My Northwest Territory Ride will be delayed one week due to a death in the family. I now expect to start my ride on the 19th of May instead of the 12th of May.

Nonetheless, I will be in Indianapolis on the 16th of May. If I had been on my ride I would have been there on the 16th, but on my bike. Instead I will be in my car, or should I say my cage, a Ford F-150. The significance of this to my ride is that I will be awarding the two chocolate shakes to the two winners of the US1 Traffic Light Count Contest. See the Wrap UP of my US Northeast Ride. I will make an entry to my Northwest Territory Travelogue on the 16th, even though I will not have riden my bike even one mile.

So, come visit me again on the 16th and then follow me daily starting on the 19th.

I have zeroed in on what my next ride will be. I had decided to call it my "Northwest Territory Ride", but then I decided that since nobody seems to know what the Northwest Territory is, or was, that it would be a mistake. Do you know what the Northwest Territory is? Look up above and you will see. When I was a school kid in Indiana, this was well covered in my "Indiana History" text book. If you want to know more, you can Google "Northwest Territory".

So, then I decided to call it my "Upper Peninsula Ride". I will be riding through the Michigan Upper Peninsula, it is my greatest distance from home, where I turn around and head back, and I think most people have heard of the Upper Peninsula.

I even prepared this page with the "Upper Peninsula" name, but then I decided I was going to call the ride what I wanted to in the first place, even if nobody but me knows what it means. If you have read to this point, you now know what the Northwest Territory is. So, welcome to my Northwest Territory Ride. I will be riding through every one of the Northwest Territory states, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. (Actually, a corner of Minnesota was in the Northwest Territory, but I probably will not ride through any of that portion. But, who knows, I often change my mind during a ride so don't be surprised if I take a side trip into that portion of Minnesota.)

Some of the key things I want to do on this ride are to ride through Memphis because I have never done that, to make good on my promise to award chocolate shakes to the two winners of the "Number of Traffic Lights on US1" contest last year, to get a picture of the Ohio Capitol, the Michigan Capitol, and the Kansas Capitol, to visit family in Indianapolis and Louisville, to ride through Dallas, and to have coffee and beignets at Cafe Du Monde. And, to see the Upper Peninsula.

The planned route is shown below.The rough distance is 5000 miles, and I have targeted possible overnight stops with the arrowheads.

My current plan is to leave home on May 12, 2015. The ride will be about 2 1/2 to 3 weeks long. I plan to ride Interstates in Florida until I head north into Alabama, and then regular roads until I hit I-10 on my way back home.

In case you did not know, I have been riding my motorcycle through state capitol cities to take pictures of the capitols. You can see my collection at US Capitols. I will add three more on this ride, Ohio, Michigan, and Kansas. That will make me three short of getting all of the "Lower 48".

I will do this ride like I have done others, by posting pictures and text every day of the ride. Each day of my journey will be a separate page shown on the menu at the left. You can start at the beginning by selecting the first day, or at the end by selecting the last day. Or, you can have the entire trip on a single page (a long page) by selecting "Single Page". I won't put together the single page until the ride is complete. The little arrows at the top corners and bottom corners of each page will take you to the previous or next page. The map shown near the top of the menu on the left will be updated daily to show my actual track; the small blue bars show where I spent each night; the big blue arrow shows where I am. Any time you go to my travelogue, it will open on my most recent day.

If you are interested in my other motorcycle travelogues, go to the bottom of my home page at http://rhopkins.us/. The map below shows where I will have ridden my motorcycle by the time this ride is complete. You can click on the maps to have a more detailed view.

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