Time to say Thanks

It was 20 years ago this month that Tim and Linda Balough set off the Big Bang that expanded my motorcycling universe.
They invited me to ride along on to the BMW MOA national rally at Laguna Seca racetrack near Monterey, Calif.
I can remember every road and every stop we made on that trip.
They introduced me to a style of motorcycle touring that's light years away from what I would have learned from Muthuh - earplugs, big mileage and big smileage days and, of course, no beer stops along the way.
Still luminous in my mind are:
The rainy pre-dawn ride out of Russell, Kans.
My first mountain ride - an after-dinner jaunt up from Idaho Springs to the Echo Lake Lodge and the flanks of Mount Evans
The late-afternoon ride along the Colorado River on a backdoor route to Moab, Utah.
Racing thunderstorms across the Utah desert
A 120-mph Autobahn-style romp across Nevada on U.S. 50
My first ride up the Pacific Coast Highway to Big Sur
Riding through dense fog along Monterey Bay on the way back to Laguna Seca from San Francisco
Crossing California's Central Valley in 100+ degree heat as I watched the odometer on my '81 R100RS roll over 30,000 miles
Staring death in the face when a moron in a pickup pulling a horse trailer blocked both lanes of the highway south of Reno as Linda and I approached at 80+ mph. Thank God for the MSF course and its braking training
My introduction to KOA camping at Elko, Nev.
Learning about U.S. 36 as a pleasant alternative route across Kansas

Up to that point, the only touring I had done was a couple of two-up short jaunts to Michigan and a little loop through southern Ontario - in at Windsor, out at Sarnia. That 5,000+ mile ride with Tim and Linda was a college education in motorcycle touring and a mind-expanding experience. It's not an exaggeration to say it changed my life. It showed me I could aspire to the continent-spanning travels that made the Baloughs and guys like Wayne Garrison stand out as some kind of BMW motorcycle gods. It gave me the confidence in myself and my bike to realize I could ride anywhere and anytime. It also gave me the confidence to expand other areas of my life and to throw off limitations and fears that I had unconsciously picked up from my parents and others.
I owe much of the good parts of my life over the past two decades to Tim and Linda and what they taught me by word and example on that trip.
I've put more than a quarter-million miles in my mirrors since then, but that trip remains the benchmark against which all of my subsequent travels have been measured.

Thanks Tim. Thanks Linda. And thanks to everyone who's shared a ride with me since.