Let the planning begin:
Chuck and I head to The River Inn in the Hill Country next week for our first sit down planning session. Hopefully we will also get some riding in AND take at least a day to sit down with maps and thoughts to work through our first route in Europe. This isn't our first rodeo, we have done this before, many times. One of us usually prepares a strawman route, the other takes a look and then we sit down to talk about what needs to change.
This time it is a little more complicated. We have both chosen different methods of getting a bike to Europe. I shipped my 'extra' Goldwing from Orlando to Heidelberg Germany and he bought a Honda "Varadero" in Ireland. Getting all the paperwork straight, insurance etc is still in the works.
Next, we have separate flights and destinations for us to get to Europe. I am flying to where my bike is via Frankfurt and Chuck is flying to Ireland. He is leaving early with the hopes that his wife can join him for a little vacation before he starts his ride with me. Since we are leaving from Germany and going North, Chuck will have to figure out how he is getting from Ireland to Germany.
Finally, access to maps for our GPS isn't as easy. Because OpenStreetMaps ("OSM") no longer allows downloading all the maps for our planned first route in one batch, it was necessary to download 17 separate country maps, then prepare a route through each country that tied to the previous and next route.
We both have antiquated 'travel' computers, so Chuck has bought a high end laptop for this trip. I am considering taking the one I normally use at home, and if it flakes out, get a new one. All this will take some time to get setup.
Anyway, I have pulled together this very first version of "A" route from Germany to Nordkapp for our first journey in Europe. Here is a picture of the route on the Global Map provided by Garmin. Also is a picture of the estimated mileage and times. More to come ...
ROUTE:
MILEAGES:
One other thing we tend to do is to use a spreadsheet to keep up with who bought what. We try to take care of our own tabs when possible, but sometimes it just makes sense for one of us to pay for the entire bill and then keep a balance. Hotel bills, tolls, sometimes gasoline, food, beer, etc. This may seem like overkill to some of you, and for a few day trip, it probably is. But we have done this before when the shared expenses ends up being in the thousands of dollars. Trying to keep that in your head, while not getting out of sorts with the other is just to big of a job when traveling together for weeks or months.
Here's an image of the spreadsheet from our trip to Alaska, that automatically tallies our shared expenses. On that trip, there were 90 lines of shared expenses that totalled $5,620.67. Because my "windows" phone has Excel, I keep up with the expenses. I also am the one to add comments, which at times may not favor Chuck, but it is all in good fun. Besides, it helps us remember when and where that expense occurred.
That trip balanced to $0.34 after all the expenses. Pretty remarkable. That reminds me, I don't think Chuck has paid up the $0.34 he owes me!