Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee in the fog.

Its dinner time in Henderson Louisiana and Landry's Restaurant and Art Gallery.

After getting up and getting back on the road I was soon thru Beaumont Texas and into Louisiana. While the rain had stopped it was still cold and damp, and the day was turning into one big fog bank. After a couple of hours I stopped at a Welcome to Louisiana Rest Stop and warmed up and had some coffee. I wasn't drinking much coffee of late, but with this weather and riding in it I was quickly picking up the habit again. The good thing about these state rest stops is they always have free state highway maps, usually as good or better then the ones you get at a gas station for $5. So on the way back I try' d to stop at each welcome center and get one for the state I was entering.

The trip thru Louisiana and Mississippi was all spent basically in a cold fog bank, traveling east on Interstates 10 and 12. I stopped in Henderson, LA at a place called Landry's Restaurant (a famous chain I'm told) for some seafood (my favorite food by this time) and treated myself. It was scallops and shrimp again with some really good chowder.

The place had an art gallery  called The Cajun Palette owned by a local artist named Anne S. Logan right inside of the restaurant. I went in the gallery and toured around while talking with Anne the owner. She was so easy to talk to, she said owning a gallery had always been a dream of hers and it had finally happened. She was an artist herself and afterwards, with some regret, I thought I hadn't really had a chance to check out her work. I did buy some prints from her by another local artist and she said she would mail them home for me for no charge while also giving me some greeting cards to go along with them. She even called a week or so later to make sure I had received everything by Christmas.

Before leaving I asked her about hurricane Katrina and if they had gotten hit hard by it. She said while they had some heavy winds, not much else happened that far inland. So after some good food and some more Christmas shopping done, I got back out and headed east.

As I crossed the Mississippi River on just a mammoth bridge and headed into Baton Rouge, the weather had turned noticeably warmer, like I had finally gotten ahead of that Texan front I had been in for almost two days. I headed into rush hour in Baton Rouge and a traffic jam, where we all snaked along in five lanes of traffic. It was warm and raining a little, but as I have said before, I don't think any traffic jam in the U.S. will ever be quite the same after facing them in Central America. I was warm for the first time in a day or two and the traffic jam was actually a nice break. Showing again that the way we perceive our situation is often what makes it bad, not necessarily the situation itself.

As you change the way you look at things, the things you look at will change..... Dr. Wayne Dyer in one of his seminars....

The bike gets to rest, after 9000 miles, the last 1000 are a piece of cake.

As I got on the other side of Baton Rouge and found Interstate 12 heading east, it started to rain heavier and also get cold again. It was almost like the warm front was just hanging around the Mississippi River and Baton Rouge. So I headed out into the night and the fog and rain looking for Interstate 55 heading north into Mississippi. At one point I made a stop for gas and a couple of guys with heavy southern accents (of all things) came up to me and talked about their own bikes and also asked where I was heading. When I told one guy Michigan, he asked "well then where 'd you come from?" I said Michigan. And then he said, "well what was in between?" And when I said Central America and 9000 miles he just sort of looked at me like Uncle Jed might  and said "whoo doggy now!" Well ok after 9000 miles I'm entitled to a little writers embellishment. He really didn't say whoo doggy now, but he was amazed none the less, that kind of made two of us.... One guy also told me they had just had snow there the previous week which almost never happens. Both guys were really friendly and I enjoyed talking to them.

We're ready.

Pretty soon I hit Interstate 55 and headed north towards Mississippi and Memphis. I was probably 300 miles from Memphis, and Memphis is about 500 miles from Chicago, and Chicago is about 300 miles from my home in Michigan. I was getting close, if I had any kind of decent weather at all I knew I could get home in two days if I had to, if I could stay warm enough.

That night as the fog got thicker and thicker, and the air got colder I just kept heading north in what had become very light traffic. Finally it started raining pretty hard and I was getting cold, even with my Frog rainsuit on, so I started looking for a place to spend the night. A Super 8, my other budget hotel of choice came up and I pulled under their overhang for the lobby, got my room and then left my bike under their awning for the night. I was very cold, not shaking which would have concerned me and I wouldn't have gone any further if I had been, but cold enough to know I couldn't handle much more of this, and it was only going to get colder. I was 150 miles south of Memphis and had thought originally if I could get that far, that would be half of the journey back in the U.S., and then that would cut down what I would have to pay to get my bike back in a U-haul. Memphis seems to the line that runs between extreme north southern weather, and extreme south northern weather (if that makes sense). In winter this can mean freezing rain, of course, something I hadn't run into yet.

Interstate 55 thru Southern Illinois.

After sleeping in a little and having a very annoying house maid come by my room every five minutes to see if I had checked out of my room right at 11:00 or not, I called U-haul in Memphis to see about renting a truck or trailer for the rest of the ride home. It had not warmed up at all, but at least it wasn't raining either. When I finally got to Memphis a few hours later and found the U-haul place I was once again very cold. It felt like it was going to snow and it confirmed the fact that my trip on my bike was almost over.

