Mum's the word !

I'm sure it's the same for everyone... when we have a major thing to say or do it's usually the ones we love the most that we keep from saying it - maybe to stop them worrying or letting them discourage us or point out things we hadn't want to see?
When I first bought the Bonnie I dared not even tell my Mum for scaring her silly, even hid it down the road when she came to visit -  I did take the courage and drive it the 150 miles to see her last summer and quite incredibly she wasn't even phased - now that's a cool mum !
My dear mother is wonderful and I never want to worry her but I had to at some point tell her about my crazy idea of going across America on a motorbike, on my own etc. etc. Mmmm when is the best time to tell someone ?  I guess never but I knew when I told her it would let me move on one way or the other.
OK so how?
Why not show her this blog?
She's not at all a computer user and just trying to scroll down and read it was a laugh and a half!  And you know what?  The only comment was "Are you going to be safe" You know, that's a real mothers word of honest care.
 
To be honest my parents were incredible in every step of my life never analysing or telling me what to do or not to do, saying I would learn from my own experience;  from leaving home at 19 to go and find work in Paris to making one of the most terrible mistakes of my life in marrying a Mexican Charro in the back of beyond of Mexico (of course escorted to the church on horseback with loaded pistols!).

So this big thing has now been done and I can now think about the trip and ways of making it happen.
So maybe, reassuring her of my safety, the idea of no helmet and just wearing a bandana with my hair blowing in the wind will have to wait until I reach the Mid West ....

The wonderful song "I've got sunshine in my mind" by Avery Sunshine is what it's all about ...

So how did the idea come up? ... and which Bonnie? ...

Wow, must have been about 4 years ago. 
As usual, I had itchy feet and thinking about a new adventure reading over the winter months books like Ted Simon's fantastic "Dreaming of Jupiter" which confirmed to me even more how we need to grab and make opportunities happen.
So the idea back then was I would (or maybe naively) simply take at least 6 months "out" and ship my own Bonnie out to the US.

I'd decided that a trip to Timbuktu or "up the Orinocho" or something similar would be full of unwanted hazards.  But I still wanted to create an adventure, to explore beautiful and eclectic remote scenary, ride majestic routes and encounter a dynamic mix of people and with of course hopefully good weather.  Mmmm, that option didn't take me long to think where .... I'd lived previously for a few years in New York and then lovely Boston.  My dream even then (had I not been working with such short vacation time) had always been to travel around and discover the beautiful and natural parts of America.
What better idea than to ideally start in Boston and take 6 months to go down the East Coast, down to the Keys, up and over to the West Coast.?  And I sure did plenty of research to find the best way of shipping the bike over.  Would have had to be brought through Canada due to customs at a fairly high cost.  I also love my Bonnie and the idea of having it in anyway damaged in transit or over there was also a turn off. 

So I started seriously looking to see if I could buy a 2nd hand one... and you know what ?
Suprise, suprise, buying a decent 2nd hand Bonnie was almost impossible.  But a Harley no problem ... people even strongly recommended I go with a Harley due to better maintenance, cost etc etc.  But the idea of travelling on one with the different engine noise Harley's make was not for me.   Call me a dreaming romantic but I didn't want to be defeated immediately.    Can you imagine anything better than driving a beautiful Triumph Bonneville with that wonderful engine noise across the American continent.  There must be one somewhere !

Then 2 years back, I have a reality check.  Maybe 6 months is too long.  How am I going to foot the cost of doing this and secondly, although this sounds crazy, one of the girls at work who took a 6 month sabbatical was quickly forgotten and replaced!  Unfortunately none of us are indispensable, although we'd like to believe it.  So simply put, I guess I've got to get my brain to rule my heart for once and find out what really is possible.

So why don't I reduce the time to say 6 weeks ... and take the gamble that work will accept the time I want to take off (we'll deal with that topic later).

6 weeks should be plenty of time to get from East to West with the journey I'd planned.  Yes, OK, a few refinements to the big picture, but maybe still possible.  So how was I still going to source a Bonnie to do the trip?  Buying one and shipping mine over was now going to be too expensive so the only other option was to try and find somewhere to rent one.   Incredibly there just aren't that many places in the US that you can hire a T100 Triumph Bonneville and then say "hey I'd also like to drop it off somewhere else like the other side of the country and yes not for a couple of days but for about a month!"
So another period of researching and finally found just a few options; one potentially to pick up from NY and drop off in LA (sounded good but they only have Bonneville at that time),  the other one  from Chicago which wouldn't have been the right route I wanted to take and then just recently a set up who are sourcing Bonnevilles and renting them out to go across the US as group escorted trips -  Made contact who said they could even potentially have the bike taken up to Boston for me to collect.  Only issue on all this is dinero - at least £100 per day just for the bike so more ideas are needed to get the budget down or make more money.
So at least the framework on time and getting the bike are getting nearer to a possibility.....  We'll see.

Show me the money!

Just a short piece of news to say Mr Lodger moved in today and handed over his 1st months rent in cash!  Involved in film production here and overseas so hopefully conversations will be entertaining ... 

Nice new £20 notes were carefully counted out and put on a pile on the table - Thank you very much !

Will help a little bit to maybe a handful of days of bike rental budget!  We're off to a good start.  Gotta keep positive that it will start rolling in - ha ! ha !

Next time, I'm going to start talking about more interesting stuff on how the trip was thought out and plans for the route. 

I must be serious ...

