Trip wrap up

I have been home now for two days.  It seems like only yesterday that I left.  I am having trouble getting back into the normal routine of work and waking up at home.  I am just not motivated to return to my normal life at home.  I am already thinking about where I want to go next and when I can go.

I didn’t find the answers to life while on the trip but that is ok because I already know the answer to life.  It can be found in “The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy”.  If you are looking for the answer to life, just read the book.  I also didn’t figure out exactly what I want to do with my life, however, I do know that I don’t want to continue with the way I have been living.  I know that I can’t just be happy and satisfied with 1 or 2 vacations of a week or two weeks a year and the normal drudgery of work and hanging out in town doing the same old things.  I have to travel. So, as finances allow, I will be hitting the road even if some of the time they are just weekend trips. I am moving closer to the day when I quit work and sell everything but my bike and a few essentials and spend the rest of my life wandering around the world.  I just need a few more years to hopefully put away a little more money and for my son to get older and out of high school.

 It had been a long time since I was on a road trip and I had let myself fall into that trap of thinking that a vacation couldn’t be any longer than a week maybe two at the most and that you had to get to a specific destination as quickly as possible which meant flying.  This trip reminded me that it’s not just the destination that is important. It’s the journey along the way that is just as important.  I love the feeling of not having a planned schedule for the day and taking my time driving along, seeing everything around me. Stopping when I want and making up my route as I go along and deciding that day where my next destination is for the day.  I drove a total of 6733 miles and went through 13 states. Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma.

I saw so many things along the way that I didn’t know existed and met a lot of really nice people along the way. Meeting all those people made me realize that for the most part, the majority of people out there are honest, decent people. I was also reminded of just how big and beautiful this country is and that there are so many areas of wide open spaces with lots of room to roam and areas to find solitude.  Living in a crowed city, a person tends to forget this.

I met a guy from NY in Valentine, NE who was a few years older than me.  He was also on a month long solo motorcycle trip.  He was heading to the Rocky Mountain National Park to do some hiking and a bit of camping.  He said he has been doing these trips for a number of years now and had ridden his bike in all 49 states. The only state he hadn’t ridden in was Hawaii.  So, I have decided that I would like to hit all 49 states on my bike.  I realized that there are still so many places in this country I haven’t been to that I would love to see.

In addition to seeing more of the US, I will be traveling internationally more as well.  There are so many places in this world that I would like to see and I need to get started now.  If I could figure out a way to make money while traveling, I would quit my job right now and do nothing but travel.  If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to comment :) And no, being a drug courier or male prostitute is not an option.

I hope that anyone who has been checking out my blog has enjoyed the pictures and hopefully my writing wasn’t too boring and you found it somewhat interesting.  This will be the last post to this blog but I am contemplating starting a different blog that I would post to anytime I was on the road traveling.  If I do, I will post the link to it on this blog.

 “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

I don't intend to be disappointed by the things I didn't do in twenty years.  I am casting off and sailing away to explore, dream, and discover.

The Final Day

In order to try and avoid as much of the heat as possible on my last day on the road, I woke up at 4:00 AM and was on the road by 4:45 AM.  The first 1 ½ hours of driving in the dark was awesome.  It was nice and cool, the moon was shining bright, and there wasn’t another soul on the two lane highway.  It was probably the most peaceful riding I have done during the whole trip.  The landscape looked so different bathed in moonlight as I sped along at 65 mph.  I just had to make sure that I kept my focus on the road ahead and keep a look out for deer.  I am thinking that it wouldn’t be much fun hitting a deer at 65 mph on a motorcycle.

All too soon the sun was up and by 10:30 it was hot and by 11:30 it was miserable.  Fortunately there was some occasional relief because of the scattered clouds which provided shade some of the time.  I arrived home at 1:00 PM hot and sweaty. I quickly unloaded the bike and took a nice cool shower.

I can’t believe the trip is over already.  It seems like it wasn’t that long ago that I was just starting my trip.  I don’t feel ready to start work and the same day to day routine.  I have some thinking to do and decisions to make on what to do next.  I will make one more post later this week with a wrap up of my trip. But now, I am going to get some sleep.

Sorry for the lack of photos, all I wanted to do today was get the hell home and out of the heat.  Maybe it’s time to move.