The ride home is just around the corner! A group of Harley-Davidson riders will be leaving Anchorage, Alaska on August 16^th and heading down the Alaska-Canada Highway aka the “AlCan” to Milwaukee, Wisconsin the Home of Harley-Davidson. For anyone who has been living under a rock, this year marks the 110^th anniversary of Harley-Davidson Motor Company. This iconic brand means a lot of things to a lot of people. To me, it means my livelihood, my passion, my freedom and my favorite pastime! Not everyone can be as lucky as me and get all that rolled up into a career! Although this trip is a long haul, we are taking our time and enjoying the beautiful scenery we will be able to see along the way.

On the road for the 105th anniversary in 2008

Our group has been dubbed the “Rogue Riders” as a result of Alaska being left off the map for the 105^th Anniversary Party in 2008. Since they left us off, we created our own ride and called ourselves the Rogue Riders. The name was clever and stuck, so we are using it again! This year the shirt design for our group has the slogan “Hammer Down” which I imagine is appropriate for the way most of us ride…The ride down is not a giant group riding together, but rather a collection of smaller groups on the same journey and meeting in the same town every night. This allows everyone to ride at their own pace and keeps the roads a little safer for everyone. This year we have some great participants who will be riding down with us and I look forward to making some new friends as we bond on the road. We also are going to have some H-D backing and support with one of the executive level employees from the Motor Co joining us for the entire ride! Taren Rodabaugh will be shipping her bike up to Alaska and joining us for the ride down. She works in the Juneau Ave. facility in Milwaukee, Wisconsin as the Chief Service Strategy and Delivery Officer…I have no clue what that job description is, but I am sure I will find out along the way of our journey.

At signpost forest

During the past week or so, I have been getting phone calls from other Harley dealers along our route that are all being more than accommodating and throwing us some parties as we pass through their area! We have a private group party planned for when we enter the U.S. for our Rogue Riders only at the host hotel which should be a good time to share our stories from the road up to this point. At this point in our journey we will also be met by my good friend Lorie Muench, who is our Service Operations Area Representative for Harley-Davidson Motor Co. Further along in our journey we will be spending a couple days in Sturgis, South Dakota. This is our resting time before the final push to Milwaukee. We will all be staying for a couple days and enjoying some very scenic riding around the Black Hills. While we are in Sturgis I will be celebrating my birthday. This will be my second birthday on the road to Milwaukee, in 2008 we sang happy birthday and split a pop-tart at a gas station! I am sure I can find a little more fun in Sturgis this time around!

Me 🙂

This trip is the adventure of a lifetime and I am very excited to be getting ready for my second “Ride Home.” I bought a new 2013 Streetglide and got it all set up for the trip down. If you have any questions about our trip please contact us at The House of Harley-Davidson. We will be sharing photos, stories and maybe even a little Go-Pro footage from our trip on the blog and on facebook. Be sure to stay tuned!