The Trip

IN 2003, Harley-Davidson celebrated one hundred years of making and selling motorcycles. I started planning for my part in that celebration in 2000. No last minute oh-my-gods for me, not if I could help it. Linda took a look at the length of the ride from here to Milwaukee, the home of Harley-Davidson, and decided she would accompany me in her car, not on the pillion seat of my Night Train. We planned and we planned. I took no vacation from 2000 through 2002 so I'd've accumulated plenty of vacation time for The Trip in 2003. And I had.

I let my employers know well in advance that I'd be leaving on 13 Augutt 2003 and returning on 1 October 2003. The Party (H-D's name for the celebration) would be from 28 August 2003 to 1 September 2003. Three days of warmup for the big event 31 August 2003, Labor Day Sunday, all evening and night.

On 1 September 2003, Labor Day itself, we started our way home by way of Cement City, MI, where Linda grew up and her family still lives. Also by way of almost-NYC, Washington, DC, Richmond, VA, Knoxville, TN, Memphis, TN, Little Rock, AR, Dallas, TX, Abilene, TX (it takes a long time to cross Texas!), Hobbs, NM, Alamogordo, NM, Springerville, AZ, Holbrook, AZ (the nadir of The Trip), to Flagstaff, AZ (an almost nadir), Winslow, AZ (is Arizona another damn Texas?), the Grand Canyon, Needles, CA, Barstow, CA, then home. 7700 miles in five weeks.

What a Trip!

I have "borrowed" pages from my previous website rather than try to recreate The Trip twenty-one years later. The following pages were first put together shortly after The Trip when I was still damn near breathless from it.

Pieces of The Trip:

• The Trip
• To Milwaukee
• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3
• The Party
• Going Home
• Reverie - The Trip

And then we were home, exhausted but grinning. What a Trip! What a helluva Trip!