cascadian telegrams: dave's long way down, day 12: back in the barn

Day 12, mile 2629.4, and after 12 days in the saddle, I’ve finally made it home, (sigh). I left Grants Pass, OR this morning about 9am to a very cold 33 degree ride north on I-5. I had to stop a couple of times just to let the feeling return to my fingertips, (heated hand grips are wonderful, but do much for your fingertips). It’s nice to be home again to the familiar surroundings, but in the same sense, it’s weird. The feeling of excitement the night before departing on another leg of the journey always kept me going. Tomorrow it’s back to work and several days of daydreaming about the places I visited.

Don’t get me wrong… Long distance traveling on a motorcycle is difficult, uncomfortable, very risky, and some would say sheer lunacy during the Winter months. All valid points. But, enduring all of the hardships and returning home with some great stories to tell friends and family members makes these types of trips all worth while. I highly recommend everyone take a similar trip. Not necessarily on a motorcycle, load the bags/kids/pets into your car, grab a map, pick a point and go there. Traveling without agendas in itself is a tremendous adventure for most Americans. We all get so engrossed in our structured daily routines that we believe this is the only way to enjoy ourselves. Anyway, enough said. Try it, you may like it.

Thanks to everyone for all of your letters of support through my trip. It was nice knowing I wasn’t completely disconnected from the world.

As I mentioned in an earlier trip report, I hope this trip is the first of many for me in the future. For my future trips, I will establish a blog site and post updates there rather than spamming everyone’s mailboxes nightly. Another advantage to doing this is because I can expand upon my daily experiences without worrying about filling peoples mailboxes with long, tedious email messages. One of my trip supporters also asked about the possibility of writing a book during these travels. I don’t know if I’m up to writing a book, but including a travel log in my next adventure is already on my ‘must have’ list.