The Plan

Or, how to bankrupt myself in just one summer!

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Chicago > Texas > Key West > NYC > Mt Washington > Nova Scotia > Alaska by way of the Northwest Territories > Coldfoot > Anchorage > Portland > Death Vally > Grand Canyon > Yellowstone > Burning Man > Chicago.

Four Months. 25,000 miles. 600 gallons of fuel, 6 oil changes, two sets of tires, and one tent.

And for this trip, this will be my only mode of transportation:




My 1997 Yamaha Virago XV750, which I bought last year.

That route on google maps is a very rough estimate; most of those markers are just to get a distance. I'll be spending as much time as I possibly can OFF the main roads, and will be heading up more through Appalachia rather then going so close to the east coast. Depending on local conditions, I might also take a run up to Labrador City as well, but I've heard conflicting information on the condition of that road.

So that figure of 20,000 miles according to Google will get stretched a good deal. The majority of the time will be on paved roads, although there'll be some gravel up in the Northwest Territories and on the US side of the Top Of The World Highway.

The vast majority of the time I'll be stealth camping if I can, or crashing on a couch here and there when I feel like living in the lap of luxury.

As for nerd-stuff, I'll be bringing along some sort of a netbook, or maybe an ultra portable laptop for blogging when I can. Along with my waterproof/ruggudized Olyumpus point-and-shoot, I'll also have my Canon 30D and a few lenses, probably my 70-200mm, 20mm, and 17-85mm. I wish I could bring along a good-quality camcorder, but my very limited budget doesn't allows for something like that.

So, yeah. That's my plan for the summer.

I'm shooting to leave on May 9th, but most of my plan is that I don't have a set plan; I want to get to those areas and see as much as I can, and be in Black Rock City by September 1st.

More details will follow in the next couple of weeks, I've still got a lot of preparing to do.