The first trip my wife Diane & I took on our then-brand-new GL1500 SE was a three-day weekend from our home in Santa Barbara to Palm Springs. Great ride, but what a struggle to pack! We actually did cram everything into the three pieces of fitted Gold Wing luggage, but trying to decide what to leave home took the better part of two evenings. Then we bought a souvenir tee shirt and that put us over the top. Diane had to wear it home. At our next rally we bought a trunk top luggage rack and rack bag. That got us through a five-day trip up the coast of California to Arcata, but it was still a struggle figuring what to do without. 
At the California District Rally we attended a nicely done packing seminar and learned a few new tricks including the UPS shuffle. Ship the clean clothes to your motel and the dirty clothes home. This trick was going to get us to Wing-Ding in Billings (’97). We loaded two cartons with the cool matching outfits we had acquired since joining GWRRA. The dress-up cowboy boots, the pin-laden vests, the Honda hats, the hair dryer, and who knows what else. I called the motel to make sure they would accept the cartons. I shipped the two cartons via UPS ground in plenty of time. The four-day trip up to Billings could be managed, in a pinch, with our three pieces of fitted luggage, our rack bag and leaving home a bunch of stuff that let us claim we were roughing it. 
We had admired color-matched trailers at several rallies. We had discussed how nice it would be to have one now that we knew we actually enjoyed long distance touring. The cost was a stumbling block. We were serious enough about a trailer that I had read all the ads, checked the message boards, numerous web sites, and chatted with several folks about what they liked. I was pretty taken with the Bushtec and Escapade suspension systems, and was convinced air adjustable was the way to go. Escapade had come out with the SE model, clearly designed to look just great behind a Gold Wing SE. It was featured in their ads in our color combination. I was pretty smitten. It was a bunch of money, but if I was going to tug a trailer, it was going to have to look really cool, and this one did. 

Rare photo of Lee & Diane in a State Park campground.

On the road to Wing Ding in Billings, we hit a motel or two that did not have an in-room coffee maker. Our travel coffee maker was in the box on the UPS truck. At the end of a long day in the saddle, I really like a different pair of shoes, like the ones in the box on the UPS truck. Crossing the deserts of California, Nevada and Utah, we wished for a cooler box on the front of a trailer to pull a cold drink out of as we watched others do at gas stops. I think you can imagine the tone of some of the intercom chat as we rode along. We were wanting a trailer, and the more we talked about it, the more we wanted it. 
The day before we got to Billings, we got caught in the cold front that passed through. Boy, did we want our heavy leathers—the ones in the box on the UPS truck. Why were the leathers in the box? Because we were crossing deserts on our way to Billings; Glacier National Park was on the ride home. That’s when we thought we would need the heavy leathers. Oh, for a trailer, so we could just take it all! 
The motel in Billings was great, the room was nice, and the folks were friendly and helpful. But they had no idea where the “other” box was. UPS had delivered only one box, the one with the clean underwear and T-shirts. The really nice clothes, the vests, the fancy boots, and the heavy leathers were somewhere else. I called the UPS 800 number and gave them the tracking number. The UPS tracking system is very efficient; he told me our box was in Minneapolis. Too bad the trucking system isn’t as efficient as the tracking system. I asked if he could send it to us next day air. He said he could not change the routing method en route. I asked when we would get the box. He said it would take four days because of the Fourth of July holiday. I explained that was the day we were leaving. He said he was sorry. I told Diane she was going to have quite a shopping spree. She was not amused. A trailer was sounding better all the time.
In a last ditch effort, I called the shipping guy at my office and told him our tale. He said he’d try. He called back in awhile and said we’d have our box the next day. He told UPS to ship it next day air. They said No. Our guy said, “Okay, hold the box at Minneapolis and I’ll have Fed Ex pick it up.” Fed Ex was the magic word. UPS put the box on their airplane and we had it the next day. (Hint: make friends with the folks in the shipping department.)
Meanwhile, back in Billings, we were checking out the trailers at our motel. It seemed like everyone had one except us. The next morning, on our way to the vendor fair at Wing Ding, I said something like, “I doubt Escapade will have a trailer in our color scheme.” I figured this would save us a lot of money, because we were really ready to buy one, but only if it were the right color scheme. Our Gold Wing is pearl white with metallic silver panels trimmed in gold pin stripe. While we just love this color combination, it’s not the most popular (part of why we like it so much). While Escapade has featured this exact color scheme in their ads, I didn’t really expect to find it at their vendor booth. 
We found the Escapade display. They had a trailer in our exact color scheme. I could envision the damage to the bank account. But just as I was drooling over the trailer, checking the long list of options and features this one had, the fellow next to me said, “I just bought this one.” My heart sank, my chin fell and my stomach churned. In my mind I had resolved the damage to the bank account. I had checked the option list twice. It had everything I wanted and nothing I didn’t. I had mentally packed the trailer with our stuff and had room to spare. I just knew they would never have another one in the perfect, three-tone color combination. The sales guy came back. I asked, and he said, “Sure, I got another one just like this out back.” The deal was done so fast it made the globes on the Mastercard spin. 
The frame hitch and wiring harness were installed the next day. Diane had the trailer right next to the Wing making sure each of the three colors matched perfectly; she has the eye for that sort of thing.
We just love this trailer. We towed it home over the “Going to the Sun Highway” in Glacier, down the Lewis & Clark trail in Idaho, through the mud in Oregon, and down the coast of California. The next year we hauled it over the Rockies and clear cross-country to Honda Hoot in Asheville and Wing Ding in Huntsville. The suspension is faultless. We are convinced it has a stabilizing effect in high crosswinds. It has never fishtailed. It has never bounced.

On the road to Devil’s Tower

We carry several pairs of boots and comfy shoes. We carry dress clothes in the hanging garment bag and water and soda in the cooler. I carry tools in the spare tire well. I figure there’s little point in a spare tire for the trailer if I don’t have one for the Wing. I carry a tire plug kit and the air hose for the on-board compressor. We have the hair dryer, the coffee maker, the luggage dolly, the folding camp chairs, extra reading materials, and sometimes the tent and sleeping bags. We’re not big campers, but it’s nice to know you can. When we buy stuff along the way we don’t have to ask if they ship; we always have room. In fact, we’ve carried stuff home for our friends, including a stock Wing saddle when one of our friends decided they had to ride home on a Corbin. We might still do an overnighter without the trailer, but if it’s two nights, the stuff tug comes along.
At home we store a bunch of the bike stuff in the trailer. It’s great storage space for things we don’t use that often: the camping gear, the Chapter banner, the cold weather riding clothes, etc. It’s easier to justify the space the trailer takes in the garage if it’s full of something you were going to store anyway.
We have attended John Preston’s Trailering Seminar twice now at Wing Dings, and recommend it to anyone even thinking of getting a trailer. We’ve taken the GWRRA Trailering Course and highly recommend that as well. Nick Hoppner did a great article in Wing World on the fundamentals of trailering, and you should read this article at least once a year. (Ed Note: see pages 60-63 of this issue.)
I still admire folks who can hit the road for three weeks with all their gear stuffed into the truck box. But for us, life on the road is more enjoyable for dragging along the comforts we enjoy, and the great flexibility the trailer allows. 
See you down the road, and trailer safely! 

---

From the Wing World Magazine

---

Back to their Bio
Back to the Members' Page