Trailer Talk

Back in the Saddle Again

2009-07-15T10:36:00.000-07:00

Hey there motobuddies,

Well, I'm back in the saddle after a little sabbatical and all I can say is... it's good to be here again! I never left the world of motorcycles, trailers and traveling... just took some time off to take care of some personal and professional issues which are all thankfully doing well now.

My comments today (not surprisingly) are going to be about the business of motorcycle trailers. They are absolutely selling like gangbusters and I am seeing them every where I go these days. My wife and I did some traveling over the 4th of July holiday and couldn't believe the number of trailers we saw on the road. There must have been a lot of rallies and motorcycle gatherings as we saw lots of large groups all pulling trailers. And the size of the trailers we saw were absolutely amazing. Some of these must have been tent trailers these guys were pulling, because they were as large as something you might see behind a car! Not my cup of tea, mind you, but I do admire the ingenuity these guys (and gals) employ when it comes to traveling on their bikes.

As you already know if you're reading this, I am Trekker Trailer man myself and find that to be the ultimate size and shape for my kind of traveling. I know there are a lot of products out there, and some are of very high quality, but I have yet to see a unit as beautifully designed and engineered as the Trekker. Now you might think I'm just saying that because I'm affiliated with the Trekker people, but I want you to know that I sought them out because I wanted the absolute best trailer I could find. And that, to me, meant one that worked very well but also "looked" the way I wanted it to look. I'm all about function, but never at the complete expense of style. So when I was shopping for a trailer I looked at all of them. The high end and the lower end... and I have to tell you there was never any contest in my mind. Especially after I talked to the people there and found out how helpful and supportive they were.

As a matter of fact, initially I had some issues with wiring when I first got the trailer and naturally assumed that the problem was with the trailer, never my trusted Harley. Well, they stood by me the whole way and helped me figure out (eventually) that the real problem was with the wiring harness I had purchased to go with my removable hitch. Never once did they say "hey, that's not our problem"... they just kept suggesting things to try and even sent me some new wiring parts to help me trouble-shoot the problem.

The bottom line is that the Trekker Trailer is a great motorcycle (and/or sports car) trailer and one that should be seriously considered if you're in the market for a stylish (as opposed to ugly) trailer that does everything right. They are not the least expensive on the market, but I can safely say that they are worth every penny.

SO... if you think that I am writing this blog because I work for Trekker Trailer, you're only half right. I work for Trekker Trailer because I asked them if they could use me and they said yes. I mean, how often do you buy a product and like it so much that you want to go to work for the company? Never before this, as far as I can remember. I will never promote anything that I don't completely believe in... so believe this. The Trekker is one of the finest motorcycle and sports car trailers on the road. Don't take my word for it. Find out where you can see one and try it out. You will not be disappointed.

We are currently adding dealer/distributors all over the country, so if you're an avid motorcyclist, traveler or just like cool things. Call us and we'll see if we can't find a job for you too. It's a great product and the popularity of trailers is growing a lot faster than your stock portfolio.

Gotta run. Ride safe and I'll see you on the road!

MotoRush

Food for Thought and Everything Else

2009-05-06T06:14:00.000-07:00

Well, it's the first week in May and we have had non-stop rain showers for the last week or so here in Central Virginia. That hasn't kept my wife and I from planning our first camping trip of the season and things are starting to come together nicely. We have both been extremely busy with work and our daily lives recently so... no time like the present for a little get away to clear the head and put some bugs in our teeth!

We haven't finalized all the details yet, but it looks like we will be heading south into North Carolina and possibly into Smokey Mountain National Park. We will, or course, be taking our Trekker Trailer with us so that we can take all of the comforts of home on our trip. I have already started the mental checklist of items that will be needed and will probably start to lay stuff out in my shop this weekend.

BTW, when I say all the comforts of home I don't want anyone to think that we are those people that take their TV set and blow dryer with them when they camp. Not at all. I have been a camper and backpacker all of my life and have a deep appreciation for the simplicity that is supposed to be associated with camping. When I say "all the comforts of home" I mean a good shelter (I have a very small, light backpacking tent), comfortable bedding (blow up mattress and sleeping bags) and awesome food and drink.

