Today was great. I woke up around 10 and my dad cooked me steak and eggs for breakfast. I re-packed all my luggage and got rid of a few more things and put all of the extraneous gear into a duffel bag (sleeping bag/pad/tent) behind me. I also fixed my right heated grip (the important one) and finally added my helmet lock and fairing protectors. I want to get a tank bag when I get to Santa Cruz; they have a nice BMW dealership tha’s also the U.S. distributor of Wunderlich gear.

It took a long time to get everything packed up and re-mounted. At 4:30pm (and after a slice of pie) my dad and I left his house for I-5. We stopped in Parkland to say goodbye and I think it was pretty hard for both of us to keep from crying. Just thinking about it now makes me feel the same way. I’m so proud of my dad for what he’s been able to do with his life lately and I think the fact that I’m leaving is helping me to appreciate him (and the rest of my family and friends) a lot more. It’s hard to think about leaving when things are going so well with us, but maybe the leaving is the reason and it will just continue to get better and better as we write and talk to each other while I’m away.

I’m currently at my cousin Vicky’s house in Vancouver. She’s from a side of the family I don’t get to see much and she helped me fill in a lot of blanks on my family tree. She also shared a lot of the backstory on her side of the family in the form of some hilarious stories. Her dad Allen is where my dad and I got our middle names; he was my granmda’s brother and he passed away a couple of years ago. I can tell he’s missed by many people.

Tomorrow I believe I’ll be staying in Eugene with my sister Becky and her boyfriend Andrew, though I haven’t called her to ask yet. Hi Becky & Andrew!

For the geeks reading this, I spent the last few hours on the couch at Vicky’s house exploring the finer side of GPX (The XML-based GPS eXchange format) and XSLT to convert the GPX files to GeoRSS. This enables me to use the Poly9 FreeEarth 3D globe, which is Flash-based. You can see the results on the map page. Google Maps can also import from GeoRSS, so the single file can serve as the data for both maps.

Well, it feels good to be on the road. Advice to all would-be adventurers: start packing a month in advance. It will probably take that long, and you won’t have your roommates making fun of you all day. I can certainly see the hilarity in it: “Beau, you’re going to ride your motorcycle around the world? When? You’re leaving in an hour? But everything you own is still in your room…”

My mom helped me pack up all of my boxes and stayed to see me ride off. I have a deceptively large amount of stuff, even after winnowing it down every time I move. I put an almost magic level of sentimentality into everyday objects and find it impossible to throw them away. Most times I’ve got to trick myself by giving my belongings to friends so that they’ll still be nearby. The Safety of Objects resonated with me for that reason. I saw it with my good friend Stephani. Sorry I didn’t get to see you today Stephani! I was so late I only made it to my dad’s house in Orting, but now I have the opportunity to ride with him for the first hour or so tomorrow. I’ll have to find a picture of his bike; it’s a Honda Shadow. He’s got two of them.

Also, be sure to check out my progress on the map.

Finishing up my last-minute packing tonight. I hope to leave by 1pm tomorrow after lunch with the folks, my sister, and her boyfriend. I want to thank everyone who was helped me out so far with support and donations, my family and friends, and specifically my good friends Jesse Peterson who gave me a very generous donation today, and Keith Kemp, who has helped me out in many ways—including always letting me rent a room for a great price (which allowed me to save up more money than I would have otherwise). Thank you, and happy new year!

Sometimes it takes getting down to the wire for all of the things left to do and people left to see to come out of the woodwork! I’m now leaving on the first day of the new year to give myself a chance to finish things up without rushing and to see some friends I haven’t been able to. Expect a thorough writeup of how I prepared for the trip once I do get on the road!

Lots of buying going on lately. A Panasonic Toughbook-52 from the excellent and knowledgeable staff at Buy Tough/Mooring Tech, a rollable solar panel from the speedy and caring staff at the Alernative Energy Store, and a gargantuan order of various supplies from the kind and wonderful people at Aerostich. I also received my Sony PCM-D50 from Sweetwater. All of the companies I’ve mentioned have gone well beyond what I’ve become accustomed to when thinking about customer service. (Or maybe it’s just that I see all of the horror stories on the Consumerist… Yikes.) Some of them have offered a discount when they learned that I am fundraising with this trip, which I am very grateful for as every dollar counts.

I’m a gadget geek, and I hope to appeal to my fellow geeks by using cutting-edge technology like the PCM-D50 (released just this month) and releasing the source for any modules I write for the website. Since I’ve been planning this trip for years (see Treknologies, the mostly-defunct travel technology blog I previously worked on with Jesse Gunderson) I have a pretty good idea about what’s out there on the bleeding edge of technology. I’m an avid reader of Gizmodo, Engadget, and the new Boing Boing Gadgets as well as Wired in print. This trip appeals to me for so many reasons, and one of them is the ability to justify buying and using the latest equipment to document a cause I believe in.

