February / March 2009 – Decision time!

For the next month or so, I talked to a few people about the potential of really doing the tour. Firstly and most importantly, my wife. Being away from home for 3+ months isn’t what most husbands plan to do, but Jackie knew that I longed for the adventures that I had missed out on in my early life. I was relieved when she thought the idea was a good one and was fully supportive. We talked about her coming to meet me at certain points on the tour and staying a few days. Jackie is an American, so that helped a lot – I sensed a sort of national pride that she was happy that I wanted to do this tour in her country!

Jackie does go on the back of my Harley-Davidson Road King occasionally, but the idea of doing the tour with me wasn’t really her idea of fun. I would be doing it without her.

I also spoke with a few pals about whether they wanted to join me for part of the tour. A few said they were interested and one or two were so keen, they wanted to sign up then and there!

I was working part-time during 2009, but at the end of this year my intention is to fully retire, so getting time away from work was luckily not an issue for me.

Ok, I had the route worked out, I had the time to do it, I knew how many miles it was likely to be and roughly how long it would take. I had the support of my wife. It was decision time – would I do this tour or not? I needed to know for sure and it was a big decision........

The next day, I bought a whole load of maps of each of the individual States I would be visiting.........!