Thursday September 24th, 2026

So far, this week has been going pretty well. We got some good news related to a bit of a health scare for Valarie. I wasn’t too worried yet, since I wanted to make sure I understood what was wrong before I worried too much. But it was still on both of our minds as something that could be an issue. Luckily, she got a clean bill of health. And a few things are going well around the home projects. The insulation was done yesterday on the Tiny House, which is a load off our minds since that was delaying our progress. I am sure there will be other things that come up. But right now, we are making progress.

I’m starting to get a little excited about our fall trip. The only thing that concerns me a bit is the weather. The good thing is we have some excellent gear and should be able to stay quite warm even if the weather turns. The main unknown for me is the weather, as I just haven’t paid much attention to what fall is like in the southern USA. No matter what, being on a motorcycle is a lot colder than just being out walking around. So we are going to need layers. The thought of having nearly five weeks to make it to Florida is exciting. And four weeks on the way back. This will give us plenty of time to explore and just take our time as we cross the country. So if the weather is bad for a few days, we can just hold up wherever we are.

I should be getting my new iPad Pro today. This will be my main device as we travel the country, and likely the world. I need to test out how things work with this being my only device. I’ve gotten pretty used to using macOS as a main computer, so working around some of the limitations on iPadOS is going to be something to get used to. But from a size perspective, I think this is a better system to carry on the motorcycles. I do sometimes question bringing the photography gear, but I know if I use it, I will be happy I have it.

I don’t really know what this trip will be like as far as what types of places we will end up going to and spending time in. This is a part of the country that I don’t know as well, besides what I have seen on TV. The best part is that we will be actively avoiding major highways, which will force us to explore these smaller towns. I sometimes wonder if the need over the last several decades to move faster has made us more disconnected. It used to be that if you wanted to do a drive like we are doing, back in the 1960s, you would likely be taking many of the same roads we are planning on taking on our trip. Now, if you wanted, you can drive the whole thing we plan on doing in five weeks in a couple of days. Heck, when we talk to Jason, our neighbor, about driving to Florida, he reminds us that he does this drive a few times a year in two days. Of course, his goal is to get from point A to B as fast as possible. He might as well be flying, since he isn’t seeing much of the country between A and B. What we are doing and what Jason does can hardly be considered the same activity.

To do this trip, we actively needed to work with AI to find roads and routes that didn’t rely on using the highway system. Our motorcycles just don’t love being on highways. And we miss much of the country that way. I am not sure what we will find in these less explored parts of the country. There is something about these small forgotten towns that is going to be fun to explore. I do think it will require us to have an open mind to try to understand what is going on in these parts of the country. I know that in parts of the Deep South we are going to run into some pretty deep poverty. But just like we are expecting in Central and South America, people live there and it is their home. We need to respect them and try to be as good guests as we possibly can. It will be interesting to see how welcoming people are. I know we have seen a pretty open-door situation in Mexico. My expectation is that once you get out of the larger cities in the US, we will see the same friendliness.