Tues Aug 28 - Trip Summary

My Old Friend

I am back and have had a day to re-acclimate to the life I live the other 95% of the time and it was both good to be back and good to be home. Trips like this that yank you out of the every day world you work and sleep in offer the chance to get outside of your normal mental view shed and inspect things a bit. I had lots of threads going on all those glorious days and will try to remember them sort of willy nilly.
- First, this is a picture of my bike (which you-all know I love) as it looked when it was brand new (except the top bag). I bought it in 1997 and have had it ever since. I have never had a thing go wrong with it in these 15 years and for a trip like this, this is the bike to have. It converts gasoline (and expensive regular maintenance..) into joy. I can never explain it to others or myself but moving through the countryside on a motorcycle as silky quiet and smooth as this is heaven. At the end of the day I want to keep going and I can't wait to jab that starter first thing the next morning. I gotta find some psychobabble guy to explain it some day.
- I pulled out of Pam's garage in Portland Oregon (thank you Pam!!) with the odometer reading 67,256 and I climbed off in my garage last night with the odometer reading 72,233 which sugars out to 4,977 miles. My longest day was Sunday at 714 miles (and I could have done more, like maybe 2 more miles!!).
- I have never been through the middle "chain of states" (Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio) other than on Rt 80 and I am glad I did. It is flat but for someone who spent his whole life (not yet) with trees all around, it is kind of pleasant having all that open space around your head. If you get just 50 miles away from the big interstates, the towns get small and far between and self contained and you loose most of the big chain places (but not all) and the pace slows down. I would go across again, maybe further south.
- I never tire of the theme of how decent people are and I realize that many of the divisions in this country have been manufactured, probably not on purpose, by the political parties and media. If I walk up to someone and just have a conversation, I can always get through to a decent, caring, genuine person inside. We have been programmed to nip at each other and the media constantly tells us how bad things are and how bad people are, but it is not true. We need to work toward becoming a country, state, town, even work places and homes focusing on "we" and not "me". Nothing tears groups apart more than demonizing others. If republicans and democrats could sit down and list the things they agree on, they would be surprised. But we never hear what each others good ideas are, we only hear about the evil of the other guys. Our reaction to new ideas is to put them down. This is tearing us apart. People talking to each other one on one are fine, it's people in groups saying hurtful things about the others that is not ok. We need to start discussing ideas constructively, pros and cons, make a decision, and then all sides work together to try and make the majority decision successful, even if it is not "my" idea.
- We live in a beautiful rich country and need to remind ourselves how lucky we are to have the relative material wealth (relative to most of the other 6.4 billion people in the world) that we do. But more than that we need to remember that real wealth comes from the people we surround ourselves with, and the activities we do to promote joy.
- Riding alone took a couple days to get used to, but it actually gets pretty comfy after a while. I miss the built in company over a cold beer at the end of the day, but decision making is so much less complicated when you are by yourself. You always get your way!! And strangers are really easy to convert into friends, but it might cost you a beer.
- I think being from the east we value land more than out in the west. Crossing Nebraska, I realized that there is more unused land left in this country than you can shake a stick at. Granted it's pretty dry land, but it is land non the less. How about covering it with AllSun trackers!! I'll get the sales guys on that.
- It is unbelievable how much corn and soy I saw being grown. I do not know what the numbers are but I would wager that between beef and ethanol, we could use these foodstuff a lot more efficiently if we became vegetarians and rode bikes.
- Thanks to whoever put all those national parks aside (Teddy, FDR, etc). They are spectacular, especially to all those who live in the "unwild" suburbs and cities. Thank you CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp) for building all that stuff for $1 a day and thanks FDR for giving all those folks something to be proud of in their old  age.
 So I am happy to have gone, and happy to be back.Guess I should go wash my bike..

I just did a quick shot of the map showing  where I went so when I'm in the home I'll remember..