It is now three days before I depart on my first longer motorcycle trip. And I am feeling a good mix of I can’t wait to finally get out of here, I have been dreaming of traveling for the last 4 years and oh crap I am totally unprepared, my panniers and boots haven’t even arrived yet. Well I suppose that’s the difference between an adventure and a vacation, right? A good adventure should have a good solid shake of uncertainty and I have at least decided on the general direction I am heading as for the rest there is no time like the present for making decisions, the future present that is.

At 22 years old the expected path, the one that most of my friends and acquaintances have taken has them graduating from a good college with a fancy piece of paper and embarking on their careers. Despite actually enjoying learning I simply couldn’t justify the price of a private school and found community college to be painfully lacking in intellectual stimulation. So, when a friend offered me a place to live and a job at her small catering company in DC I jumped at the opportunity and have spent the last 2 years working my ass off.

As long as I can remember I have longed to travel and travel in a way that I actually can experience the land and its people, so that when I am done I have more than a stack of selfies that prove I was there. I don’t know how I decided I wanted to travel on a motorcycle but somehow the idea showed up and wouldn’t leave. So, I did a two-day motorcycle course and started watching craigslist for adventure suited motorcycles, it took a while but I did eventually find something I liked. A 1992 KLR 650 with just under 10k on it yes, its older than I am and yes I am told the paint would better fit a jet ski from the 80’s personally I like to think that it gives it a bit of character.

I have decided to write this down partly because I want to give back to a community that has taken me across the world and truly stoked the flames of my inner vagabond with their words and pictures, and with any luck I would like to do the same for someone else. The other part is that I am doing it for myself, for days in the future when it has become a distant muddled memory reading this might bring back a bit of definition. In reality it has been a couple years since I have written anything longer than a short email and I have never really written something longer of my own volition, so, we will see how long this lasts. Also, bear with my on the grammar, I am working on it but its by no means a forte.

Well that should be enough of a rambling introduction, I have to get back to wrapping up work. Hopefully I will have more interesting posts soon.