Departure Time Approaches

I've completed most of my "pre-flight" tasks and in the final stretch. I've changed out my driving lights for a larger type which, hopefully, will last longer then the last set. The cheaper halogen lights from China are just about worthless. When I checked them after the return from Alaska last year, they were both burned out.  

I still don't have my cruise control installed and I'm not sure if I'll have the time to do it before I leave. I really need it for the highway driving but it is extremely difficult to install on the BMW R1150GS. I'll make one more attempt to make the time to try the installation.  

Lyle and I went over to Misty Mountain Sheepskin Company near Branson last week and we both came away with black shorthair sheepskin seat covers for our GSes. Lyle is already sure he is going to like his but I still have reservations. It seems like it changes my seating position slightly and I'm not sure how that will play out over long distances.  

While we were at the sheepskin company I noticed he has some pictures and a map of one riders travels and I asked him about it. He said that was a guy he sold a sheepskin to that when he came back from his trip he gave him the pictures and maps to hang on his shop wall. It turns out this guy from West Plains, Missouri (about 40 miles SouthEast of here) took a trip that went from West Plains to Deadhorse Alaska back to West Plains then to the Northern tip of Maine and back and then to Key West and back. This is quite the trip in itself but the most amazing part of it is that the guy did all of this on a 1948 Harley Davidson Knucklehead motorcycle he had restored to original condition. As any Harley owner will tell you (if they have ever owned one of these motorcycles) it was very hard back in the '50s to go more than 100 miles on one of these bikes without having to do some type of work on it before you got back home.  

Ed Young here in Mountain Grove tells me about how he would work on his knucklehead all week long so he could ride it on the weekend and then start all over again the next Monday. For someone to ride one of these for, what must have been, over twenty thousand miles, borders on the unbelievable. I'd like to know how many parts he used during that trip.  

It looks like we'll both be making the trip on Michelen Anakee II tires. This is a new version of the old Anakee on-road/off-road tire and it's supposed to have greatly increased tread life. We'll see. I've measured the tread of the new tires and they are 10/32 on the rear and 6/32 on the front. When we get to Fairbanks I'll check it again and see how much wear we got in that 4,000 miles or so.  

We don't have a firm route yet and we may just "wing it". Generally, we are thinking about going up the same way I went last year through South Dakota, Wyoming, and crossing into Canada at the Sweetgrass border crossing. Then up the "Eastern" route through Canada to Alaska. Coming back we will probably do the "Western" route back to the U.S. into Washington state and down into Oregon before turning back towards Missouri. I believe we will be around 11,000 miles by the time we get home. Hopefully, on one set of tires. That could be pushing it and we'll have to watch the treadwear pretty close.  

Departure date is either the 5th or 6th of June.