This was another part of my trip I should have planned out better. It turned out that U-haul wouldn't rent a motorcycle trailer to go just one way, or a pickup truck to pull it either for that matter. They had enclosed trailers available, but nothing to pull it with. I called Enterprise and they said they wouldn't rent anything less then a commercial vehicle for towing. So I would have to end up renting two things, quite possibly from different companies. U-haul had a smaller truck I could use but no ramp to get the bike onto it with. And it was only $20 cheaper anyway. I should have priced all this and made arrangements before I left, but of course I didn't know if I would need it or not, or even how far north I was going to get. Still it is one more thing I could have priced before I left so I knew what I could expect to pay. As it was, with tax, a 1000 mile limit and without gas, it was almost $600 for a 14 foot truck which was way more room then I needed. And when I asked for cargo straps they said they would have to charge me extra! Oh and if you don't pay $70 for insurance your liable for any and all damage to the truck. I said fine, I'm not paying another $70, I'll get it there in one piece.

Winter in the upper midwest

A guy helped me put it on, we put it on its center stand, checked the gas gauge of the truck and I was on my way. I had asked where a good place to eat ribs was and now headed for that place. You hear so much about ribs down here, and while I've never been a big rib fan, like Cajun food, I had to try some. Unfortunately on the way over to the rib house the bike rolled off of its center stand and crashed in the back of the truck with a loud thud. I had to strap it up to the sides with what straps I had, keep it off its center stand and just on its kick stand and this seemed to work fine the whole way home.  Unfortunately the bikes windshield had broken in places from the fall and will have to be replaced. This was only the second time on the whole trip it had been down, and maybe the 4th time total in its life.

I stopped in Mike's Rib House or something like that and had some dry baby back ribs. Which amounted to just heavily seasoned ribs with no sauce. They were good but I think I would have preferred a sauce. After that I got in my truck and got on the road again.

After all that it was getting late so I only drove another 100 miles and then got a room for the night, and then what turned out to be two. Here north of Memphis there was some snow on the ground, the first I had seen in probably 10 months or so. It was cold and it reaffirmed I had made the right decision to give up the bike. I stay'd and rested one more day, knowing now I was not much more then a day away from home, and it was a week before Christmas.

This is a typical midwest winter scene I have grown up with.

Another annoying maid, this one came by and pounded on your door at 9:20 every morning to ask if you were going to be leaving that day. Check out wasn't till 11 anyway and most hotels don't check with you until just before check out. I almost complained about it, but its like what's the point, you would think they would know, if I had wanted a wake up call I would have asked for one. Yup, I think I was getting ready for home!

The next day I drove about 500 miles to Holland Michigan and my last hotel of the trip. Chicago looked like it had been hit by an ice storm as I drove thru it. I stopped at a Red Lobster for dinner, and guess what, I had shrimp and scallops. The waiter charged me for a lemonade even though I just had lemon water. I brought this to his attention, he went away and came back with my change, not having changed the bill at all. I just sort of sat there and was going to say something again, but he wouldn't come back so I just left without giving him a tip. It was so strange, I could just imagine him thinking I had stiffed him, but I wanted to say your tip is in the overcharge, but I just left. Having worked in the food industry myself for so long and knowing what its like to live on tips I guess I think about it a lot as well. But to have someone tell you you made a mistake, and then do nothing about it.....maybe I could do a post just on the service I received on the trip!

As I got to Holland Michigan and looked for a hotel, the town had just been hit by a storm. I almost got stuck in the hotel parking lot there was so much snow. As I stomped my feet off and entered the cold hotel room, for the first time in my life I wondered why I should put up with snow if I didn't have to. Having experienced riding my bike in December in 90 degrees, I just could not rationalize putting up with it. And that had been the first time I had ever been away from snow in the winter, the very first time. I think as long as I continue to own a bike, my future maybe already set! I'm going to end up somewhere warm year round!

The next morning feeling chilled to the bone I headed toward the last stretch before home. I stopped by my sisters house to pick up my package I had sent her from Costa Rica, my Christmas presents. They had so much snow on her street I got the U-haul stuck and once again contemplated turning around and driving south, never again to approach Michigan in the winter. I managed to rock it out, park on a main street and walk down to her house and get my package. Next stop was stopping by to see dad at the AFC home. I spent a couple of hours with him watching television, him not really even having an idea of where I had been, but he did kind of cause he did ask me if I had taken pictures. Its hard to know with him these days.

No the bike was done for the year.

So then leaving him I again headed north. I saw a sign for Traverse City 70 miles, and it seemed like such a short distance from the many other times I had seen that sign before. I contrasted it to signs I had seen like Acapulco 360 miles, or a sign just out of Chicago saying Memphis 495 miles. Or how just a couple of weeks ago  I had been 4500 miles from home. Yes I was almost there, but with all the stuff to do, unpack, get ready for Christmas, catch up on two months worth of bills, get ready for school and finish my blog contacting the many who have helped on the journey, it was going to be awhile before I would be able to rest.

It has been almost 3 weeks now since I've returned, and while most of the preliminary work of getting settled back in and organized has occurred I still have a lot to do. This is the last blog of the trip itself, but as promised I still want to organize the whole site better, do a post just on border crossings, planning, lessons learned and highlights with my favorite pictures. Also as I said I would like to dedicate the trip to some special ladies and get more information for the orphanage in San Jose , hopefully setting up an account and raising money for them as well.

So as I pulled the U-haul into the snowy drive that I had left just two months ago, it seemed like it had been longer. I knew I was home now and everything for awhile at least would look and feel just a little different. As the trip itself seems to gradually wear off, part of me knows it will never totally wear off. I feel a little like the hobbit Bilbo Baggins thinking about writing a book about my "great adventure". All the brave deeds, the dragons slay' d   and the beautiful damsels rescued. And then I think what will I name that book, and how long before I set my feet on that path that leads away from my hut and down the road to go adventuring again.....perhaps a question for the soul......