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Soon it begins again!

Alas, my time here in La Jolla is nearly up. It's been a fantastic stay but it's time to return to DC and start things back up again. For a long time, I planned to fly home and have the V-Max shipped back to me - but a couple weeks ago while I was out for a ride I realized I needed to ride it back. It's not often you get an opportunity to do something like this.

This time is going to be a bit different than last time. If you're following, expect at a minimum these differences:

1. I only have 9 days to run approximately 3000 miles, vs 17 last time. In order to average 333 miles a day, it means I'm going to have to stick to the Interstate for more of the trip. The unfortunate fact of the backroad highways is that they take more time to get places while covering more distance.

2. I'm going to need to ride for around 7 hours a day to cover the ground I need initially, which means considerably less time meandering and going down random side roads to see cool things. Unfortunately, this is a road trip with a destination, not a sight seeing trip.

3. Even staying south and out of the mountains, it's going to be chilly for most of the trip. The most important thing here is that I probably need to stop before it gets dark, but that's typically going to be 4:30PM. That means short, hard days of travel.

4. I'm planning on motels again the first few days, but I'm bringing my gear and keeping my options open. I'm hoping to spend some nights out in the cold in some national forests once I get through Texas.

5. I have cold weather gear this time. Hopefully it's enough. :)

The plan is to leave early Friday morning, January 9.
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