Day 22 (925 km) - Home again, home again, jiggity jig

And how sweet it is.

Mary Ellen's Excellent Adventure has come to an end. And what an adventure it was. 13,241.6 km on the trip odometer and 22 days (I rode all of them except one which was the Spa Day). Been there - to Tofino and dipped my motorcycle-boot clad feet in the Pacific Ocean; done that - the Canadian FJR Owners Rally where I met up with old friends and met some of my 'internet friends' (and they aren't the 3-eyed monsters or convicts I'd been warned about *wink* ) - and got the t-shirt !!

The ride from Manotick was fast and, if you don't count the 2 monsoons we rode through in Maine, uneventful. I drank LOTS of water after Thursday's fiasco and we stopped every couple of hours for a stretch. Jan bagged up some ginger cookies for us so we munched those, had a coffee at our first break just past Montreal and drank water. We opted to pass on having lunch in favour of getting home a little earlier. Speaking of Montreal, I was going to make this last post short and sweet but I HAVE to tell you about one guy we passed on a cruiser (make and model shall remain nameless). Picture an obese pregnant woman, near term (and I'm not slamming pregnant women) with her t-shirt pulled up to expose her belly. THAT's the way Buddy was cruising along. OMG! I can't tell you what else he was wearing (other than a shorty brain bucket) because I couldn't take my eyes off his belly. It was like watching a train wreck.

The monsoons...Man, we found out what kind of water a thunderstorm can produce. Once we got almost through Quebec and were closing in on the US border at Woburn, the sky was crazy. Dark clouds in one part, blue sky with a huge white cumulus cloud with sun shining through it in another part. There's a long stretch of road right after La Patrie (I think that's the place). You head down one side of the road, into a valley and up the other side. Totally dry from our side and you could see the wet pavement a couple of kilometers away up the other side. It HAD rained, but had stopped by the time we got to that stretch. Little further on, sprinkle. We stopped to add our rain layer and sure enough, within a couple of kilometers, it started to pour. But we didn't hit the first monsoon until after Sugarloaf. There was NOwhere to pull over out of it so we carried on - at a much reduced speed and I turned on my 4-flashers. I ride with my high beams on anyway on 2-lane highways. Since we were going to get soaked, we continued to put on some miles. Once out of the heaviest rain we've seen in a LONG time (and certainly not on this trip), the road was dry and we rode by people mowing their lawns. Same scenario with the second heavy rain. We could actually feel individual raindrops through our riding gear, that's how heavy it was. My gloves soaked right away but I think the rain went down into my cuff again. The temp dropped about 5 degrees but went right back up once we were out of the rain.

At Lincoln, ME, I called John to say we'd be home in a couple of hours. When I arrived, there were John and my sister, Kate, with her camera ready and she shot off a LOT of photos! clicky here if you'd like to see them. It was wonderful! Kate says I'm her new hero; she needs to set her hero-bar a little higher. Yes, I buried my face in stinky Gracy's neck and cried - it was a quick cry and involuntary. It was all too overwhelming. Our good friend, George, just happened to be walking by and John called more good friends, Suzanne & Wayne, who live minutes away. We all stood in the driveway, chatting excitedly and toasting my safe return with sparkling wine while the 'skeeters gnawed on us. Our collective exuberance spilled into the public domain when they hauled a young lad off the sidewalk to tell him of my adventure ;-)

My closing notes:

* first, I have to thank everyone who emailed me/us and posted comments on the blog. I was going to name people in order of appearance but you know who you are. It was so fun to have you along! You'll never know how much I eagerly anticipated and enjoyed reading those notes every day. Jim did, as well. Thanks to Jim for giving me the confidence and courage to make this journey by agreeing to go with me. I was on my own from Calgary to the Pacific Ocean - about 1400 km - but that was ....a good thing, and I'm very glad to have had that opportunity. And when expressing appreciation, I can't overlook the superb on-the-road hospitality doled out by Jan & Dave in Manotick (going and coming!); Mary, Tom & Ellen in Calgary; and Melanie, Peter, Emma, Lauren & wee Malcolm in Golden. I especially thank John. I have a sense that not many husbands would have gone down without at least an argument over this scheme. His support was quiet (see About Me'' in the sidebar) but I did have it. I got more chat out of him in his 3 weeks of emails than I normally get in 3 months so that alone was worth the trip :-) I also suspect I may pay for this later on - like in February when he might take 2 weeks to play golf and I'll be shovelling snow ....

* I found out what I, my bike and my gear are capable of. And I'm 100% satisfied with the results. My bike is actually capable of much more than I demand of it but I'm old and slow and I "ride my own ride". No apologies. I know what a scalloped tire feels like and how many miles I can go with a plugged tire - at least if escapefjrtist, George, is the plugger (mine got me home from BC). The need for a custom saddle has become painfully obvious. That's a winter project.

* I learned firsthand the (potentially catastrophic) effects of dehydration and extreme heat. On hwy 17 to Wawa, there's a billboard that reads, simply: Daze, Doze, Dead. Two of those applied to me on Thursday. I figure I'm able to make this final post because I'm extremely lucky or I'm living with the grace of God. Or both. In Nakusp, Barb gave me a Motorcyle Angel pin that I wear on my jacket collar; that may have made a small contribution as well. I cannot overstate how incredibly stupid I was to ride in that condition and I'm embarrassed to admit it. (I feel like an alcoholic at a meeting: "Hi, I'm Mary Ellen and I'm a dumb ass"). It was a cardinal error and I trust I've learned a valuable lesson. I still shudder to think of it.

* Jim and I rode on all kinds of roads - from super highways to 2-lane country roads, in ALL states of repair and disrepair; around mega-cities (2 of those with construction projects going on) and through the tiniest of towns and villages, and everything in between. In BC, we rode on, from a motorcyclist's perspective, what are quite possibly the most beautiful and technically demanding roads on the continent. And, over the prairies, we rode on the most boring ones. Through all weather conditions: hot and sunny, cold and wet, even snow for a few kilometers - and everything in between. We saw lots of sights - not everything I set out to see (and some I did NOT expect to see, for example, Long Beach!) but we tried, and that's what I'll remember. It was all part of the adventure. I got into a few tricky situations where I needed help and I did LOTS of u-turns in parking lots, highways and little country roads, and I never dropped the Feej ONCE. Yahoo!

* am I a changed person because of this experience? Probably not in any tangible way. I know some of you will be disappointed by this ;-). I try to not take anything for granted and I'm grateful to have had the opportunity, good health and wherewithal to have undertaken this trip.

I have a sense there's more - I've been rehearsing this since Sault Ste Marie. But, as usual, it eludes me. I cleaned up my trusty steed this afternoon. There are still spots of bug-innards residue that may come off with the next cleaning and she could use a wax job to restore her beautiful metallic finish. But, considering she was rode hard and put away wet every day for 3 weeks, she looks pretty darned good.

I have a dolce vita.

I'll have a gallery of photos posted by next weekend. Bookmark this site if you'd like to view them.

Pay up, Milt.

Over and out.