Planning for a trip like this is no easy task. A simple trip that started out to be a pretty easy point "A" to point "B" ride changed quite a bit after getting Charlie Keller and the HRCA involved! Instead of just going from my house in Southern CA to Mikes in Western NY, we are now going to touch our wheels in the Pacific Ocean, see a few great Honda HRCA Chapter dealers along the way and then, after getting our front wheels wet in the Atlantic Ocean, head back to the Honda Hoot!

Since Mike is pretty good at trip planning proven by his many successful vacation riding trips with his family on his GL1500 Sidecar mount, and my experience of basically going only from "A to B" travel due to my past racing needs (hurry and get to the next track and hurry to get back!), I relied on Mike to take care of the trip planning. After over 6 months of emails and hours of over the phone discussions, I spent a weekend in my hometown of Springville, NY with Mike and his family in between business trips.

Of course I had to go there in December just to remember what it was like to be around a white Christmas! Before I arrived, we had already settled on a route that would be what both felt will be an enjoyable ride across the United States. But now, we had to get to the nitty gritty. We had already laid out the trip on a huge wall map of the USA to get an idea of what we were getting into.

We then had to create some individual maps to take along with us. We ended up with 20 different maps as well as 12 exploded views to get us to our dealer visits that we intend on riding to. We strived to stay off of US Interstates as much as possible but decided that we will be on them at times and are keeping our travel close to them in case we need to make up time along the way to stay on track with our planned itinerary.

Charlie Keller sent out notes to dealers that we were going to pass by on the trip. All of the dealers we contacted were very enthusiastic about us taking this ride and most stated that they jealous and would like to join us as well. We welcome them and any anyone else to do so!

We will be sending out some packages to all of the dealers we will be visiting that contain some great giveaways so if you’re nearby, be sure to stop by to say hello!

The trip will span 13 States and include California, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee. To learn about the stops we are planning, click on the "Route" link.