OK, so after the eBay fiasco, the most important money earner is still (deep breath) to rent out my spare room to make the dosh for the Trip!.
Most people would think it's the most natural thing to do but I really like my own little flat and my own space.  So I've thought long and hard about inviting a total stranger to share my lovely place which I just moved into last summer - but business is business.

So I thought I'd go into overdrive and get into the right mind set and so got the room ready for a potential "lodger".  Installing my old TV, i-player etc. so they feel it's a good deal. 

So since February, I've advertised in places like www.mondaytofriday.com and www.spareroom.com thinking it would be easy ... mmmm another slow one off the starting block and no answers until about a couple of weeks ago.

But as they say, sometimes the tortoise can sometimes win with enough determination - which I thought after a month I'd better have! No answers and hundreds of places to rent so how would I make myself different? 

I guess being pro-active ... so I started contacting those looking for places ... and hey, presto a bit of good news !

The first guy was moving to the area and needed a Monday to Friday but after a bit of procrastination had an offer from a mate living near his new work.   
Then I get contact from a guy in the film production business shooting a film for a couple of months in the area and needing a place for a short time - seems a good option to see if it will work out sharing with someone.  As they say in these on-line postings "get to know your contact before meeting up with them" - so this we did and emailed for a period of time before he came over to view the place.

Good news ... seems like it's a go, he was very happy with the pad and is happy to move in for 3 months which isn't the ideal solution as I need to make money for the next 12 months - but at least it's a start.
You'll never believe this but he saw my bikes (I also have a 125cc Aprilia scooter for travelling to work) and confessed he had been a Piaggio motorbike mechanic - that will be useful !  Might even reduce his rent if he services my bikes - joking !
Then believe it or not I get another contact from a girl moving to the area, visits and loved the place and wanted to move in straight away for at least 6 months!  Did I make a decision too quick ? ... that's the problem in that sometimes you have to grab the first opportunity thinking there may not be something else out there - however I did think quickly and offered the place from August onwards - hoping she'll grab it - that would be the ideal scenario as she'd probably stay until I leave for the trip.
Ho hum, ... patience is the key word to this endeavour ...

You're all probably thinking that I'm still not -
1) talking about bikes
and
2) talking about the trip

Don't worry all this will come very soon as soon as I have jump started this initial  dilemna in getting and finding ways of finding some dinero to give me confidence that it's possible to save for the trip ...

So a week today, the lodger moves in - hopefully also with the bike spanners !

Money makes the World, no Trip, go round ..

God, sometimes I think Money is the original 4 letter word but spelt incorrectly - I'm working full time but now never enough!

I have to say, I used to have high flying jobs travelling and living all over the world (even headhunted to go over and help set up something in the US) but following a few major redundancies I finally realised that I had to down scale my life for more job security & less hassle. 
But that all comes at a cost - literally!  It now means I don't have the cash to splash on this mega project of a trip.

So creativity has to be the key ...  I'm not at this moment going to say how much I need to save and find but suffice to say what with the transport of my bike or hire of a bike over a period of at least 30-40 days, accommodation, transport over to the US, food and some $$$ to make the most of the places I'll get to over that period  you can imagine it's more than a couple of grand!

So what have I done so far? 
Well, since over a year I thought I could save but 'cos of a few major things over the past year (future blog) that equals zero. 

So, I literally started rummaging through anything I could sell on eBay - not much luck and a bit of a disaster - such as selling my very expensive New York designer wedding dress and loosing a lot of money thinking the bidder given a 2nd chance would pay my asking price but it was me who had to accept their offer - so they got  a real good deal ! 
A lot of the other stuff I didn't even get bids for - bit of a joke - just too many things out there for sale !  
Ironically, the only other thing I did manage to sell were a pair of biker gloves - thanks eBay biker buyer !
I even contacted Sotheby's to try and value an item I thought might be of value and hey, suprise, suprise they were not interested!

So what else ?  ... Well although I didn't want to do it, I have tried to rent out my spare room on a Monday to Friday let - again this I've tried since February - just one enquiry which fell through and the thought of a stranger sharing space isn't ideal but I guess achieving things sometimes has to be done through compromise. 
So I've even been pro-active and contacted those looking for rentals instead of waiting for replies ... let's see.

And then, as usual, since the end of last year just trying to economize on food (and not buying clothes) - baked potatoes and pasta I've had enough of !  
But strangely the cost of living is still not allowing me to save ... but I'll have good news I know very soon  ...

And then the Mental Games that may stop the trip ..

These mental games that play in my mind, telling me am I crazy about thinking to want to do this trip, are probably more important by far than organizing the practical side of travelling across the American continent (and what a route - more to follow, of course)!
This is what is creating frustration!
The most difficult by far will be that at some stage, I'm going to have to pluck up the courage to present to my bosses at work my wish to take some time off -  I even prepped a note on New Years Day to persuade them not to say No !   Even thinking about it makes me nervous....
When is the best time ?  Too early and they may start to question my loyalty and too late and I may not have time to plan.
If they say yes, then cool, I have a job to come back to!
But if they say no?  Surely Life is full of remembering the good times and  surely not regretting what should have happened.

So then the next worry, is would I be able to find a job when I get back?  Stop, stop, stop !  They will say "yes, of course  you can take a sabbatical of 6 weeks - with all our blessing"

The mental journey to accept I can find the courage and making it happen will probably be more of a challenge to me than the actual journey.