Monday September 28th, 2026

We went on a nice three hour ride on the motorcycles yesterday. The weather was perfect, and the forest service roads where in surprisingly good condition. The rain we received over the last couple of weeks helped to keep the dust down to a bare minimum. The bikes did great, and it is clear we are both getting much more comfortable riding. Which makes me happy. I wasn’t sure how we were going to do if we were not comfortable on the bike going into our long trip. But, we are head of the game when it comes to riding. And we have over four thousand miles coming up in a few weeks. I don’t expect to gain major skills on the Florida trip, but it will just bee good putting in the hours.

On a separate note, I’ve been thinking more about social media, and finding the right balance, in this digital world that drawls you to always be connected. This tension comes down to for some reason I feel the need to put things out there online, but I don’t do it. Social Media has never really been my thing. I’ve tried a few times, but I just can’t seem to be interested in connecting with people in that way. If connection is really I could even say is happening. Performing seems to be more to the point. I think as soon as it became an actual possibility to make a career out of producing content for online audiences the whole internet really shifted. It was no longer the community that I experienced in the mid-1990s where people could meet and share information. It became a place for commerce. Not that this is a bad thing. There are some very valuable content producers out that earn the living they are doing by producing something of value to consumers.

But what gets confusing, is it seems there isn’t much of a difference between sharing something online, and wanting to make a business out of it. Or at least seeming like you want to make a business out of it, even if it is just in the back of your own head, and not the actual plan. This is where the conflict is exposed in my thinking about the topic specifically as it relates to our travels. Since there are a good number of people traveling taking online content about their travels it is difficult not to see that in some odd way you are competing with them. And the ways this all works is there are just about every demographic that you can find out there. So it isn’t difficult to find a couple traveling by motorcycle to think you need to be somewhat like them.

The difficult part is I don’t think I actually am trying to compete with anyone on what we would like to do regarding creating content. Even saying ‘creating content’ is setting the wrong expectation. I think a better, but completely outdated, analogy is creating a slide show of our travels. That list of photographs that no one really wants to view when you get back from your trip. But twenty years later, those snapshots of what your life was then, really mean something. They are like long lost journal entries that mostly are mundane in the moment, but tell a much deeper story for future generations. It is making a mark but not the way a social media share today can ever really make a mark.

So there then is obviously the question, why share online at all? It what we are trying to do in capturing our adventures all about having that time capsule who we were at this time in our lives then is there really any value sharing the photographs and videos publicly? There is a practical justification in that it is the easy way to share with friends and family our slide show. Even if they just pop in now and then to see where in the world we are. The tools and the systems now available to anyone because of this content creator economy are pretty impressive. And just about everything is digital now. Sure it would be a good idea to select a small group of photographs from our travels, and make prints or put together a photo book. Just to have. But, that isn’t the common way people view content as much any longer. Even having physical books around my house seems more a burden to me at this point then a benefit. Having photographs printed on the wall is something that I still enjoy, but not common.

I think one of the tricks and challenges to using online publications in what ever form, is they tent to be ephemeral. Even with the best efforts it is difficult to see today how something I put up on even my personal blog would last say 30 to 40 years in the future. Maybe that isn’t reasonable. Or even a goal. Maybe it isn’t common to have normal people have content available truly for future generations. We don’t have many writings of common people from hundreds of years ago. Even though I am sure there were examples, but no one thought it was important to maintain that for someone in the future. Of course now famous people have books and long term archives of their work. Even if it seemed at the time mundane.

Trying to figure out a set constraints to how we capture and share our travels I think is the tricky part. It is likely multi-layered, but trying to figure out how to think about it first is really the main thing. For example, I could see us sharing photos and short videos on Instagram. The trick is to somehow ensure that sharing things there doesn’t become the point. It is somehow just a side effect of something we are doing that is our main purpose. Figuring out that main purpose and how to think about it, and the rules of the game is really the key thing to figure out. Then determining how to archive the content in a way that meets the stated goal. I know writing this down this way makes it seem too structured. The mindset at this point, the process, I don’t know yet. But, for me, thinking through my constraints helps me frame what I want, and what I can easily ignore.