Introduction

In Acadia NP, Maine

                                                                  

A view in Rocky Mt. NP

Lunch, with a Colorado view

The Iron Butt Association, among its many non rally rides, offers the National Parks Tour.  At its basic level, this ride requires the motorcyclist to collect, in one year, National Park stamps from 50 locations in at least 25 states.  The Silver award is presented to riders who include Florida, Maine, California, and Washington among those states.  Add Alaska to the mix and that is the criteria for the Gold.  My wife, Robin, and I started our present NPT in Colorado last August 15 with a visit to Rocky Mountain NP. We had ridden our BMW '05 K1200LT w/Hannigan sidecar to Denver for the finishing banquet of the '10 IBR .  By October, we had ridden over eight  thousand miles to sites in Maine, Florida and twenty-four other states and we collected fifty-five stamps. This final leg will take us to Alaska, the only state, (besides Hawaii), that our bike has not been in.   With four months left on our one year NPT calender,  we are  venturing off from Central NY to finish the Gold: we're heading west to California, up to Washington, and then on to Alaska. This run, again with our sidecar rig, should take about six weeks; we're leaving around May 18 and should be home the first week of July, shortly after the BMW RA event in Wisconsin which we plan to attend.  Posts for the next few days will chronicle our  NP adventures to date, plans for this current trip, and details of our preparation.