ryanh1006
Kyrgyzstan Expat
Back in 2012, my wife and I moved to Kyrgyzstan, so this thread may be a little different. With Bishkek as home base we are exploring our new home region. Much of what we do has an expedition feel to it, but they are more like short trips that make up a possibly life long expedition.
The first part of this thread will be catchup, starting with our round the US trip in the spring and summer of 2012 followed by some of the various expeditions in Kyrgyzstan. Once I'm caught up I'll start adding expeditions as we make them (I now own a jeep tourist business here, so we make trips regularly).
In April 2012 we sold my business and on May 15 2012 we sold our house in Michigan (we were temporary Michigan residents, I'm a South Carolina native and my wife is a North Carolina native). Since we didn't have to be in Bishkek for work until July 25, we took off on a 1985 Honda Shadow VT500C that I had built the previous winter just for this trip. We made it back into Michigan just in time to leave for K-stan. We hit 23 states and covered over 9000 miles (15,000 km) in that time. Of the 8 weeks we spent 5 on the road and the other three chilling with close friends and family. Some highlights of the trip are below:
Starting in Detroit:
Chicago:
Northern Iowa:
The bike, my wife named it Abram, somewhere in eastern South Dakota. I bought it with a bit over 6000 miles on it in the early summer of 2011 for $700. Learned to ride, rebuilt it into it's blacked out, semi-ratbike form for about $500, and sold it when we left the country in 2012 with over 20,000 miles on it for $900:
My wife, she's a trooper to put up with my crazy ideas!
The first part of this thread will be catchup, starting with our round the US trip in the spring and summer of 2012 followed by some of the various expeditions in Kyrgyzstan. Once I'm caught up I'll start adding expeditions as we make them (I now own a jeep tourist business here, so we make trips regularly).
In April 2012 we sold my business and on May 15 2012 we sold our house in Michigan (we were temporary Michigan residents, I'm a South Carolina native and my wife is a North Carolina native). Since we didn't have to be in Bishkek for work until July 25, we took off on a 1985 Honda Shadow VT500C that I had built the previous winter just for this trip. We made it back into Michigan just in time to leave for K-stan. We hit 23 states and covered over 9000 miles (15,000 km) in that time. Of the 8 weeks we spent 5 on the road and the other three chilling with close friends and family. Some highlights of the trip are below:
Starting in Detroit:
Chicago:
Northern Iowa:
The bike, my wife named it Abram, somewhere in eastern South Dakota. I bought it with a bit over 6000 miles on it in the early summer of 2011 for $700. Learned to ride, rebuilt it into it's blacked out, semi-ratbike form for about $500, and sold it when we left the country in 2012 with over 20,000 miles on it for $900:
My wife, she's a trooper to put up with my crazy ideas!