I'm going to talk about the food and drink just a bit because anyone that has done much camping knows what a difference good food can make. Bringing along a couple cans of beans and some hot dogs may have cut it when I was in my teens, but nowadays my standards are much higher. My wife and I both love to cook and we tend to take that interest with us when we travel. I have a couple of stove options that I take along, as well as the necessary pots and skillets to create a veritable feast at our campsite.

We like to do a lot of hiking when we camp, so all of that activity really builds up an appetite. There is nothing better than a long hike, a nice hot shower and an incredible evening meal with a good bottle of wine. Add to that a little campfire and you have the recipe for the perfect day. By the time you climb into your little tent palace at the end of a day like that... you have no choice but to sleep like a baby!

Then, of course, in the morning there's breakfast. Now I don't want you to think that the only reason that we camp is so that we can eat (the truth of the matter is that the only reason that we work, live and breathe is so that we can eat!). SO, for breakfast there are some requirements. You must have coffee. I use one of the old, traditional percolating pots that you can sit on the stove or the fire. They make killer, "cowboy" coffee which can usually get you going for the rest of the day. Even if the coffee isn't the best you've ever had... the smell is so nice that you don't mind the sometimes strong, bitter coffee.

The next critical element is the bacon. As far as I'm concerned, nothing defines the "camping experience" more than the smell of bacon in the morning. That coupled with the lingering smell of the campfire is one of the most powerful "scent memories" that I have. My parents took us camping a lot when we were kids and I will ALWAYS remember the smell of the bacon coming from that big, green Coleman stove that my parents had. It was the big honker that had the "wond flaps" on the sides and burned white gas. Man, have I had some great meals from those Coleman stoves! I recently saw an episode of Antiques Road Show where they were selling some old Coleman lanterns that used that white gas. People were going crazy over those things, I'm sure because they are such a wonderful reminder of our past and what seemed like a much simpler time.

I feel sorry for kids nowadays. Everything is so different. I wonder how many kids actually go camping with their parents, like we used to go camping. I bet not very many. And even if they do, I'll bet it's in a motorhome or trailer with, truly, all the comforts of home including video games, tv and the like. Do they really experience nature that way or do they just take their "stuff" to a different venue with a different view?

But I digress...

Like I said, we're going camping next week and we're going somewhere cool (literally and figuratively) in the mountains. We are taking the motorcycle and our trailer so as to simplify (and amplify) the experience. It will be an awesome trip filled, no doubt, with mostly good experiences and some bad experiences... but then so is life. I guess you could say that camping is a metaphor for life (or not).

Either way, I suggest that you get out there yourselves and go camping or at least go explore someplace that you've never been before on your motorcycle. There's a big, wild, wonderful world just waiting to be experienced, so get out there and experience it.

I'll see you on the road!

MotoRush

Spring Tune-Up

2009-03-23T05:52:00.000-07:00

OK, were gettin' close now! The weather here in Central Virginia is starting to warm up nicely and we just finished a pretty nice weekend with temps in the mid-60s. For those of you in this part of the country.... it's time to start riding.

With that in mind, I thought this would be a good time to remind you of some the things you need to consider before hopping on your bike and heading out to explore those first few warm days of Spring.

Let's talk about the bike first. Hopefully, you were diligent in the care of your battery and kept it topped off with fluids and on a trickle charger throughout the winter. I use a small, inexpensive charger that does a nice job of reading the charge level on the battery and administering a charge only when it needs it. I've used the same one for years and it seems to do a great job of keeping the battery in good shape. Your battery is one of those things that will take care of you only as well as you have taken care of it. If it ever runs all the way down, it's probably time to get a new battery as this has a terrible effect on its ability to hold a charge in the future.

One of the other very important things is to check the air pressure in your tires. I know that it gets talked about a lot at the beginning of each riding season, but it's something that I will "blow off" sometimes if the weather is nice and I am eager to get out there. DON'T blow it off! It's critical to the performance of your bike and can make a huge difference in the safety and handling. I remember going out for a ride one time after the bike had been sitting through a month or two of cold weather. I didn't take the time to look the bike over and just jumped on and took off. It was in that first fast corner that I felt like the bike was going to slide right off the road! After returning home it turned out that both tires had a mere fraction of the air pressure that was recommended in them and I felt like an idiot for not checking. I could have easily had an accident that would have been ALL my fault. So please, check your tires before you head out.

