I should be home now. Instead I’m relaxing in a hotel room in The Dalles, OR watching “What About Bob?” Today’s ride was rainy and cold. And then Dave lost air pressure in his rear tire. We put in a temporary plug and headed here, the closest town we figured we could track down a new tire. That pretty much ate up the rest of the day.

You’d think a day like that would suck. Actually, it was a great day! One example… Because we needed to baby the patched tire, we took a short cut to The Dalles. We only knew about this road because of our maps. It was a stunning ride! On one section. we crested a hill into a left hand sweeper and literally dropped down into a canyon and snaked along the canyon floor. It was so breath-taking I had to slow down to take it all in. It was a perfect moment. There was no safe place to stop and take photos, so it will have to live in my memories.

Events like these are what make motorcycle touring so magical for me. And this trip has been filled with them. I’ll write more about that when I get home. It has simply been a defining life experience for me.