Travels With Connie #1 Meet Connie

I am going to start a series of posts on my motorcycle ramblings. This post is the precursor to that series to explain a bit about traveling on a motorcycle. Not riding on a motorcycle, traveling. There is a difference.

The title for this series will be "Travels with Connie" My apologies to the estate of John Steinbeck for the blatant abuse of his last book. It's been 55 years since Travels with Charley was published and about 50 since it changed my life.

Connie at the top of Sherman Pass, Washington

Connie is so known because she is a 2008 Kawasaki Concours 14 commonly known in the greater motorcycle community as a 'Connie'. She is a 1400 CC long legged touring machine. Six speeds and 140 HP put the top speed somewhere over 150 MPH. She's water cooled and shaft driven (no chain) to provide smooth operation at just about what ever pace you want to try her at. Her suspension is spectacular and incredibly adjustable so she can take anything that I have to give her. She has 75,000 miles on her and I'm sure I have used less than half of her service life.

Connie at Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Colorado

As you can plainly tell by the photos, Connie not only gets around she sleeps around. Sometimes at cheap motels but often just where sunset happens to catch her. Once in a while she is involved in a group activity, sometimes she stays with friends but is just as likely to be sleeping all by herself with her main man.

Connie Loves Wyoming

I have to admit, Connie and I have had a lot of fun. She's pretty tolerant of my looking at other motorcycles, and knows I'm going to wave at every pretty headlight I see. For all that, we have spent a lot of time joined at the hip and wouldn't have it any other way.

All the words in this article are written by me (with a slight assist from Connie) and the images are all owned by me.

Written with StackEdit.