The other maintenance thing that is a must for me, assuming that you have been good about regular services on the bike, is the oil. No matter how long it's been or how many miles I've ridden during the Winter and Fall, I always do a Spring oil change. It's kind of like starting off the new season on the right foot. Your bike has been sitting there collecting dust in a cold garage and the oil has gone through many temperature fluctuations and probably gotten a little gunky, so think of it as giving your ride a fresh start for the season. It'll pay off in the long run.

The last thing that I would caution you about are the roads. In this area they use a lot of sand and salt when it snows and we did have a couple of good snows this year. That sand, and usually some gravel from people plowing their driveways, will end up in the road and oftentimes right in the corners! SO, until we get a couple of really good rains and the roads get cleaned off a bit, I would enter every corner with the anticipation that there might be something slippery there. When we lived in Connecticut, where it snows quite a bit and I used to ride a sport bike, there was another hazard that I should remind you of... the melt and refreeze. In the Northeast there are these rocky walls along the roads that leak water during the day and freeze at night. If you got an early start on a Spring ride, even if it was quite warm, there was always a good chance that you would encounter some ice on a shadowed road along the way.

Those are the most important things to remember before starting out on your first ride of the season. I'm sure there a lot more that I didn't mention, but these few are the critical ones in my mind.

It's warm enough to be comfortable and cool enough to make your leather jacket and your gloves feel like your best friends. The bike runs great at the cooler temps and the bugs aren't too thick. In my mind this is the perfect time to ride.

So get out there and start enjoying the weather and your motorcycle... and I'll see you on the road!
MotoRush

Beemer Memories

2009-03-13T09:45:00.000-07:00

In 1991, after living in Ohio for a little over 30 years, my wife and I moved to Connecticut for some great job opportunities. My wife went to work for a Fortune 100 Company as a Marketing VP and I joined a well-respected marketing agency in Greenwich. It was a fabulous time with the economy in pretty good shape and my corporate clients spending money like crazy.

It was during that time that I got interested in BMW motorcycles. Although I had a good friend that had already gotten heavily into the Harley thing, I initially resisted for years and found myself equally entranced with the BMW motorcycle lifestyle. I'm sure a lot of you know that BMW got into the motorcycle business early on and created some really iconic motorcycles. And to this day, I would say that BMW motorcycles are still considered some of the finest motorcycles on the road, both from a technical and aesthetic standpoint.

So, shortly after moving to Wilton, CT, I set out to acquire my first BMW motorcycle from a wonderful dealership in New Canaan, CT. The shop was owned by two brothers that were knowledgeable and passionate about their business and over time became pretty good friends. It's an understatement to say that I spent quite a bit of time at the dealership. At one point I even talked to them about buying in as a partner in the business until they told me that, unfortunately, I would no longer have time to ride my motorcycle. That convinced me that I should continue to make money in my own field and just spend it at their shop every Saturday afternoon after my ride.

So anyway, in the cold of a Connecticut winter my wife and I went down and signed over a pretty good-sized check for a beautiful, pearl white BMW K100RS. It was a fabulous bike! It had two very good sized saddlebags that allowed us to pack for weeks at a time and was very comfortable for my wife and I, while still being very agile and sporty. It was an incredibly fast motorcycle on which I'm sure I never even came close to pushing the performance envelope. As a matter of fact, one year my wife got me a weekend racing class with the world famous Reg Pridmore and his son, Jason, at Watkins Glen racetrack in NY. That weekend I learned some of the skills that enabled me to scare the crap out of my wife for several years, before eventually selling that bike to get something that, as my wife described it, "wouldn't go so fast and lean over so far".

During that time, I purchased another BMW with the intention (or at least the professed intention) of giving it to my wife. She had gotten interested in motorcycles and had taken the Motorcycle Safety Foundation course and was well on her way to becoming a motorcyclist herself (a story for another time). I decided that an older boxer style BMW would be perfect for her, so I asked my father to do some research there in Ohio and see if he could find a bargain for me. Well, as usual he came through with flying colors. He called me one day to tell me that he had found a mint condition R65 (I'm a little fuzzy on the vintage) for a great price, so I flew to Ohio to pick up the bike and ride it back to Connecticut.

