Sometime during the week I realized that our departure date corresponds with the date of the fiscal cliff, coincidence? Our preparations continue and I feel nearly ready to leave, maybe too ready since I keep buying stuff that even I’m not sure I really need.

This weekend was the Seattle International Motorcycle Show, Deby and I went on Sunday since Saturday was a full day preparing to host the Northwest Norton Owners Holiday Party (another whole story but lots-o-fun). Our first stop at the show was the Touratech booth where we ran into our friend Tom Samulesen of  Pacific Northwest Museum of Motorcycle fame visiting with Helge Pedersen. It’s always great to see Tom and hope to ride with him again soon. Funny, as I just went to the museum website to grab the link I saw my picture on the home page… ha. Here it is, I won this bike at the drawing two years ago.

Helge is the author of the book Ten Years On Two Wheels and founder of GlobeRiders tours. Helge and I have many mutual friends and I was familiar with his travels but we had never met so it was fun to finally meet in person, I bought a copy of his book which he was gracious enough to autograph and pose for a picture. He’s friends with our riding partner Keith so he knew about our trip and took time to share some travel tips. Helge will be following a similar route as us with a group but will be a week or two ahead of us. We agreed to follow each other’s SPOT tracks and perhaps meet up somewhere.

Helge Pedersen with Donn and Deby Harvey

Next we stopped at the Sound Rider booth to catch up with Tom Mehren and Connie Adams. Tom and Connie organize the annual Sasquatch ride we’ve done for the past three years as well as Rally in the Gorge and many other events. Tom asked us to take a lot of pictures and hinted they might want us to do a slide show at the 2013 rally – wow. They wished us well on our journey and promised to follow the blog.

We found a couple of things to buy, some lightweight rain gear for me and two travel motorcycle covers. I was hoping the Coconut Sock people would be back this year, I bought socks for Deby and I last year and loved them for riding. Here is their claim:

 “- utilizing “advanced natural technology”—offer optimum comfort, odor control, durability and eco-friendliness! Activated coconut carbon—infused in yarns made from natural coconut fibers— provides remarkable evaporative cooling and odor management.”

I just went to Amazon and they are out of stock – yikes I hope I can get a couple more for the trip, I love how comfy they keep my feet and Deby loves how they really seem to control odor…….

Ok, I’m going to get this posted and then spend some more time updating some of the tabs. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out the MotoRaid tab for the background of the trip.

Thanks for following
Donn and Deby

It’s been a busy week of trip planning, as a group we’ve finally started digging into what extra insurance policies might be needed for journey. In particular what about health insurance, what do we need in case we get sick, fall off the cliffs of Machu Picchu or crash on the Bolivian Road of Death? My preliminary research gave me results that ranged from nothing extra to a full blown Travel Insurance policy that cost $2,000. I have a pretty good “Blue Cross” affiliated health insurance policy through my job so I decided to see what they cover. It took a phone call and long wait but the answer was that I was covered so long as I could pay first and then seek reimbursement and they would only pay for Emergency or Urgent care. Okay, I suppose I won’t be scheduling my annual physical in Panama or checking into a hospital for a runny nose so I figured this was good enough for me. I am going to sign up for a Medical Evacuation policy like MedJetAssist that will jet me home if I need serious medical care. Motorcycle liability insurance is easier since it’s usually purchased for each country at the border.

Malaria
There was a flurry of e-mails between members of the MotoRaid II group this week about Malaria medicine. Depending on who you talk to we should all be taking anti-malaria drugs every day or we shouldn’t worry about it at all. The drugs are expensive and would cost over $2,000 for the duration of our trip. My doctor wasn’t concerned but others in the group had differing recommendations from their medical professionals. I’m inclined to take my chances.

CDC Malaria Map

Other stuff: Thanks to all the subscribers that have been signing up, once we get on the road I hope there will be more interesting things to post. I’ve been busy updating the other tabs of this site including the GEAR, GPS and MOTORAID sections. I try to do a little updating everyday.

Thanks for reading, Donn and Deby

Starting today I can say “we leave next month”. Are we ready? My first response is &*() no! But we’re probably closer to being ready than I realize. I re-packed my right pannier for about the 5th time last night and finally have everything fit and organized with a small amount of room to spare. The big pouch on the left is my grab bag for any sort of flat tire. It contains two innertubes, an electric air pump, a hand pump, two 45g CO2 cartridges, a patch kit and plug kit. I had some extra room so I added two tow ropes and my electrical repair kit. On the right side is my tool kit, medical kit and toiletries kit.  On the upper right is my water purifier pump. You can see the reflective triangle, a requirement by law in some Central American countries. It seems like a lot of space dedicated to flat repairs but I’m covering for two motorcycles with four tires, two with tubes and two tubeless. After my last trip with five flats I’m back to being paranoid.

I spent way too much time yesterday researching medical evacuation insurance. What do I really want – evacuation to the nearest hospital or to a hospital of my choosing, which might be back in the US? Some plans pay for just one trip, others pay for two and I found one that would cover unlimited trips. I start thinking of worst case scenarios where I would need multiple airlifts…. am I just getting paranoid? I’ve been investigating health insurance for international travel which is probably another whole blog post in itself. Oh, and we need vehicle insurance for each country.

I’ve also been working on “technology”. I have my non-work e-mail working on my laptop, iPad and iPhone(s) (geesh) to separate my work stuff from important personal contacts. The new e-mail address is donn@ADVdonnh.com. I’ll still be watching the work address but I get so many messages that things can get lost. I’m still working on adding content for this blog. I started updating the section on the bikes and hope to spend time on the “about us” and “gear” sections. I’m trying to figure out why the comments box doesn’t show below the blog post like it does on the other pages. If anyone want’s to comment you have to click on the little balloon thingy on the upper right corner.  I’ve also updated the subscription widget, if you haven’t already, please subscribe so I can see how well it works. Don’t worry you can always unsubscribe if you don’t like my ramblings. Hopefully once we actually start riding there will be something interesting to post.

Today I’m riding my bike back to Ride West BMW for a new front tire. It looks like I’ll be giving my rain gear another test in typical Northwest December rain and wind.

Stay tuned.