My Travel Adventures, Cars , and Motorcycles: The 202 Motorcycle Tour

Dear Family & Friends,

It has been quite a year… Four daughters and a niece all doing well. A good friend once told me you are only happy as your least happy child and that is very true..

My youngest daughter Jessica is living the life of a free and single young women. Enjoying her life, experimenting with career moves and places to live a playing lots of soccer.

Next daughter up, Hannah was married last month. What can I say? She is so happy, we love the young man she married, the wedding was picture perfect. My wife Bonnie did an amazing job planning the event. She worked so hard I’m exhausted watching her!

My next oldest daughter Sarah is such an amazing women. She takes life by the horns and whatever comes her way she conquers. She has a terrific career going, she is doing an outstanding job raising my grandson Abel, and just bought her first home! I am very proud of her accomplishments and her attitude about life.

My oldest daughter opened a beautiful boutique shop in our town and it looks amazing. She has a beautiful family that I only see on Facebook. She has exquisite taste. I wish our relationship was better but miracles can happen.

We also have our niece living with us,, she is the 5th daughter I didn’t now I always wanted.. She came to us from a very difficult background with problems and has grown into an amazing young woman, confident, smart, and just fun to be with. She is also doing very well in college.. I am very proud of her, or I should say very impressed with what she has accomplished. Proud implies I did something and she turned her life around in an amazing way. I love having her part of our life..

Finally my amazing wife is finally taking it a bit easier now that she has remodeled several rooms in our house, planned an amazing wedding, and continues to spoil me…

So how do I reward her for all her hard work, dedication, and love??? Of course give her two weeks off while I go motorcycle riding…. Well at least off at night, she will have to run our family business while I’m gone…….

So this week I am off on another adventure. Ten days riding through the Rockies in Colorado. I am traveling with my old riding buddy Duane Lieb who I have ridden to the Arctic circle with, down to central Mexico, and all over Europe and a new riding friend, Brian Louw. I have known Brian casually for several years but this year we kind of hooked and put this ride together. He is an excellent rider and I will have to be on my game to keep up with him. Both Brian and Duane are very intelligent which makes interesting conversations the reward for a long day on the road.

Colorado is such a beautiful state. So much to photograph so expect to see lots of photos in my blog.

So today, Monday is our first day on the road. Today we need to just cover a lot of ground to get out of California, across the desert and close to Colorado. We left at 6:30am and rode 1 1/2 hours then stopped in fabulous downtown Maricopa for breakfast. (That’s sarcasm, Maricopa is a pit) The place to go in Maricopa (not that there are many choices) is Tina’s Place. Tina is this very friendly Philippine mail order bride. She cooks a ridiculous amount of food for very little money. This morning I had a large breakfast, big enough to carry me all day, for $6.95! Tina’s place looks like it was built in the 1940s and hasn’t been touched since. Check out my photos from some very “unique” decor. Sarah by daughter that specializes in interior design will appreciate this place.

I once asked Tina what brought her to Maricopa which is a two block long dive and she told me she was a mail order bride. She said she likes it there, she knows everyone in town, her husband brought her sister over to live with them, and her husband doesn’t beat her very often…. all in all better than the Philippines. How bad it is there?!?!?!?

We took the southern route along Hwy 40 / Route 66 because it was supposed to be cooler than going up Hwy 15 through Vegas. Vegas was supposed to be 107 and the southern route only 97!

Well there were a few spots where it was a cool 97 but most of the day it was well over 100 and at some points reaching 117! I have finally been to a place literally hotter than hell!! You couldn’t even open your helmet because the air coming in was way to hot!!

By the end of the day as we approached Kingman AZ the temperature dropped to 98 and it actually felt cool! A long day of heat and 475 miles of riding. Tomorrow we go north and gain altitude where it should be much cooler.

We named this ride “ The 202 Tour” because between the three of us our ages add up to 202! When I started riding if three of our ages added up to 90 I would have thought we are close to death! Where the #$%#^$%^%$ has the time gone?? But at least I am still healthy and riding…

If your reading this in my Blog I am assuming you want to be there. IF you are reading this from my email blast and really don't want to hear from me (I have heard there are a few people like that!) just email me back and I will remove you for the mailings.

I hope you enjoy these reports. I enjoy writing them

Jason

PS: Here is some interesting technology... Follow our exact route:

Follow our route...

A more perfect wedding would be hard to imagine. Visually beautiful and lots of love between the groom and bride and everyone that attended.. We have great family and friends!