Between June 22 and July 2, 2016, I rode that Italian motorcycle from Vancouver to Thunder Bay and back, stopping in Yakima WA, Spokane WA, Bozeman MT, Dickinson ND, Grand Rapids MN, Thunder Bay ON, Kenora ON, Weyburn SASK, Calgary AB, Nelson BC, and then home again.
I wore out a tire, a pair of headphones, broke my iPod, didn't read as much as I hoped, managed to luckily plan my one rest day for the same day the foothills of Alberta were inundated with rain and hail storms, and only had to fix the bike once roadside when the actuator dial in the clutch lever decided it didn't want to make the whole trip with me. I fixed it first with a pebble which got me to a shop that gave me a body panel screw that I mated to a few metric nuts (not easy to find in the United States) and a nylock nut to hold it all together.
There is no good reason to ride so far in so short a period of time on a motorcycle. And that's the best reason to do so.
I noticed I stopped taking nearly as many photographs when I got towards the end of the trip and was riding through familiar terrain.
And it's set me up to do something similar next year. Perhaps Baja California. I've been talking about going there for the better part of two decades. Maybe it's time.
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