Being an "IT Professional," whatever that means, I felt that if we were going to take a journey like this, that we should be outfitted properly, electronics-wise. Linda's Goldwing is already a marvel of extras and gadgets -- grip and seat heaters, AM/FM/MP3 audio, weather radio, cruise control, even a cup holder! But I felt that we needed at least two extras: a way to communicate on the trip, and a navigation unit. Even though Linda regularly tells me where to go (joke, honey!), I figured that we could do better.
We added the CB module to Linda's bike. It fit in a spot below the helmet trunk, and wired into the existing controls. It took several hours on a Saturday, only because of my inexperience in taking the covers (and trunk) off and putting it back together.
I bought a J&M CB complete kit that had all the brackets, antenna, headset and cabling I'd need, and a Garmin zūmo 550 GPS Navigation device made for the motorcycle. It took another Saturday to hook all this up on my bike, but I've managed to tie the Garmin in to the CB unit, so both of them will come through my helmet headset. On top of that, the Garmin now has a 4GB SD RAM card installed that I'm filling with MP3's for the trip. Yes, "Born To Be Wild" is included!
I think we're ready. As a warm-up, we're planning on going to Columbia tomorrow, about 85 miles away. We're going to hit Thunder Tower, a Harley shop, and Riverbanks Zoo. More on that tomorrow night.
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