After two trips around the United States on a motorcycle, Joe Jones never thought he would make the journey again.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit and prevented the longtime Omaha resident from doing much riding. Now, with the steady rollout of vaccines, and after receiving the vaccine himself, Jones is preparing to make the odyssey once more while he still can.
Jones, 77, took the same trip in 2008 and 2009. Even though he is a little older now, he isn’t worried.
“On a trip like this, you got to make your mind up before you go,” said Jones, a retired steamfitter who worked for Omaha Public Schools. “If you start looking at how far it is, you’re defeating the purpose.”
On his previous rides around the country, Jones rode solo. This time, he’s taking two friends who have never been on this trip.
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Herman Brown Jr., one of those friends, said he is eager to hit the road.
“With COVID and all the cold this winter, I’m glad to finally to be able to stretch out on the road,” said Brown, who lives in Gretna.
Texas is the first destination on the itinerary.
“We’re all gonna meet here at my house in Omaha the morning of June the first,” Jones said. “We’ll take off about 7 or 8 o’clock that morning and head down to Texas.”
Once the trio makes their way to San Antonio, they will head east to New Orleans, then the Florida Keys for the southern portion of the trip. Once they leave Florida, they will make their way up the East Coast all the way to the Canadian border, then travel to Detroit.
From Detroit, they will ride to the West Coast, stopping in Seattle, then traveling down the coast to Los Angeles. Then they will head east to Phoenix and finish the loop with stops in El Paso and San Antonio before heading back to Omaha.
Jones, who grew up in Mississippi and moved to Nebraska at the age of 19, said there is nothing he’s trying to avoid this time around, although it would be nice not to ride through another rainstorm. He would also like to avoid another bout with kidney stones, which plagued him during his last trip.
“I’d like to avoid those, if possible,” Jones said with a chuckle. “But you don’t worry about things you don’t have any control over on a trip like this. If you worry, then there’s no use to you doing it.”
There’s not a single stop on the trip that Jones said he plans to avoid.
“It was all nice. The people that I met, and you always meet lovely people out there, and I’ve never met a stranger,” Jones said. “You stop on the roads and people come up and look at your bike, and little kids come up to sit on the bike or take pictures. I’m looking forward to all of that. I didn’t have any bad experiences, even with the rainstorms and the kidney stones.”
As for what he’s eager to experience, Jones said he’s looking forward to “enjoying nature without a worry.”
“I’m excited for the Florida Keys, because the water is so green and pretty. And then, up in Idaho and Montana, going through the mountains and seeing how high some of the mountains are. It’s not something that man made, it is just the way the good Lord made it itself,” Jones said.
Now, the group is preparing for the trip.
“We got our bikes and we’re getting them all shaped up to go,” Jones said. “I’m taking a new bike this time, my 2019 Gold Wing.”
Jones’ other buddy, Wayne Bullock, who lives in Tennessee, said he has been waiting to go on this trip for years.
“I told Joe I would go on this trip once I retired, since I couldn’t go the last two times because I was employed,” Bullock said. “I’ll be riding 10 hours to meet him in Omaha, but I’m excited. This will be the trip of a lifetime.”
Even with all the stops and sightseeing, Jones said he’s most excited for one thing.
“Just being out on the road, riding that motorcycle with no worries,” he said.