Rollerball

My son had the winning bid on ebay for a motorcycle yesterday, he's flying down from Alaska Monday, visit for two days then skip down to St Louis where the bike is before heading back west.

He was pretty excited on the phone last night, he asked if we wanted to ride along with him back to the west coast. Being April he's going to take a southern route to California then north to Seattle where he'll put the bike on a barge and fly home to wait for it.

We've made that trip before, but not with my son. Since he graduated college and moved to AK we see him once a year. So this has "Once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity" written all over it.

My wife has to work, but I could go. I can't really afford to take 2-3 weeks off work right before my busiest month in June, but that doesn't seem like a good enough excuse. There's the fact that the trip would leave me on the west coast riding home alone, not good but not horrible. There's my revulsion to the Great Plains, sorry middle staters, but crossing from MO to the mountains is a painfully boring trip, but still not a good enough excuse not to go.

Then there's remembering how sore I was during our little 600 mile trip last summer. The first time I made that California trip on a bike I was 19, that was about three million years ago. This is hard. To be a responsible grown up, or not to be a responsible grown up? Is that the question?

babylonDon

Nah. The question is, which will you have the opportunity to do again?

What about taking the train back?

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Rollerball

Yeah that's the biggest problem, when will this chance ever come again? The train, that's worth looking into. At least from the Denver to Chicago segment. In fact that might be the solution to all future trips to the mountains. Sorry Kansas, it's been fun and all but...


EDIT:

Crap.

Good idea though.

lrrp

[quote=babylonDon;159010]Nah. The question is, which will you have the opportunity to do again?

Do it!!! My brother still talks about the month he and 2 other airborne guys rented BMW's and rode along the coast from Rhein-Main to the Med... Don's right, your time is what you make of it, and none of us are getting any younger...

Edit- Could ship the bike back and forth as freight to Denver and fly in?

babylonDon

There you go. I know Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska....Arrrrgghhhh.

Rte. 80 in Nebraska is unbearable. They should just build pneumatic tubes, like they have at the bank, and shoot you through it.

But the trip with your son, sounds like a not-to-be-missed opportunity.

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"America, the greatest, best country that God has ever given man, on the face of the Earth"- Sean Hannity, professional broadcast journalist.

“To the contrary, has anybody ever referred to torture as punishment? I don’t think so.”-Antonin Scalia

poetrychic

rollerball, listen to him!

not.to.be.missed.opportunity....repeat it over and over...this could be one of those time in life that if you don't do it, you could end up regretting it later...if your body gets too sore from the ride, get a deep tissue massage and sleep an extra 5 hours or so...you said it yourself, you only get to see him once a year...what a great father-son bonding opportunity, especially now that he's an adult...

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Rollerball

You are all correct. I've been going nuts all day, flip flopping on this. There's no way I can go all the way to the coast with him. I've got three months of work to do before June 1st. If this were August so many things would be different, there would be no question.

But five minutes after I've decided I can't go I catch myself thinking of ways I could just ride to the MO/OK state line with him...

My wife has to leave town for work on Sunday, she won't see him, but that leaves us boys to play for two days. He has an uncle with cancer, his moms brother, that isn't doing well, so we'll visit him then give the credit card a workout at some of Chicago's finer establishments. There's a great Thai restaurant he hasn't tried. Can you believe they don't do Thai in Alaska?

He's planning to fly from here to St Louis to pick up the bike but I might drive him. It's only 4.5 hrs.

We'll have a good time but passing this opportunity is like putting the pressure on to set it in stone that we do something nearly as cool as soon as we can.

I've always wanted to visit Amsterdam, that would be pretty cool to do together.

W.M.DEEEZ

You should discuss this with your son...he's the kid...you're the dad.

Put it on him to make sure you guys get to do this when the timing is better. You know...the guilt approach


What if...you go pick up the bike, and bring it to your house.

Then, later in the summer, he makes the trip down, and you go play?



Buzzkill moment...do you want to leave your wife alone w/the neighbor next door?

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Rollerball

My son's main job is diving for the Alaskan fishing fleet between Oct and Feb, this is his downtime before he starts his summer job, sea kayak tour guide. So this is the only time he has to come, besides he's so excited about it there would be no putting him off til later.

He has another slow time in Sept before the season opens, that would be good for me too, I'm going to suggest Amsterdam. As far as the loser nextdoor, my wife's a pretty tough cookie. She's been a Colorado river rafting guide, a police officer and a shuttle pilot. I don't go for none of those prissy wimins.

Uncle has been making a general nuisance of himself to everyone but us, only because we've successfully avoided him, but he's been at every neigbhor's house within site, he follows the city crews down the street when they collect trash or recycle, shaking their hand every 10 steps. People about 1/8th mile down had a yard service come in and there goes Uncle, down there trying to talk to them, though I don't think any of them spoke English.

As long as you don't have to speak to him he can be rather amusing to watch.

PursuitOfHappinessParty

Your family is cool

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