It’s a Wrap!

I made it home on the 18th. The trip from Punta Arenas to Santiago to Houston to Chicago had only one hiccup. When I booked the flight out of Punta Arenas back in December, I reserved a seat on a flight that was leaving at 2:54. What I failed to realize is that LATAM’s reservation system was working on 24-hour clock, so my flight was leaving at 2:54 AM!!! It never crossed my mind that this small an airport would be scheduling flights out at 2:54 in the morning. I got on a 2:45 PM flight by going standby. It was clear sailing after that.

I’m very glad to be back home and reconnecting with Kathy and the rest of my family.

Now comes an interesting challenge for me…figuring out the next step in my life. I accomplished one very important objective on my journey: I put sufficient time and distance between leaving my job at Horizon and now. As a result, I believe I’m in a good position to make the best decision possible about where I should spend my time and effort at this point in my life and what my new priorities should be. I’m going to take the next couple to three weeks to sort this out. With social distancing practices in place, I should have plenty of time and opportunity to accomplish this…ugh!

I’d like to thank the following people for making my adventure possible and/or contributing to it.

Kathy and my family – for putting up with my craziness in deciding to do it, planning it out and then putting up with my absence (maybe the last bit was more of an advantage for them)!!!

RIDE Adventures: https://www.rideadv.com/. RIDE Adventures guided the Pucon to Ushuaia section of the trip, which was 17 days. Eric Lange, who I believe is the owner, and I chatted a number of times and he helped organize my thoughts and direct me towards the trip I booked. Christine was also a big help. Eric Thomson, our guide and leader, was a joy every day on the trip with translation help, local knowledge, great tips, funny stories, entertaining meals… Eric is a great character and someone I will never forget. He will go the distance for anyone on the road, as I have seen him do multiple times. I will be back with RIDE Adventures for additional trips in the future.

The client group on the Pucon to Ushuaia leg of my trip was fantastic. Thank you to Gary and Liana, Kevin and Jane, JD, Craig, Mike, Phil, John and Randy. Great to get to know all of you and I hope our paths cross again someday. I would love to ride with you again!!!

Earth River Expeditions: https://www.earthriver.com/. The eight day Rio Futaleufu rafting trip was organized and guided by Earth River. Eric Hertz runs Earth River out of NJ, I believe, and his two sons, Cade and Teal, were our guides along with Umberto and Kyle. They were a great team providing advice, laughs, protection, info and enjoyment. I plan on working with Earth River again sometime in the future.

The client group I was with on the Fu was a wonderful collection of people from all walks of life and geographies. It’s always a risk going on a guided trip with a group of strangers, but in this case, it was a delight! Thanks again to Gail, Barb, Elaine, Dan, Jay, Cheryl, Tom, Crystel and Keith. It was a pleasure spending a week with you on the river!

RawHyde Adventures: https://rawhyde-offroad.com/. I took a three day off-road motorcycle riding course and then a two day trip into the Mojave Desert with Owen and Rob (my coaches) and a great group of people to learn how to ride a motorcycle off-road and in the conditions I was anticipating would exist on my itinerary. Thank God I did this. I would have either been seriously injured or dead without having taken this step. RawHyde is a great group located in Castaic, CA and I highly recommend them. Also, thanks to Bob Clark at Motoworks in Chicago for pointing me to RawHyde.

Ride-Chile: http://www.ride-chile.com/. I rented the BMW from Ride-Chile and they did a great job of working with me and addressing my needs for the middle three weeks of my trip. Ana was a joy to work with and helped out anyway that was possible.

Luciano. I met Luciano on 2/17 under a highway sign in the Atacama Desert. He took me under his wing and helped me out for several days thereafter. Luciano, who is from Argentina, wants to ride Route 66, and hopefully, I’ll be able to be his partner on doing so in the future.

Jose, who I also me on 2/17 under the highway sign, was a joy to be with for several days.

Pedro, who I met on the road and had a nice lunch with. I hope to see you when you ride through Chicago for a tour of the Blues bars in the area.

The two men who helped pull my motorcycle out of the Rio Santa Maria outside of San Jose, Argentina.

All the folks at Horizon Therapeutics. I would not have been able to take the time to embark on this adventure without their contribution to building a great company and allow me to benefit from their efforts.

Below is a the GPS track of my trip. I used a SPOT Hero device, which recorded my location every 30 minutes or so for the length of the trip. I divided the map into six sections to provide sufficient resolution. After 6,700 miles on two motorcycles and eight days whitewater rafting later, I’m very grateful to have had the opportunity to experience all the people, places and adventures. Hopefully, there will be more adventures in the future…Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Ecuador are at the top of my list, but this time with Kathy…stay tuned….

The below photo of Gary and Liana, just about says it all!!!