Ready to take off

So here I’m sitting at Brussels Airport, killing time before I take off for Minneapolis via Amsterdam. The first obstacle is past me: I arrived here without problems. After yesterday’s terror attack at Brussels Central Station, it was questionable if the trains would run normal, but luckily they did. I also passed the security check at the airport, despite my bag full of cables and electronic devices. Suspicious, isn’t it? In the end, the security guy was only interested in one item…..”It’s a motorcycle mirror!….”???”…..Apparently it was deemed inappropriate to blow up a plane so I was waved through.

Yesterday I received my second Sat Nav from my GPS shop; they had managed to install the North America map properly on it. After more than two weeks of struggling with the Garmin support (the map had been assigned to the wrong GPS device), I gave up and bought another map that I installed on the Zumo 350….and it didn’t work properly. But in the end, it seemed to work yesterday. The problem is that I can’t transfer the maps to Basecamp on my computer, the monitor is too small (that’s difficult to explain now), so I need to have a device connected to the computer in order to see the map in Basecamp. But this wouldn’t work yesterday! A brief moment of shock. Without a GPS map, there’s no rally. In the end, a re-boot seemed to solve the problem….

My biggest concern is now to get the bike out of customs tomorrow in Minneapolis. Air freight is usually straightforward, but I have been told by my shipper that US officials increasingly insist to deal with a broker and not a private person. In this case, I’d have a problem. I have Thursday and Friday to get the bike back, if I don’t manage, there’s no rally for me. I want to think that I have seen worse and even getting the bike out of Dubai harbour did not take more than two days…Let’s keep fingers crossed.

As usual, I will provide a link to my GPS track the next days….if you want to know the password, contact me and I will send it to you.

Heading for the gate….