Getting the bug to ride

For weeks I’ve been thinking about making another long cross country motorcycle trip. My last long trip was in 2008 when I rode my Rocket III Touring to Vegas and back. Last year, my son, Alex, and I had planned to ride to Yellowstone but we never did. I rode to the Smoky Mountains instead; not quite the same. I definitely had the bug to do another long ride, and I really wanted to do Yosemite and Yellowstone. You really can’t ride a bike from Atlanta and hit those parks inside a 2 week vacation, though. I priced renting bikes, but at 200+ per day (when you get all the waivers), it’s just not practical; not only because of the cost, but it takes me a while to get used to a motorcycle. I can’t just hop on a bike I have no experience with and ride through windy mountain roads. The solution I came up with was to break the trip in two phases. Phase 1: ride and store the bike at a good jumping off place for reaching Yosemite and Yellowstone. Phase 2: is obvious except the part of getting the bike back home. I figure my options there are 1) sell the bike on consignment or 2) store it again. I thought about this all through June and July, but I didn’t get serious until last week.
I decided to store my black tiger in Vegas. Why Vegas? For starters, I like Vegas. But, almost as important was the cost of storage and access to an airport. The hotels at Vegas are cheap; especially on week days. All the hotels have shuttles to and from the airport (also cheap). The lock with Vegas is there’s a Triumph dealer there. If I ride my bike out there, it will need service (and probably repair) before it can go on another long ride.
With the front wheel turned, the black tiger will just fit in a 7 foot space. Thanks to Pythagoras, I know that means a 5x5 storage place will probably work (square root of 50 is just a tad of 7), but I’d rather have 5x10. Most 5x10s go for 75 a month – too expensive. It turns out there’s a self storage place in Vegas (in sight of the strip) that rents 5x10 units for 35 a month – done. Now I just got to get there.