An Introduction

Dear Friends and Travellers, I'm a 25 year old guy who's decided to take the summer off work to travel in North America. I have about 3 months to work with, and will be starting from the San Francisco Bay Area. It will be my first motorcycle journey of more than a day, and also my first time camping outside the bed of my pickup truck. I've been riding dual sport motorcycles as long as I've had a license, and for this trip I'll be taking a carefully outfitted 2008 Yamaha WR250R.

I don't really know what this ride report will be about, and I haven't quite decided where I'm going to go. I feel that's not really important as long as I'm prepared.

I think I will gain the most if what I see and learn on the way shows me the path, rather than the other way around. I will document things as best I can in writing, pictures, and sound.

I hope you will join me on this trip.

- Michael K. (MotoMind)


About Me

This part is not quite about me, just the social story of me. I'm sharing this mostly because it's something I miss in other ride reports or trip blogs, if only to shed light the question of how on earth someone can get the time off. I'd like to think that knowing a little bit about someone's background helps makes sense of where they come from and maybe even where they're going. For all our colorful individuality, we are all part of the broader ebb and flow of history.

I was born in 1985, to parents who had emigrated from Poland a few years earlier and starting with only their degrees found work at universities in the US. They separated after a few years and I grew up both in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Northeast. I accelerated my high school education with a home-study program, but lacking funds and imagination I went to a mid-rate state university, majoring in Philosophy.

Thanks to my computer hobby I found work at a small business specializing in data storage as a fairly successful account manager. After a few years of work I acquired a progressively worsening case of tendonitis in my forearms. Unable to continue my work but not incapacitated enough to be disabled, I was unemployed on my own account for a while. I started using Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking to help manage my tendon problems and for the past 3 years have worked as an account manager at a cloud computing consultancy in San Francisco.

I've lived with housemates for all of my young adult life, paying relatively low rents and living on Ikea furniture. Combined with a modest lifestyle by city standards, I have squirrelled away some savings with the money I haven't spent on motorcycles, food, drinks, and girls.