Well, as fate would have it, the weather took a turn for the worse on the way back to CT, and it wasn't long before I was limping along on one cylinder (I later found out that one of the carb diaphragms had ruptured) trying to follow a small sliver of dry road in a snowstorm and high winds. To illustrate this point further, I will tell you that I passed several tractor trailers that were blown over on the side of the road. That was one of many times over the years that I have questioned my sanity!

But, one of the greatest memories I have of that trip is calling my friends at the BMW dealership in New Canaan and telling them about my problem with carburetor. In the midst of what was probably some pretty major whining on my part on the phone, I remember the one brother, John, telling me that if I got home alive (I think he was just kidding at the time) that this would be one of the most memorable trips of my life.

I have thought about that many times over the years, and for those of you that look for some kernel of insight to take away from these ramblings.... here it is. You don't usually remember the perfect trips where everything goes right. You are much more likely to remember more clearly, and in some cases more DEARLY, the ones where everything goes wrong and you got through it... either alone or with someone you care about. I could write a thousand stories about all of the crazy, fun, wonderful things that I have done and been a part of in my most fortunate life. But the ones that will always stick out in my mind are the ones where I was faced with adversity of some kind and overcame it. And, I will always remember who was at my side when I did. Those are the truly great memories to relive and retell.

So, that being said... get out there, take some risks, create some situations that look pretty hopeless and then figure out a way to overcome them. That's where the true joy of life (as well as some pretty great memories) is waiting for you.

See you on the road!

MotoRush

Motorcycles and Camping... the (almost) perfect combination.

2009-03-04T07:45:00.000-08:00

Let me start out with a request to any of you that are reading and following these blogs. We want to hear your stories or at least have you comment (with some personal perspective) on mine. "Carson" recently added a comment about taking his then girlfriend to a church function on the back of his motorcycle. What a great visual to imagine a young lady showing up in her best Sunday dress with a black helmet on the back of a Honda 450. I could see it as he described it. I know a lot of you guys (and gals) have some pretty incredible stories from your past that involve motorcycles. Please share them even if it's just a short note and the type of bike you were riding. It's amazing how just the description of these old motorcycles can bring back wonderful memories of our past.

For example, the first bike that my parents let me purchase was a Suzuki 250 X6 Hustler sometime in the early 70's. It was a two-stroke smoker that ran like a bat out of hell (when it ran) but, unfortunately, it was a mechanical nightmare and leaked oil like a sieve. So much so that my girlfriend's father would not let me park my bike in their driveway for fear of a massive oil spill on par with the Exxon Valdez. Although I probably only had it for a year or so, I will always remember it as being (by far) the worst motorcycle I have ever owned.

My parents, who already thought I was crazy, loaned me the money to buy it knowing full well that I could never afford to keep it on my salary as assistant grill cook at the Captain Kidd Drive-In Theater in Kettering, Ohio. I distinctly remember making $1.35/hour back then and often wonder where the minimum wage champions were during my tenure at that lovely establishment. All that aside, I have fond memories of my experiences with that motorcycle (it's funny how your mind conveniently forgets most of the bad stuff) and although I would never want to own one again, it was suitable for a 16-year old kid with motorcycles endlessly circling through his brain.

Which brings me to another quick story involving motorcycles and camping. Now I have been very happily married to an amazingly tolerant woman for over 26 years. She is not only a beautiful, smart, funny woman, but she happens to be my very best friend and the person with whom I choose to do most of my crazy hobbies. SO... it was with little hesitation that I suggested we go camping on our motorcycle sometime in the early 80's. At the time we had a Yamaha 750 Twin that, although it was considerably larger and more powerful than our previous Yamaha 550, it was still not the most comfortable bike for a long haul on the highway. Add to that very little experience packing a motorcycle for a weekend camping trip, getting lost along the way and ultimately ending up in a lousy campground and you have the start of a memorable (for all the wrong reasons) camping trip.

