How did all of this start, anyhow? Well, this is not such an easy question to answer. Something like this with no purpose just evolves and this trip is no exception. Let me begin be saying that my wife (Mary Jo) and I bought a 33ft 1978 TRAVCO Motorhome in September of 1999. It didn't take but one outing to realize that one really needs some kind of auxiliary transportation when taking a motorhome trip. As soon as you get set up somewhere, the first thing you find out is that you need sugar, mayonnaise or whatever. The last thing you want to do is unhook water, electric, sewer and go to the store. On the other hand, we didn't really want to drag a car behind us either. Our travel style is not to stay in any one place more than a day or two at the most. So, the perfect solution was a little motor scooter. Perfect for running around the camp ground, going to the store or even doing a little sightseeing. It was also no minor consideration that since the age of 14, I've always wanted one, however, MOM would not allow it. I even tried again at age 32 but she prevailed. Since she's been gone for 7 years now I guess I can get away with it.

So, Nov 11, 1999, Mary Jo and I visited several dealers and ended up at Pensacola Motor Sports, 620 New Warrington Rd. Pensacola, Fl. Todd Zuleger was the salesperson that helped us. Todd is about 25 years old and one of those positive up beat kind of people. We zeroed in on the Zuma by Yamaha. First of all it was built to carry two people. Nice big comfortable seat. The big tires and front disk brakes let you know that it is sturdy and well built. The next thing was that it is rated at 49cc. In Florida, a cycle under 50cc does not require a Motorcycle endorsement to your drivers license to be legal to operate. It came with a one year warranty, no mileage limit and the price was right too. Under $2,000. I bartered with Todd a little on the price and got him to throw in a couple of helmets. When he said that they could take a VISA, that cinched the deal and I rode out of there on a ZUMA. I had a rack made for the back of the motorhome and two weeks later we made our first trip. The Zuma was great. We drove all around the areas we visited. We enjoyed the scooter so much that after we returned home we would take it out for an outing almost every weekend, venturing farther and farther each time. The longest being to Mobile, Al (about 60 miles, one way).

I was back in Pensacola Motorsports just to visit with Todd. He wanted to know if I had been riding the Zuma. I said, "Sure. We rode it to Mobile last weekend" " No way! " he said. I assured him that we had. One thing led to the next and about how good the scooter was. Then I said " do you think it would make it across the country?" "Sure. It would but YOU wouldn't." Damn, I wish he hadn't of said that. Well wheels started turning in my feeble little mind. Hay, I figure we had been going 10 miles at a time on Sat and Sundays. Jacksonville to San Diego is no more than 3,000 miles. That's 300 ten mile segments. That still sounds like a lot. But 30 segments a day that's not so bad and in ten days I'd be there.

Well I "needed" a little more to rationalize this trip. I am also a Ham Radio operator and have been since the late 1960's. I've been inactive for a number of years, but now seemed the time to dust off the old equipment and get back on the air. It would be nice to have plenty of communications in the motorhome. Well I discovered that since I've been gone there is a new mode of digital communications active across the country. That being, automatic vehicle tracking. With the use of a GPS receiver tied into the Ham radio, your position is transmitted to a base station (or any other station for that matter) tied to a computer with a map program. Your position is then plotted, real time, on the map. Pretty cool. To go one step further, many stations are also connected to the Internet and feed all the data they hear onto the net. A ham in Miami then collects the data into a data base program that he wrote and makes it available through his WEB site. He stores and processes the data. Then when queried by someone, he plots the last received position on a Map Blast Map. It's all very neat. This is great! We can be traveling across the country and my Dad, brother, kids or whoever, can track us via the Internet.

So, now I figure I could hook this up on my scooter and test it all out. This was all the justification I needed. I realize that this is really a lame excuse but give me a break here.

PLANNING

Of course the next thing a reasonable person would do would be to do some planning for this trip. Like what are you going to take, where to stop, what routes to take, etc. Well I thought about doing that and actually started planning. I was originally was going shortest straightest route US 90 to about Marianna, Fl and go diagonal across the country through Dallas and travel back roads parallel to I-10 but radio coverage did not seem to be as good along this route I also noted that US 90 starts Mile 0 at the Atlantic Ocean in Jacksonville and goes to Van Horn in west Texas. That left me with only about 660 miles to the Pacific with no idea as to what road I was going to take but there has gotta be roads West. That was pretty much the extent of my route planning. I did figure that when I crossed state lines I could get a map at welcome stations. What I didn't count on was the fact that on the back roads not only are there no Welcome stations with maps but not even one of those Big Welcome To______ Signs. Well that's OK because the little roads don't show on these maps anyway.

I knew where I was starting and where I wanted to end up. When in doubt take a road that ended in a W.

As for "necessities". What does one really need? I like to shave and brush my teeth so I needed the razor and toothbrush. I really didn't need that. (If you stay at a MOTEL 6 they will give you that. More on Motel 6 later). Clothes, well at night you can wash out everything and in the morning it will be mostly dry. (Many of the Motel 6 also have a washer and dryer). I over packed here too. I took one change. Didn't need it. There is a K-Mart everywhere. If you want a new change stop and buy it. Money. Well every serious merchant, as far as I am concerned accepts VISA. The Visa card is light and doesn't take up much room. I'll take $20.00 cash for a real emergency ( like an ice cream). I took too much cash too. I came home with $18.00.

I pulled up Motel 6 on the Internet and found that they had locations along my entire route. What do I like about Motel 6? You pretty much know what your going to get. It's just like their ads say "nice clean place to stay for a reasonable price." An important thing for me, is their truth in advertising. The rate they advertise is the rate you pay. I checked out some of the other national no frills motels. They would have big bill boards advertising an extra low price. They were all bait and switch operations. Go to check in and the story was always the same " Sorry, all of ' those ' rooms are already taken." I'd ask "just how many of ' those ' rooms did you have?" They never knew the answer to that. Come on 20/20 or 60 Minutes do your thing on these people. So, the long and short of it. Don't waste your time just go to Motel 6.

That's all I need. My ZUMA, Razor, Toothbrush, VISA , $20 cash and Motel 6.