The human experience is marked by a series of "memorable" events, or benchmarks. Each of these gets our attention or sets our life in a new direction. For a male of the species these include, but are not limited to, such things as a circumcision, graduation from high school or college, joining the military, getting married or divorced, and retirement. I was going to include dying, but no one is entirely sure just how that experience changes us, so we'll leave that one out of the discussion.

Actually, the only experience I really want to talk about here is retirement because the trip you are going to be reading about is the result of my retirement from education after 33 years, and from a continuous work life of some 42 years. From this point on I no longer am obligated to be a responsible, productive, employee for anyone, but can instead now indulge myself in being an irresponsible, doddering, addle-headed old man, bent on living a foolish life. I might as well get a start at it.

Linda and I will be embarking on an 11,000-mile trip around the United States. I am calling this trip a "Three and a Half Corners Trip" because we have no plans at this time of including the New England states. We do hope to hit Washington State, take the northern route to Canada, down to South Dakota, over to Pennsylvania, south to Florida, turn west for Louisiana, go north to Missouri, hang a left to Colorado and Utah, then southwest to San Diego, California and up the west coast to home. I hope that sounds as neat to you as it does to me.

Along the way we have made reservations at only three places, Lake Tahoe, CA, Anacortes, WA, and Prince of Wales Lodge in Waterton Park, Alberta, Canada. The rest will be catch-as-catch-can. I'm looking forward to the adventure.

Since this is a motorcycle ride, I will try and tell other bikers the route we're taking and include pictures of the things we see. If you like the descriptions and the pictures, I hope you find yourself saying, "I'd like to take that ride!" If you do, this addition to my website will have been a success.

I am again indebted to Dave Montgomery for the use of his beautiful, black, Escapade motorcycle trailer. I keep telling all of the Harley riders I meet that the trailer belongs to my Harley riding neighbor, and they are all impressed that anyone would loan such a beautiful trailer, and to a Goldwing rider to boot. Anyway, this retirement ride would not have been possible without Dave's trailer and I want everyone to know how much we appreciate Dave's generosity.

For our friends and family, just follow along, look at the pictures, and email us from time to time and let us know how you're doing. We look forward to hearing from you. Let's get started.