You can imagine my wife's disappointment when we pulled into the campground, very close to dark, with a sore bum from riding all day and proceed to pitch our measly excuse for a tent on a rocky, sloping hill. It was not pretty, but it was certainly memorable. What I remember most is a lousy night of sleep on the hard ground and, even at that young age, barely being able to walk the next morning.

Well, the trip was originally scheduled to include a tour of the town the next day and visiting some of the local artists . Ultimately, it did not include any of these. Instead, we got up and, without a word, proceeded to tear down our sad little campsite, load up the bike and head for home. On the way home, my poorly packed bike threw off our tent and ground cloth somewhere on the highway and when I mentioned it to my wife upon arrival home, I'm quite sure she merely shrugged as if it was meant to happen. I will always wonder whether she, at some point, reached behind her and casually released the poorly secured bungee cord holding our camping gear to the bike. Either way, it was a rather inauspicious start to my motorcycle camping career.

Now, leaving all those memories behind where they belong... we have since become quite the capable and comfortable motorcycle campers. With the additional knowledge that can only come from personal experience, we are now fully stocked and prepared for nothing less than a sumptuous, gourmet experience whenever we hit the road. With our trusty Harley-Davidson Road King and our Trekker Trailer in tow, we now carry with us all of the luxuries befitting a well-traveled, adventurous couple. The trailer allows us to carry all of our equipment, bedding and food without sacrificing an ounce of handling or performance. The 12-volt plug inside allows us to charge our cell phones or keep our cooler running cold the entire trip. Luxury is probably not strong enough a word for such amenities on the road, but we have certainly gotten used to it.
After getting almost ten inches of snow in Central Virginia this week, you can be assured I will be out in my shop this weekend making sure the battery is charging properly and everything is ready to go at a moment's notice. My experience has been that Spring is always the best time to go camping in this part of the country. The bugs are still asleep and the nights are cool enough for snuggling instead of sweating.

I don't know about you, but I feel a trip coming on... and if I start now I may have everything ready to go by the time the snow melts:-)

See you on the road.

MotoRush

Motorcycle Madness

2009-02-24T12:27:00.001-08:00

I started riding motorcycles shortly after I was born. OK, not really... but I was pretty young when I first got the taste of riding a motorized vehicle on two wheels. Actually, now that I think about it, that "feeling" that I'm talking about probably came the first time I went down a steep hill on my bicycle. You know the feeling I'm talking about. You're not pedaling, you're just holding on for dear life as the bicycle careens down the hill! Well, that was probably the first time that I got a taste of that "feeling" and it felt good. Really good.

Fast forward a few years to when my dad showed up one night after work with a bright red minibike in the trunk of his car. Man, was that a night to remember! Anybody close to my age, around 25 (+ another 25), will remember those cool little minibikes. They had a tube frame into which you could mount just about any kind of engine. Standard issue was a Briggs & Stratton 3 1/2 HP lawnmower engine. Add to that a little centrifugal clutch and you were ready to hit the road. Now, of course, they weren't street legal but they sure were maneuverable. If you had the stomach for it, and knew the neighborhood backyards pretty well, you could usually make your way home from just about anywhere without getting caught. Unfortunately, although we had "parent sanctioned" rides up and down our street there in our Ohio town, the local police didn't get the memo and it wasn't long until that little adventure was shut down. But, I had now gotten a taste of motorized 2-wheel transport and my addiction had been set in motion.

The next motorcycle that I could regularly get my hands on was a Honda Mini Trail 70. My parents had some friends that had one, so my dad bought one for us and we mostly took it on camping trips. It was big enough for the "dads" to ride, but for us kids it was a "real" motorcycle with gears (albeit a 3-speed automatic with, yet another, centrifugal clutch) and it was "off road" which meant it had some suspension to it. It really was a great little bike at the time and I think that's where I first picked up that "smell" that motorcycles have when you first start them. Harley or Honda, new or old, they all have their own particular smell which is a combination of exhaust gases, metal heating up and whatever else makes up THAT smell. If you ride a bike, you know what I'm talking about. We all experience the smell when we start our bikes in the garage, especially when it's still cold outside. Anyway, the Honda 70 was our "dream bike" for a number of years and we loved it.

