The VISION!

Great visions come from great pain, and in this case, it was the pain in my butt! I was straddled over a grimy 1000cc BMW touring motorcycle some where on a graveled road in the Yukon Territory, Canada and my ass really hurt. Although the scenery was magnificent, with rushing blue-grey glacial rivers and  jagged peaks still white this early June, my ambitious goals of reaching Anchorage, Alaska were just too many ibuprofen pills away.  My crusty Uncle Paul is a real Iron Butt motorcycle rider and now I knew I was just a poseur. He has ridden 1120 miles non-stop before. Now I was just cruising 150-200 miles a day with my foam sleeping pad cut-up into crotched-sized pieces and duct taped beneath my throbbing ass like a scene from the play "Once upon a Mattress". No matter how thick this padding was, I could still feel that proverbial pea or now it had become a bowling ball under me! Ironically though, my butt's suffering was my eyes' delight. Usually I'd blast along on my sport bike dragging leather-clad knees on twisty Colorado canyon roads. Here my throbbing ass forced me to really slow down and golly gee if it wasn't more fun to ride three hours instead of eight and then do some hiking along the way. This was my zen moment when I realized that ALL my future road trips would now be like this; short hours in the saddle and more hiking and camping. After 21 days to Alaska and back I was firmly in this routine and little did I know how radically it would transform my future motorcycle touring...the VESPA scooter!!!!!