Oregon, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, etc

[pdedse]

Day 13, last day: Burns to Gresham, OR: 364 miles

Another chilly morning with blue skies. Right away, I started thinking about deer in the fairly early morning. Saw a few dead ones on the side of the road, then in the distance blue lights on the opposite of the road. As I passed, there was an elderly gentleman standing with a sheriff officer in front of his SUV with an obvious dent in the front bumper / grill about a foot deep...hmmm, wonder what caused that? Then I saw a gorup of 'em about 100 meters off the side of the road, perhaps 12 of them, laying down in a grassy field. Please, not on my last day, not any day!

Fill up if at Riley if you've got less than 104 miles left



These guys weren't small either


More sage...it and creosote are among my favorite smells


Three weeks plus trip and over 5000 miles on the road, it's starting to sink in that it's the last day of riding as I see areas familiar to me. On the long mc trips I've taken--six now of 5 days or more, 4 of those longer than 2 weeks--I always feel that I could keep going. What's over the next horizon? Sometimes I just want to keep riding, like that's what I'm supposed to do, it's my job, right? Sometimes I think about a RTW trip...reality of time and money prolly says otherwise, but I have done a couple of trips in to MX and Central America. I think I'll get to South America at some point. I'm interested in those mountains and plains they have down there. The distance from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Tierra del fuego is 1500 miles, some 2350 kilometers. And they say it's flat, boring and windy...just like western KS! I tell myself it could happen.
Arriving in Bend was somewhat of a shock to the system. Hadn't really been in traffic since Denver, and in Bend it doesn't seem to flow well. But after my last Subway stop (12th of the trip, I should do a commercial for them), wiggled my way thru town, found 20 again and was on my way towards mountains that I was going to ride thru, not along side of.


Got behind several trailer homes in a long no-passing zone, but once I was able to get around them, had 20 seemingly to myself. Something looked a bit different

Where were my sweeping views that I had grown used to? No more 50 mile visibility. Just that curve in front of you a few hundred yards down the road. Gas station attendant came out to assist me with my credit card at the pump--forgot that in OR you don't pump your own gas, unless you're on a mc then they let you. So annoying. They still insert the card for you and select the grade. Petty annoyances that shouldn't bring down the euphoria of getting closer to home...except I just wanted to keep riding! My son studies at OR St. U and he had just started his junior year. I didn't get the chance to see him off due to this trip, so we had a nice dinner together. Then, back on the road, on that "beautiful I-5" stretch to Portland...veer back east one more time this trip to Gresham, and arrived with a huge, full moon that symbolically was illuminating the way home. Maybe that's a bit over the top, but it worked for me.