When I was about 15 my dad decided he liked the motorcycling thing and decided to buy a bike of his own. In retropsect, I don't blame him a bit... but I sure wasn't happy about it. In his defense, I can only imagine what it's like to try and wrestle YOUR motorcycle from two crazed kids. My brother, Scott, is just a year older than me and together I'm sure we were always a handful. So, like I said, my dad decided he was going to get his own bike. Now this is back in the early 70's so please don't judge the man on the bike he bought (a Honda CB 100). I'm sure his decision was as much fiscally based as it was experience based. I'm actually surprised that he was able to pull it off at all back then because my mother can be pretty persuasive. She may appear defeated early on, but if she isn't happy about what's going on I guarantee she'll eventually make you wish you had seen it her way from the beginning. She is a tremendous force, but carries it brilliantly in a silk glove.

OK, so let me get to the good part of the story. By now I had a gotten a strong bite from the motorcycling bug and could think of nothing else. If you ask my parents (bless their hearts), I bet they would tell you that all I talked about through junior and senior high school was motorcycles. I knew every model, read all the magazines and literally thought about motorcycles ALL of the time. So you can imagine my teenage indignation when my dad bought a bike... just for himself. There it sat in the garage, hardly ever ridden (sigh...), and here I was with a fever so strong it occupied my every waking moment.

Well, if you haven't guessed by now... I could stand it no longer. One night, after my parents had left for some friends' house for an evening of card playing and my dear brother was settled in front of the TV, I snuck out to the garage and committed a crime. Now, at the time you couldn't have gotten me to admit that I was committing a crime, but if anybody did to MY bike what I did to my dad's bike that night... they'd be going to jail. I removed the speedometer cable (hey, I'm not stupid) and, without telltale mileage to later get me in trouble (yeah, right), I hit the road on a licensed motorcycle for the first time in my life. Man, what a feeling that was. Riding a real motorcycle through the streets of my town, at night, without a speedometer. I was in heaven... but I was soon to be going the other direction in a hurry.

Prior to embarking on this little escapade, I had called a friend and told him to be ready, that I was out on "my" bike and would be by to get him. After picking him up I decided the next thing I needed to do to celebrate my new found freedom was to swing by an old girlfriend's apartment (how old can a girlfriend be when you're 15?) and show her how cool I was on my trusty steed.

OK, if you didn't guess the first part, maybe you're starting to get a premonition here. Yeah... we never made it to the "old" girlfriend's place. Somehow (and I will always wonder what gave me away, because I FELT confident) a local police officer seemed to think that I looked a little tentative and decided to pull me over. Actually, he didn't pull me over, rather he waited as I rode through the parking lot of the girlfriend's apartment complex and had his lights flashing when I emerged on the other side. The Steve McQueen in me wanted to flee, but having been raised by awesome parents, I knew that the gig was up and I was in big trouble.

Well, I won't bore you with the details, but it was not a happy night. The cops called my parents at their friends' house, the folks had time to sit around and figure out what would torture me the most (making me wait for my thrashing until their late arrival home that night) and then of course there was some jail time (just kidding.. but I did have to go to juvenile court).

I learned a very valuable lesson that night. You gotta have your own bike and you gotta do whatever it takes to get one (short of stealing someone else's, of course).

The fact is, I've pretty much had at least one motorcycle (or more) all of my life since then. Actually, I can't even imagine life without one. Because it's that one thing that, even today at age 50 with a lot of experiences under my belt, still gives me the feeling of speeding down a hill on my bike at age 5. There's nothing like it and, hopefully, I'll never have to live without it.

See you on the road!

MotoRush

Possessed by our Possessions!

2009-02-18T12:38:00.000-08:00

OK, so my wife and I live in Central Virginia and, up until last weekend, we lived during the week in a nice condo in town and then spent weekends at our "house in the country". Well, with the economy being what it is, we decided to start renting the condo in an effort to offset a portion of our two mortgages. What we didn't realize was that we had, over the last couple of years, built up two complete households of "stuff".

Now that may not seem like a big deal until you consider the fact that we are now being forced to combine two households into one... and believe me, it is turning out to be a challenge. The movers came yesterday and picked up all of the "stuff" from the condo and brought it here to the house. And all I can say is... what a mess! There are boxes sitting around in every room and my ultimate "Man Shop" is now filled with tables, chairs and assorted other household goodies. Hardly acceptable in a shop that houses tools, motorcycles, trailers, cars, etc.