This is my first attempt at a full route plan. There are some gross exaggerations and some logical impossibilities, given the current state of the world (South Korea to China by land, for example).

As my birthday approaches a lot of things begin to feel much realer, and I’m alternately nervous and excited to pack up everything I own and leave it all behind.

I saw Into the Wild (IMDb) tonight. It had a profound impact on me. There was a couple behind me who insisted on talking over the movie. It causes me pain when someone’s beatific moment is soiled by irreverence. All of my small angers got stirred around a little bit and I wanted so badly to voice my opinion. I feel like this is one of the few times where I’m glad I kept my silence. You can’t teach someone respect by disrespecting them, and people who think they can get away with something will continue to believe so no matter how much contrary evidence they’re shown. Watching the movie and experiencing that anger led to thoughts about how anger is dealt with and how I tend to deal with it.

I think this trip is largely a reaction to the finely-tuned senses of anger, empathy, and injustice I feel so often when reading the news and hearing stories from friends. Out of anger comes positive action and catharsis—it’s possible that some measurement could be made about how I feel inside by the depth and breadth of my (planned) action and bid for catharsis. It unnerves me when my fellow citizens can remain so complacent because I know that good things—change, growth, charity—can come from these emotions, if only they are harnessed and made to work for us instead of against.

Lesson learned: I am no longer a size 38 in suits. Sent my Aerostich back for a size 40 because it was too tight up top and would not zip down over my boots (Sidi Crossfire TAs). A replacement suit should be here by the end of the month, though I’m kind of nervous that it won’t fit over my boots either. The woman I talked to on the phone did some measurements for me on the leg of a size 40 suit; they seem dedicated to their customers over there.

I’ve also ordered my Caribou panniers and top case from Roger Pioszak at Adventure Motorcycle Equipment. I chose them after Will Keckley, a friend, insisted I look at nothing else and buy them immediately. They are repurposed Pelican cases and thus waterproof, and part of the product brochure shows a Ford truck parked on top of one. I think they’ll “git ‘er done”—as my dad is fond of saying.

I’ve been talking to Chelsea at RAINN about how I can best do some fundraising for them. After we get something worked out I will explain why rape and sexual abuse are important issues to me, and why I think they should be important to you too.

I ordered my Roadcrafter suit last night and I’m slightly nervous about how it will fit. I tried on a friend’s suit and it was much smaller than I thought it would be, but I figured I’d trust the sizing on the Aerostich site and just deal with sending it back and getting a larger one if it turns out to be too small. The bike is at 335 miles now; I’ve been commuting with it since my car broke down last week. During its 600 mile service I plan on having Ride West BMW install my extended brake cable (which is a prerequisite of the Magura bar set I ordered from Touratech). Once that’s all in place I can begin figuring out how to mount my Cycra barkbusters.

Canon announced their 40D camera last week, and Nikon also announced their D300 camera—I’m currently leaning towards the Nikon, even though I consider myself a Canon fan. Canon also announced an HG10 camcorder, which is very small and HDD-based. For the type of work I’d like to do a camera of this type may make the most sense (even better than the Sony HVR-A1U I was set on). My plan was to use a FireStore FS-4 to record from the Sony direct to disk. With a small HDD-based camera I could lose the FireStore and save space and money at the expense of greater focus and zoom control, among other things. I think it’s probably a good trade for my needs, and Sony and JVC both have offerings in this category as well.

Since this trip is so important to me it naturally follows that everything related to it is given quite a bit of thought. Because of this, I lost sight of the cardinal rule of publishing on the web: Content before design. With this in mind I’m going to begin the online portion of the trip in earnest. Drupal has made this very easy, and I hope to support the ability for users to translate all of the content into their own language for others to read.

With that said, here’s a quick update about what I’ve been doing to prepare for the last few months. Last month I bought a BMW F 650 GS from Ride West BMW of Seattle with help from Gray and Roman. It’s got ~100 miles on it now, and at 600 I’ll have the first service done at Ride West. I got my International Driving Permit and International Driving License from the Washington AAA. The woman who helped me became ecstatic when I told her about the trip. I applied for my passport, began researching Carnets de Passage (not worth it and possibly a liability!) and the International Certificate for Motor Vehicles, which is unfortunately for UK residents only. I hope to create a template for others like myself who want to translate their vehicle registration into another language, however.

I’ve bought quite a bit of kit from Touratech at their Seattle headquarters Santa Cruz BMW online (distributor for Wunderlich) and have been busy installing it on the bike.

I’m currently wrapping up choosing a video camera (most likely the Sony HVR-A1U, used extensively in Afghanistan by American photojournalist Scott Kesterton) and eagerly awaiting to see if rumors of a new Canon digital camera are true.