Every year, this blog elicits eager comments from wanna-be riders. The basis for their enthusiasm: Gary Lesser rides a Harley; how hard could it be?

There are a lot of you out there who apparently think the vroom-vroom life on the road is worth trying.

“Hey, I’d like to ride with you,” some blog readers tell me.

Always open to new adventures, I welcome their interest. “Great,” I say. “Do you have a bike?”

One such would-be rider is my old friend, Randy Suhr, who expressed his fanaticism last summer, after I completed an 18-day journey through the Colorado Rockies. Randy’s answer to my do-you-have-a-bike question: “Nope, I sure don’t.”

That took care of that.

Until February of this year, when Randy jumped in with both feet and bought a 2006 Yamaha V Star, a 650cc V-twin. It’s his first motorcycle since the 1970s, when he was young and crazy, as we all were back then. Since February, he’s endured damp, gray Seattle days, getting reacquainted with the mechanics of riding: balance, coordination, safety, judgment, situational awareness, and a little chutzpah thrown in for good measure.

So far, Randy’s specialized in baby steps – day trips of an hour or two.

Now, after a thousand miles of prep work, he’s ready to ride.

***

Our journey begins this morning at a Starbucks, a block off of I-5 in Lynnwood, Washington, just north of Seattle. In addition to providing caffeinated stimulants for the Millennial Generation, Starbucks is the rendezvous point on our way north from the Puget Sound area. I’m coming from Snohomish. Randy arrives from Poulsbo, a Scandinavian-themed city on the Kitsap Peninsula, where he and his wife, Jo, are remodeling an old family home.

Passports in hand, we head for Canada.

First, let me introduce you to Randy. We’ve known each other since 1983, when I was a TV news producer at KOMO-TV in Seattle, and he was a director. I structured the nightly newscast, selecting what stories appeared in what order, defining the “look” of the show, coordinating with live crews in the field. Randy worked with the technical team, giving birth to my vision.

Restless after rising to the top of his profession in Seattle, Randy headed south for Los Angeles, the second-largest TV market in the US. There, he directed news programming at KNBC – a long, long way from his childhood home in Republic, Washington, population 1,073. In his spare time while working for NBC in Burbank, Randy tried to break into the film business – a long-time dream of his. It’s a tough road, where success is often based more on cronyism than merit.

Randy worked on a number of films, including Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Grumpy Old Men, and Smoke Signals. He hung out with such Hollywood luminaries as Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Ann-Margret, William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. The last 15 years of his career – until his retirement in 2014 – were spent primarily as a first assistant director on various TV sitcoms, including Everybody Loves Raymond (141 episodes) and The New Adventures of Old Christine (88 episodes). Yes, Randy knows Ray Romano and Julia Louis-Dreyfus on a first-name basis.

At one time, Everybody Loves Raymond had 24 million viewers in a week, and The New Adventures of Old Christine 15 million. That’s quite a few more eyeballs than watched the Seattle newscasts Randy and I worked on.

After retiring, Randy and Jo (she also worked at KOMO in the 1980s), sold their house in Van Nuys, California, and moved back to the Seattle area. They now split their time between Poulsbo and a townhouse in Phinney Ridge, near Seattle’s Green Lake and Woodland Park Zoo. They’re remodeling the Phinney Ridge home, too. Randy and Jo should host a do-it-yourself home improvement show on HGTV!

***

I grab my motorcycle gear – helmet, pack, footwear, Garmin navigation unit – and jump in Randy’s 1998 Ford F-150 pickup truck. He says it’s a good solid trash hauler. I don’t take that personally.

Today, the F-150 will haul Randy and me north for the 270-mile drive to Kamloops, British Columbia. There, we will rent a pair of Harley Davidson Softail Heritage Classics – just like mine, only 15 years newer. We plan to ride the Canadian Rockies until Friday. It’ll be Randy’s introduction to Harley life on the road.

As we catch up on things – I haven’t seen Randy for a few years – we drive north on I-5 through Bellingham, and turn east on Highway 542, the Mount Baker Highway. Eventually, we arrive in Sumas (pronounced SUE-mass), Washington, a tiny town in Whatcom County, where we’ll cross the international border into Canada.

A mile north of the border, just south of Abbotsford, British Columbia, we turn east on the Trans-Canada Highway and continue toward Kamloops, about 170 miles away. Our path takes us along Canada’s mighty Fraser River, British Columbia’s longest river. It flows for more than 850 miles, from the Canadian Rockies into the Strait of Georgia in Vancouver.

The river is named after British fur trader and explorer Simon Fraser, who, in the early 1800s, charted much of what is now British Columbia. His exploration was partly responsible for the US-Canadian boundary later being established at the 49^th parallel. OK, the War of 1812 played a role, too, but that’s another story for some other Harley rider’s blog.

Once in Kamloops, we fill out paperwork, familiarize ourselves with understanding Canadian and Canadians (they’re a lot like Americans, eh?), and transfer our bike gear from the F-150 onto the Harleys.

By now, it’s nearing 5 pm. And the fun is just beginning.

***

From Kamloops, we follow Highway 5 north, riding along the North Thompson River. The river is the largest tributary of the Fraser River. The Thompson was named by Simon Fraser in honor of his friend, explorer David Thompson.

We’re on the Southern Yellowhead Highway, which in 75 miles brings us to the town of Clearwater, British Columbia – tonight’s destination. Like most similarly named towns, Clearwater is named for its, um, clear water. The town got its name from explorers who rafted down the North Thompson River in 1862. As they arrived at the mouth of what is now the Clearwater River, they noted its distinct clarity compared to the muddy North Thompson. They called it, simply, Clear Water. Et voilà!

And while we’re doing place name etymology, the Yellowhead highway that brings us into Clearwater is named for the Yellowhead Pass, a mountain pass across the Continental Divide through the Canadian Rockies. We’ll visit Yellowhead Pass tomorrow.

It’s believed that Yellowhead Pass was named for Pierre Bostonais, whose nickname was “Tete Jaune,” French for yellow head. This wouldn’t make much sense at all, except that Bostonais’ yellow head nickname was a result of his blond hair. Bostonais was a trapper who led one of the first expeditions for the Hudson’s Bay Company to what is now the interior of British Columbia. I can only imagine my good friends will now start referring to me as gris jaune. Look it up.

We arrive in Clearwater, British Columbia, about 7:00 pm. Clearwater sits at nearly 52 degrees north latitude, so the days are quite long here in the Great White North, a term made famous by the Mackenzie brothers of SCTV renown.

We have plenty of daylight, at least enough to find the motel and walk to dinner.

At dinner, we’re still drying out. We rode the last 30 minutes into Clearwater in a steady rain. Not much going on in Clearwater. With a population of 2,331, Clearwater’s workforce is predominantly employed by the forest industry. Those who don’t work with trees are probably in the tourism business. Wells Gray Provincial Park, a 1.3 million-acre wilderness park, is just north of here.

Day One of our journey is a success. A short, but good ride on the Harleys. A long drive in the F-150.

Dinner at the Old Caboose Restaurant caps off our day.

Tomorrow, we explore the Canadian Rockies!

***

I look forward to having you along for the ride over the next four days – and I welcome your feedback on this blog (“Travels With Harley”). Feel free to comment on the photos, the French translations, the writing, the history lessons – whatever. You can make your comments directly on the blog, or if you’re a private person, you can send your thoughts to me by email.

If, as you read the blog between now and Friday, you happen to learn anything, you’re welcome!