Jim and Carol (nee Hennessey) McWhirter met in Redding California while in high school when they were participating in a church youth choir Christmas program. They were married in 1978 not long after graduating from high school, way too young ! 🙂 They grew up in the Redding California area, a gateway for all sorts of outdoor activities. Jim in particular was an outdoor and adventure enthusiast, and introduced (dragged?) Carol into the world of camping, wilderness backpacking, sailing (ok – that one did not go so well, long story) and eventually motorcycling.
They bought their first motorcycle in 1980 while Jim was a student at the University of California, Davis; a 1970 Honda CB750. Discovering that they enjoyed traveling and camping by motorcycle, and having desire to “see the USA”, they arranged to shed work and school responsibilities for the summer of 1982, and left on a trip around the USA and Canada on the Honda, covering over 12,000 miles. At the start of that trip, they thought maybe an entire summer was too long, and maybe they would get homesick and tired of the road. But at the end of August when school and work forced the end of the journey, they discovered they were sad to see it end, and wished they could continue. That trip was the seed, planted over 35 years ago, for their current adventure.
Between then and now a lot happened – five children were born. Once children came along, first Carol, and a few years later Jim, gave up riding motorcycles out of a sense of responsibility, but through all those years maintained that “once the kids are grown – we’re going to do it again!”. Jim eventually completed a Ph.D. in Physics (Cornell Univ), became a professor (Union College, Schenectady NY) and later left to work in the Semiconductor Industry (KLA-Tencor and Ultratech), which had the added benefit of bringing them “back home” to California. Carol home-schooled five children through high school, saw all of them go on to college and successfully “launch”, and later worked as a care giver for children with developmental challenges.
Somewhere along the way, Jim became fascinated with South America, and the Patagonia region in particular. Anticipating the eventual return to motorcycling, he began to nurture the idea of a grand trip by motorcycle all the way to the tip of Argentina. Jim likes to point out that he got this idea on his own, long before Ewan McGregor had become Obi-Wan Kenobe, yet alone filmed “The Long Way Around” with Charley Boorman! (Though Jim and Carol did thoroughly enjoy watching their adventures).
True to their word, once the youngest left for college, Jim and Carol stepped back into motorcycling. Starting in the summer of 2011, they re-entered the world of motorcycling, at first by renting motorcycles. They took trips in the Southern California desert, Arizona and weekend rides near their home in San Jose California. In the past, Carol had always ridden pillion (as a passenger, for the non-motorcycle crowd), and during this time she surprised everyone when she said “I want to learn to ride!” And so she did! She took a Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF) course and got her license, and her first bike, a Honda Shadow, in 2013. Jim bought a BMW R1200RT, and over the past five years they have taken a number of extended trips from their San Jose base, traveling from there to Canada, Mexico and as far east at Wyoming. They currently are both riding BMW “GS” style motorcycles, Carol on a F700GS and Jim on a R1200GSA.
With the dream of an extended motorcycle trip to South America as motivation, they put plans in place many years ago with a goal to retire early. They recognized then (and now can experientially confirm!) that it gets harder to do such things as you get older. They are thankful that those plans and circumstances all aligned to enable Jim to retire in June of 2018. They sold their house, moved to Hollister, and began moving their possessions into storage with a goal to be in Mexico by Christmas. But Jim developed back problems and had to have surgery (a discectomy) which was certainly unplanned. He is now well on the way to recovery and they plan to be on their way by the middle of January 2019, when their lease runs out and they become nomads with no physical address! If you are reading this after that date, then they are hopefully on their way and you can read about their adventures on this site.