Heated Grips!

It felt like my birthday! Wally DePuy called me Saturday morning saying he had a present for me. I rode over and found he had bought a beautiful set of heated grips for the Gold Wing! He said we might need it in Alaska, so we spent much of the rest of the day installing them and the XM Radio I have been using in the car. Great success!

A few months ago I bought and installed the Aux Audio Input Kit from Kennedy Electronics so I could connect the GPS's MP3 player to the audio system. Now the old, (1993), Wing has most of the modern accessories of a new bike! The list includes: AM/FM radio, cassette player, Garmin 660 GPS with MP3 payer and bluetooth, XM Radio, and a Blackberry Storm which connects via bluetooth. The whole thing plays through the four loudspeakers or the stereo headphones inside the helmets. The helmets have microphones for the intercom system so Theresa and I can chat comfortably while riding. The only thing I couldn't fix was the the flaky CB radio. When I key the mic it puts out a carrier but no sound. I was hoping it was in the handlebar mic key so I took it apart and cleaned it but no joy. I guess a 16 year old circuit in the radio has finally died. It looks like radios might age in dog years. The rest of the bike, on the other hand, feels like it is in it's prime! The motor purrs like an electric motor, starts fast, never misses, and pulls like a locomotive. I've checked the oil, tires, brakes, nuts and bolts; I think the bike is ready for the trip!

I needed a smaller notebook computer for the trip, so I bought a new 14" HP from Sam's Club, http://www.samsclub.com/shopping/navigate.do?dest=5&item=421105 , that should fill the need. It has a DVD R/W drive so we can watch movies on a rainy day. I loaded Microsoft Office and the new Microsoft Streets and Trips 2009 program which lets us map our route. It's great for locating campgrounds and attractions along the way. It also includes a small GPS if needed. There's a very cool feature of the Blackberry Storm that allows us to tether to the notebook for pretty fast Internet whenever we have 3G service from Verizon. That should allow us to update the blog, get email, and consult Google Maps as needed. The final luxury item is a tiny Hauppauge USB TV Tuner. This will let us watch TV through the computer if we are close enough to a city to get a signal. It may not be as comfortable as home, but our camper/tent will rock! Electronically speaking.

The new waterproof Panasonic camera, (DMC-TS1S), has been ordered. I've got my fingers crossed that it will arrive before we leave. I found some large 16 and 32 Gig memory cards which make the video recording feature practical to use. Maybe I'll try my hand at a YouTube video production along the way.

The official blast off date is April 24th. We plan to ride with friends to the Leesburg Bike Fest, http://leesburgbikefest.com/ , then westward from there. The trailer is packed with everything but our clothes and we won't take many. We plan to buy new clothes as we need them since it is much easier to get cold weather riding gear in Canada than Florida.

Yesterday I added a gizmo to the blog for people who are following us on the trip. Sign up and I think it will send you an email when the blog is updated.