I’m lazy. I’ll admit it. I love to write, but hate the chore of the actual “writing” part. Perhaps more accurately I don’t type well, and because it slows down my creative process, I tend not to have the discipline to just sit down and write which is a quality that I admire in other writers. “Writers write,” I believe, is the adage.

I have friends and colleagues who write or publish something nearly… Every. Damn. Day. At the very least they re-post something interesting they’ve read, along with a comment or two. I don’t know how they do it. I’m so easily distracted by shiny objects and puppy videos that I haven’t posted to this blog in over a year. And even then I repurposed someone else’s Ride Report (see “Lifted Literary Longings”).

It’s not because I haven’t been traveling. Just like the Johnny Cash song, “I’ve been everywhere, man.” I’ve been back and forth across the US about five times. I ate three helpings of tuna poke on the Big Island of Hawaii, bruddah. I’ve taken two significant motorcycle rides; one on slab through the Shenandoah Valley and Smokey Mountains, the other off-road on the Arizona Backcountry Discovery Route (AZBDR) with the Smooth Crew. I bopped around Patagonia in South-Freakin’ America in January. Pura vida and great beefsteaks. I’ve even been to Akron, Ohio — twice in the past year. They have a very nice air and space (okay, mostly air) museum there.

So I’ve been around; seen me some airports. But I guess I didn’t have enough to talk about to motivate me to write and post my observations. Some of you reading this are incredulous at this comment. And because, like I said, I’m lazy.

Until now.

On Friday, July 24, 2015, I’m leaving on an Epic Ride — an Epic Ride with a twist. I’ll ride my trusty BMW R1200GS, “Baby,” from my home in Topanga north to Seattle, across Washington state on the North Cascade Highway and up into Canada. The farthest destination north will be Jasper, Alberta, then down the Icefield Parkway to Lake Louise, Banff and back into the US via Montana. From there, it’s Glacier National Park (which is currently on fire, yay), then Paradise Valley, Montana to visit my pal and former boss (he hates that title, but it makes it simpler to explain), Joe Phelps. Then it’s on to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, Jackson Hole, Park City, Zion National Park (for the fourth time — and worth it, trust me), Las Vegas (because Vegas, baby! — and it’s on the way home) and then, well, home. 4,200 linear miles. 23 days. If all goes according to plan (HA! See “Smoothtah”), I’ll return home on Saturday, August 15.

Oh yeah, the twist? Dee is joining me for this trip. I’ll pick her up in Seattle and she’ll settle into the co-pilot position on the pillion seat.

Dee rode with me last year for a week down Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway through Virginia and North Carolina on a rented Honda Goldwing 1800. She’s solid when it comes to being both a traveling companion (always carries her own stuff) and a non-vehicle-operating motorcycle passenger, short of when she waves her hand in front of my face to get me to slow down instead of just saying it over the connected intercom in our helmets. Thankfully she spends about a third of her riding time asleep, so she doesn’t complain much. Yep, you read that correctly. Feel free to ask her about it.

So Baby has been outfitted, serviced and is ready to go. I’ve been fighting a summer cold which turned into this thing called “walking pneumonia,” which is laughable in that I didn’t walk much over the past two weeks while hosting this crud. I’m on the mend and pretty much ready to go, as well.

Follow me (link below) and stay tuned for posts along the way — assuming, of course, that I don’t get lazy and watch puppy videos instead of writing.

Travel safe and often.