Senioritis is an ugly thing

BikerDude is gearing up for his last push. Graduation is May 17 on Long Island, but he will still have to finish his last three classes-- simultaneously. The deal was that he could walk in May graduation if he finished his remaining classes by July, and he will meet that deadline, but the most he's ever taken at a time up until now is two, so he's going to have to work hard to finish out undergrad life. That seems appropriate. After that, he will have the entire months of July and August off before he starts grad school at BTSR in the fall.

Remember Senioritis? That blissful illness that befalls those about to graduate, when the end of the race is in sight, you know you only have to pass your finals, turn in your last English essay and try not to blow up the school with your chemistry final and then-- FREEDOM!!

Multiply that by about 10 and you get where BikerDude is right now.

He's been working full-time and going to school full time for four years now. He's still looking at four years of grad school, but that is going to be very different-- sort of like senior year after you had gotten all of your acceptance and rejection letters and knew where you'd be going to college in the fall. In fact, along with his formal acceptance letter into BTSR, he was given a grant for having one of the highest GPAs of the incoming class (he will be graduating Summa Cum Laude), but I have reminded him that he still has to actually finish the classes! He will, but he has been spending a lot of time recently daydreaming.

He is specifically daydreaming about his ultimate graduation present. When he graduates from grad school in four years, he wants us to take a month-long cross-country bike trip. For this, we will need, as best as I can tell, a camper and most likely a new bike. Or a second bike.

The camper is easy. There are these super-cool little pop-ups that can be towed by a motorcycle. I grew up camping in a pop-up camper, and I think this sounds fabulous!



Cute!

As for the second bike, he has determined that we either need to seriously upgrade his current bike or, better yet, buy a bigger one. If you have ever known a biker, you know that one can never own too many bikes. This is his current bike:




This is the one he wants to upgrade to:



Undeniably more comfy-- a rolling Barca Lounger, one might even say. Not that I'm complaining!

The other plan would be for me to get my Piaggio MP3, get comfortable enough riding it to be able and willing to ride it across the country, and for him to take his old bike and us to ride in tandem. I'm thinking that the Barca Lounger has better odds, all things considered.

Anyway, he's got the routes all planned, right down to calculating gas station/rest stops along the way (important for cross-country biking, where you are unlikely to get more than about 100 mile on a tank of gas). We will, apparently, be iron-butting it directly to Denver before the more leisurely aspect of the vacation will kick in, where we will then spend about three weeks touring through the Rockies and the western national parks: Zion, Yosimite, the Grand Canyon, etc. We'll end up in the South Dakota badlands and head home via a more northern route.

This is all fun, but about those final classes...?