 ending the day in La Vale.  Due to the late start I only did 293 miles but these miles were probably the worse I will encounter because of the traffic on both Turnpikes and the Philadelphia area.