ABC's of Touring

We bought our Harley Davidson motorcycles in 2001 but only had a partial season to enjoy them that year.  We bought Tamera's Sportster in May while my Dyna Wide Glide was bought in August of 2001.  Being new riders we didn't press our luck by venturing too far from home that first year.  Sometime during that year we became national HOG members.  The weather early 2002 was cool and wet so we didn't ride many miles then but sometime during that year, probably on a rainy day while reading Hog Tales, I caught the article promoting HOG's ABCs of Touring.  We decided to try it and I enjoyed adding a purpose to our riding plans.  It was something of a game like a scavenger hunt with route planning to maximize point gathering during each trip.  We only began our touring trips in July of 2002 but we managed to record 58 points that year.  Over the next two years, although we started earlier in the year, for various reasons, we could not score any more points.  In 2003 I learned that ABATE of Indiana also had a similar touring contest so we combined trips as best possible but this kept us in state for most of the riding season, and caused us to take many more pictures.  We had made a couple overnight trips those first two full years but in 2005 we took our longest adventure to date, riding the Blue Ridge Parkway for a week with fellow HOG members.  Although I had my heart attack about a month later, we still managed to break the 66 point treshold to earn the full package of HOG prizes.  Although we travelled to Michigan's UP and along Lake Superion to Duluth MN, 2006 was an off year collecting points and we managed only about 50 points.  We came back stronger than ever in 2007 amasing 76 points for the year with three long trips to the Natchez Trace, the Blue Ridge Pkwy again, and to Wisconsin and down the Mississippi River to Hannibal Mo.

2002 Pictures

2003 Pictures

2004 Pictures

2005 Pictures

2006 Pictures

2007 Pictures                2007 Scorecard

Return to my Motorcycling page for pictures and info on our trips and activities.

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