I know, by now you're wondering what the heck my little "consolidation move" has to do with motorcycles, trailers and traveling on the open road. Well, it has everything to do with it. I mean, isn't that why we ride motorcycles and travel all over the place on our bikes anyway? To get away from all of the "stuff" and get back to being ourselves without all of the stuff that defines us and confines us.

Several years ago, my wife and I owned a business in Van Nuys, CA(Los Angeles area) that we purchased while we were still living in San Diego. It wasn't too long after the purchase that we realized we needed to be closer to the day-to-day operation and that would involve a move to Los Angeles. Luckily, for once in our lives we were actually on the right side of the housing market and could easily sell our San Diego property for a tidy profit. What we weren't sold on was the move to Los Angeles. Neither of us was particularly keen on the idea of sinking another fortune into a home there, so we came up with another option.

We owned a 40 ft. sailboat while we were in San Diego and decided to sail the boat up to Marina del Rey, CA (a "port suburb" of LA) and live on the boat while we decided what to do with our housing situation. I told my wife "two weeks on the boat" and then we would have our next move planned. Well, two weeks turned into two years and I will always remember those two years as some of the happiest of my life. I'm an avid sailor and we were able to sail most weekends over to Catalina Island (27 miles off the coast of CA), anchor in a nice private cove, fish, dive for lobster, etc. It was an idyllic existence, at least until we had to come back to LA to run the business. But I digress...

Here's my point. When we moved from our fairly sizable San Diego home onto the boat, we had to put the majority of our possessions in storage. What I didn't realize at the time was that putting those belongings in storage actually freed me up to enjoy my life and not be "owned" by my possessions. I realize we had the boat and all that goes with it, but it was a SIMPLE life. The boat contained everything that we needed for travel and adventure, but you couldn't have much because there just wasn't room for it.

I think that's why we really love our motorcycle and our Trekker Trailer. We can load up everything we need for a relaxing camping or cross-country trip and know that we will be comfortable and self-contained. And, at the same time, leave all of the other possessions at home to be forgotten about. That's what true freedom is all about.

So, as I sit here at my desk with boxes piled all around me... I think to myself, "do I really need all this stuff?" And although the answer is most likely a profound "no", it sure doesn't seem to keep me from acquiring it.

Well, I have to go now... I have a lot of boxes to unpack:-(

See you on the road.

MotoRush

Spring is in the Air!

2009-02-10T07:15:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone,

Well, you may think by the title of this blog that I'm a little premature on the whole "Spring" concept. But, let me explain. I now live in Central Virginia after having spent ten glorious years in Southern California... San Diego to be exact. Anyone who rides a motorcycle knows that SoCal is one of the greatest places to live and ride. The riding season is virtually year around, you can safely split lanes if you get stuck in a long line of stopped traffic and the roads along the coast and inland are some of the best in the world. It truly is a mecca for motorcycling.

But, I now find myself (mostly for family reasons) living in Central Virginia where the weather is pretty decent most of the time, but certainly not up to SoCal's level. However, one of the things that you do get here in Virginia (which you don't experience in monoclimatic areas) is the anticipation that the weather is starting to change, in this case to Spring and warmer. This past weekend the temps were close to 70 degrees... in February! That makes for some pretty good early riding sessions, although they are typically short because the temps start to drop pretty soon after the sun goes down. But you can feel the change in the air!!

So, this past weekend I got the Harley out, cleaned off the fine layer of dust that had settled over the last few weeks and put on a fresh coat of wax. And, of course, because my wife and I like to travel we have a matching black Trekker Trailer that we use for camping and longer touring trips. It's an awesome combination to see the trailer and the bike together, all squeaky clean and shiny. You can just feel the anticipation of the next trip staring back at you as you look at the Trekker with it's sleak lines and ample storage waiting to swallow tents, sleeping bags, coolers, etc.

I may be pushing it a bit to say that Spring is on the way, but when I sit in my garage and look at that beautiful bike and trailer and think about all the places we're going to go and all of the things we're going to see... I know it's true. Spring IS in the air!