Milwaukee Bound, but It's Complicated!

It started out easy enough.  This is going to be called the "straight away" portion of the plan. We've known for years that 2018 is Harley Davidson's 115th Anniversary and we're likely to go as we made the trips for the 105th and 110th.  About a year before the date, we asked around to see if any others were interested.  We gathered a group of 14 interested riders. The original plan was to leave Pocatello Aug 25th and arrive in Milwaukee Aug 29th.  Enjoy the long weekend of festivities and head back on Monday, Sept 3.  Original route included going up through Glacier Park and Hwy 2 across the top because it was such an great road when we rode it in Aug 2016 as part of Torrey's big ride.  The return route was possibly through CO in an effort to avoid I-80, but firm plans had not yet been determined on this piece.
 
 

Now we start getting into the "twisties".  Last fall,  I was encouraged to consider putting my name in for a soon-to-be open position on the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy's Executive Committee representing District 7.  I filed the necessary paperwork and emerged from the October meeting of Districts 6, 7, and 8 with the nomination and endorsement of the District as the candidate to move on to the election  at the annual NABP meeting in May in Denver. In the end it turned out I ran unopposed, and was successfully elected to the NABP EC.

 

In light of being the sole candidate at the District meeting, NABP staff afforded me a sneak peak at what the travel schedule for 2018 would be should I be elected.  The first meeting I would need to attend following election is August 24-25 in Chicago.  Well that immediately put a kink in the plans to leave Pocatello for Milwaukee on Aug 25.  Torrey and I immediately started running through the various scenarios of how to make this work.  Several options had been considered, but we landed on a scenario that would be altered by us leaving 4 days earlier and arriving in Chicago Aug 23 in the evening.  That way we can both still ride our own bikes in both directions.

 

Of course, then came the part where we had to notify the other riders who had planned to go with us- most of which would not be able to be off work for the 4 extra days.  A few fell out completely and a few surprised us with the notion that they could go early with us.  The days while I'm in meetings in Chicago, Torrey and others had considered putting together a ride around Lake Michigan.   Following the meeting in Chicago, our plan was to lay low in Fond du Lac, WI (an hour north of MKE) with my family who resides there.   We'd then go to Milwaukee on Aug 29th and join up with those who are on the original ride plan.  From there we just get back on the straight away.

 

 

Jumping ahead to where we ended up, we've got a total of 6 of us committed to going - with Torrey and I leaving today and Rick & Deb, Rudy and Cami leaving on Saturday, Aug 25th as we had planned to do originally.