Changing Gears

So its been a while.
      I promised myself when I started writing about this trip that I would absolutely not blog just for the sake of blogging.  I honestly wanted to make sure that the words I wrote were meant for more than just filler.  I did enough empty writing in school.  This isn't an assignment. This is meant to be enjoyable, to me, and to whomever decides it's worth giving a read.  I will admit that my last post was a touch depressing. I tend to write how I'm feeling,  and at that particular point in time I was feeling pretty damn low.  I needed to write it.  I needed to write it, and then I needed to read it, over and over again.  I read it until I convinced myself to cowboy the fuck up and start living again.  It took a lot of convincing. A large amount  of alcohol was consumed and an even larger amount of time was spent feeling sorry for myself. But now I'm almost out of this ugly mess and coincidentally, just like winter is turning to spring, things seem to be getting a lot brighter and much more colorful.
     Not a day has passed that I haven't thought about my trip.  I've been quietly plotting and scheming as to how Im going to do more than just dip my toe in the water (the people closest to me may disagree with the "quietly" part of that).  At some point I need to close my eyes and blindly jump in.  Unfortunately I am at a standstill.  The next baby step in this process is not mine to take.  I have been scouring the internet for used enduro bikes.  I have found about 1000 that I would love to buy.  The next step is to get someone to buy the house I am currently living in.  Until that happens my trip is frozen in time.  My plan was to blog only about forward progress, and unfortunately there has been none.  In my head the trip is at its next stage, unfortunately in my bank account, it is not. It is amazing how much havoc erasing another person from your life can have on your bottom line.  It is discouraging to me that this one last tie  to the life I  have crumbled up and thrown away, is the only thing keeping me from taking that next step.  This house is an electric dog fence around my mind.  Every time my thoughts wander to the open road,  with the sun on my back, and 360 degrees of natural beauty, I get zapped back to realty by the fact that I still reside in Portland CT, and that I cant change my life until I change my address.
     Here's my problem.  I have been dying to do another post for a while now.  I can't write about my new bike, because there isn't one.  I can't write about any weekend trips, because without a bike, it would just be a car ride.   I cant post pictures of the places I have been, because I haven't been anywhere.  I can't write about the people I've met, because they don't exist.  What I can write about is where I'm headed.  I can write about the pieces that will fall into place once I get two all-terrain bike tires underneath me.
    I have had ample time to think about how I'm going to approach this.   My intention is to get my bike and plan a trip every three weeks.  This way I will have a week to recover and two weeks to plan my next route and research points of interest.   One week of planning for every day of riding.  This way I can insure that my routes are as rider friendly as they are scenic. Going on trips this frequently will be my crash course in enduro bikes (hopefully just figuratively).  I plan on using these trips to gain experience in many different departments in order to make planning of the big trip run a little smoother.  The trips are going to be short enough to do in a weekend, but I intend to pack a ton of miles and points of interest into them.  This way I will familiarize myself with riding under a strict time line, which I will no doubt encounter on the big ride.  Although I will have other riders with me and a truck as a chase vehicle, I intend to only live off of what I can fit on my bike.  I feel that over the course of many trips this will teach me what is really important and what needs to stay at home.  These small rides will also serve as a means for grabbing more attention for the big ride.  The more awareness I raise for the "what" and the "why", the more potential there is for the charitable side of this trip to really take off.  Also these trips will be a great opportunity to familiarize myself with using social media.  I can be a bit of an "old man" when it come to facebook and twitter, but I realize that they are necessary for something like this to gather as much speed as possible in a short amount of time.
     These are the things that I have been thinking about for the past couple of months.  I have actually started planning my first trip!  Now, when the bike arrives, I will be ready to go.  I have mapped out a few waypoints that I feel will bring me through some beautiful areas.  The destination of the trip is the top of the Mount Washington Auto Road in the White Mountains. However, and this is the important part, so pay attention...........I am open to suggestions.  If you know a place within 200-300 miles from the center of Connecticut that is worth seeing, let me know.  It could be a landmark, or it could be a quiet meadow next to a stream in the middle of nowhere. I  DO NOT want to be on roads that have a purpose, I prefer the ones that take you away from purpose.  I have chosen to avoid highways at all costs because it is impossible to feel like a modern day explorer if you're never more than 2.5 miles away from a Starbucks.  Im also looking for volunteers.  The trips will be made up of a minimum of two vehicles.  Vehicle #1 is me on my currently non-existent bike.  Vehicle #2 will be my truck.  Each trip will take a minimum of three people to properly function, everyone has a job.  My job will be to take everything in and figure out what the hell I'm going to write about when I get home.  Also, at this stage, my job will  be to learn through trial and error how to handle any issue that may arise.  The next job will be the driver of my truck.  That's all, drive and look pretty.  The passenger of the truck will be responsible for media, your job is to take as many pictures as possible so that they can later be added to supplement what I have written about the trip.  That job also consist of facebook posts and tweetifying, twittening, twitching........whatever the hell it is.  The most I want on any trip is 3 bikes and two cars or trucks, any more than that and you start dealing with more issues than necessary.  As things become more concrete I will start announcing when and where the future trips will occur.  In the meantime, if your interested, the Mount Washington Trip needs at least two other people before I can go.   Absolutely anybody is welcome (minus murderers and motorcycle thieves).
For anyone with riding experience who may read this.  I currently have zero knowledge about what I am doing, although I'm doing my research.  If I screw something up, or am about to really screw up, let me know.  I have no pride when it comes to things I know nothing about.  If your advice is to not go......save your time, I've heard that one enough and for some reason it wont sink in.
stephenlohmeyer@hotmail.com
For a map of the waypoints go to Googlemaps and type in the search box "Mt Washington bike trip junish"