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There are friends, good friends, dear friends, and people who change your life. This is a story about the latter and the efforts a dear friend expended to honor that great friend in his life. First, a little back story. Riding motorcycles is one thing, traveling by motorcycle is another, more fulfilling activity. Everyone here probably agrees, and there probably wouldnt be this forum, if that wasnt a true fact. I have ridden motorcycles since i was 14, growing up in Alaska, and learning how to hotwire my friends street 70 Honda. (you just unplugged some wires going into the headlight and plugged them into each other). Back then, riding motorcycles was a first taste of freedom, taking you further and faster than your bicycle. If you were lucky, your friend(s) had a bike you could ride two up on, or borrow. I had those friends. Fast forward a couple of years and i was able to get my own first motorycle, a 1972 Honda CL125 twin. I didnt buy it, as my parents wouldnt let me. So, my sisters boyfriend at that time ended up just giving it to me. It did need some work and some parts, which a summer job took care of. Being a street bike, knobbies were added. It was Alaska, afterall. You could get your license for a bike at 14, and there were no restrictions on where you could ride offroad. for the most part, that is. That bike was abandoned when i moved to California in 1974, and my brother probably beat it to death (i should ask him sometime what happened to it). When i was finally able to afford one, my next motorcycle was a Honda CM400T, a triumph looking wannabe. But, being a Honda, it was reliable and fun and i was able to get back up to speed as a motorcycle rider. Bikes remained in my environment for the next two decades, more as simple transportation than anything else. There were no rallies that i knew about, no Road of Bones to lust after. I'm sure they were there, just not on my radar. Then, along comes 2006 and LWR. Having a BMW SAV, i was automatically entered into the BMW Car Club, which has a great monthly magazine. One of the articles that still sticks in my mind was about these two guys riding bikes around the world. Something called GS's. Wasnt sure what those were, but i did know the brand, having owned a K1200RS. Within a few weeks of reading that article, i get a call from my brother talking about this series he watched about those same two guys i had read about. Ewan, or Charlie, or something. He said i had to watch it, so i jumped on Amazon and ordered the DVD (remember those?) box set. Well, it happened to show up on a Friday, so i went home after work and stuck the first disc in the player after dinner. At 4am the next morning, having finished every episode, i started searching frantically for more episodes! I mean, there had to be a season 2, right? Well, there wasnt (not for awhile, at least), so i started wandering aimlessly about the house. About that time, i get a call from my brother, asking if i had watched the series yet. I said yeah, straight thru. He then asked that question that's started a million journeys "when do we leave?". I had never vacationed on a motorcycle. I had ridden one from Anchorage to Los Angeles, a Honda 750 Interceptor. The one with a board for a seat. So, I knew that sight seeing could be done, and fun roads discovered. The two of us planned a trip to Yellowstone, our first on bikes, and our first together. Little did we know the addiction that was to follow .....