September 23, 2021

This leg of our travels ended up being a bit shorter than we had originally intended. We arrived home about three weeks early. Well, not quite home…we have a housesitter taking care of our home and cats, and our original agreement was through October 15th. Therefore, we are housesitting for others in the Austin area for a few more weeks. So close…

The Numbers

Number of days on the road: 138
Total miles covered: 22,448
Number of states and provinces visited: 26
Average: 163 mi/day
Number of nights camped: 44
Number of nights free: 57
Number of nights in hotels: 37

Analysis and Lessons Learned

Our housesitting gigs helped defray the cost of hotel rooms, which we usually only took when it was raining, near freezing, or necessary due to some other commitment. We typically set a rule for ourselves that one hotel room a week is our limit; we exceeded that this trip.

Likewise, we broke our other “rules” on this trip as well:
Rule #1: Don’t travel more than 250 miles a day.
While we averaged 160 miles per day, due to all of the days we didn’t move (or spent on a ferry), we exceeded 250 miles on 33 different days.
Rule #2: Don’t travel more than 4 days a week.
This rule forces us to slow down, spend more time in places, and see more. It doesn’t mean we have to ride for four days and then sit somewhere for three. They don’t have to be consecutive days. While we actually did average out to only four days a week over the entire trip, we actually spent several weeks with only one day a week off, but then countered it with nearly a week off here and there.

We did do fairly well with Rule #3: Don’t ride at night. We only got caught on the road after dark twice. That’s still two too many though.

I had the advantage of spending a year on the road six years ago. This was Diana’s first long trip, and the longest she has ever been away from home, her kids and grandkids, and our cats. It was a good learning experience for both of us, in terms of learning her limits on daily mileage in the saddle, temperature limitations (both hot and cold), and how long she can go without beginning to experience burnout. These are all lessons we will take with us on the next leg, and we will strive to stick to our above rules as well.

Due to COVID, we spent the past four and a half months mostly in the US, with the exception of six days in Canada. Since we were in the States. we were more familiar with many of the places we went, and we ended up turning this ride into more of a “vacation” type trip instead of the nomad “traveler” lifestyle we seek. Also, having other commitments in the US created an artificial “end-date” that made it feel more like a vacation, and a bit more rushed. This is something we’ve already discussed between us, but will continue to work on. In order to fully experience other cultures and locales, we need to be able to immerse ourselves in them. This will require some adjustments to our travel style, and probably a few new “rules”.

Now it’s time to do some heavy duty cleaning and prep on the bike and gear, and begin charting our route for the Spring. Fingers crossed, we’ll finally be able to ship the bike to Europe by then and get rolling.